Let's talk tech (Now with Glossary)!

[TB3]

I'm still in shock that so many of our theories were right - oh and I edited my last post.

[Taelia offline]

I guess they are listening to the fandom.

[Cassius335 offline]

FINAL SUMMARY BUT ONE
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EPISODE FIFTY-ONE: REVELATION
Using data recovered from Carthage and the data gained from Sissi in Contact, Jeremie suceeds in creating a program to decode Franz Hopper's diary. However, they need the computing power of the supercomputer to decode it.

As such Aelita and the team travel to Lyoko where Jeremie activates a tower and Aelita sets the program in motion. This proves that the towers are vacant areas of memory and data from where one can run a program. However Jeremie's program is incredibly large and complex and Aelita discovers she can't stop it.

This becomes problematic when the team finds Odd has been replaced and a polymorphic clone virtualised in his place. This would involve the routers creating an near-exact match of Odd genetically to fool the scanners, with the exception of a small change in order to bug the code and allow XANA access to 'Odd's' coding - preventing a forced DeVirt and allowing XANA to manipulate the code and transform his 'Odd' into a clone of Ulrich.

We also now have evidence that the console's data is held in the same memory banks as that of the supercomputer, but in a restricted access section. Given the open link between the tower and this section, XANA attempts to undo all of Jeremie's work by taking control of the tower.

Ulrich attempts (and fails) to stop this by isolating the tower from the network (cutting the cables), until Hopper takes control of the tower, forcibly ejects XANA, and brings the decoding program up to full speed.

This leads me to a possibility. The forty-first tower in Carthage may well be the point where Hopper is/was contained, or the access point to his prison, thus why XANA activated it in Franz Hopper in order to build his simulation from it.

Aelita entering into this tower not only shut down XANA's program, but (unbeknowst to herself and unexpected by XANA) allowed Hopper a fleeting moment of interaction with his daughter when she entered the Lyoko code. By breifly completing the keys to Lyoko in this manner, Hopper (for the first time in 12 years) gained the ability to make small sorties from his prison via the towers, as seen in 'Contact'.

He made another in 'Revelation,' and grew in strength from connecting with Aelita through the towers - this also explains why the program sped up, as Hopper was able to use the reasources of his tower to speed the process.

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Does any of this work?

Don't stop there! I haven't seen it yet!

[animenologist offline]

Thanks for the honor, TB3, I'll do my best.

FINAL SUMMARY PART 2

EPISODE 52: THE KEY

After decoding Franz Hopper's diary, Jeremie began meticulously researching it. Judging by Hopper's reactions throughout the diary and the points in time where he stated specifics concerning his project, his mental state has become incredibly unstable. From what was shown in the diary, we now realize that XANA was telling the truth about the creation of Lyoko in Franz Hopper, that it was an anti-military project meant to combat the Carthage Project. The capabilities of the Carthage Project was not fully disclosed, only that it was partially meant to defeat military communication equipment. Judging by his last entry in his journal, he has been reliving June 6, 1994 for the past 6.97 years. After multiple years of work, it seems that the goal of his project shifted from what it was originally meant to be, now turning into a haven for Hopper and his daughter for which they can live forever. It was in the diary that it was finally revealed the reason why Aelita's memories were sought after and why she still retains her link to the supercomputer despite being a former human.

Within Aelita's memories, contains the keys to all the processes of Lyoko. Sometime between the end of False Start and the beginning of New Order, possibly due to XANA's constant growth in power and knowledge from multiple return trips, XANA realized that this knowledge could be used to materialize himself on Earth, independent of the supercomputer. Once on Earth he be free from the limitations relating to being contained in the supercomputer, such as dying after an extensive shutdown. From there he can take over the Earth. His exact motivation for why has yet to be disclosed.

Why Aelita still maintains her link to Lyoko has been shown not to be a virus, thus the reason why Jeremie was failing to solve the problem. Its been shown that XANA took a fragment of her coding from her. It can be inferred that this coding has been missing since Season 1, possibly due to actions XANA used to imprison Hopper since they're virtualization, as she was unable to be devirtualized as normal despite her human origin. The conclusion of a virus was probably due to hasty rationalization of Aelita's connection to Lyoko despite being materialized in flesh and blood.

On what was supposed to be the final mission to Carthage, Jeremie located and set coordinates for Aelita's missing fragment. Upon hitting the key that normally stops the countdown, instead of opening up a corridor to enter the platform containing the user interface, a room was opened up containing Aelita's missing fragment. Using Carthage's defesnses to manipulate the room, XANA attempted to isolate Aelita. Franz Hopper using what limited control he was able to afford, controlled two of XANA's monsters to use as transport for Aelita to the missing fragment. Unfortunately, the fragment was a trap, and all of Aelita's defenders and Hopper's controlled monsters were neutralized.

The Scyphozoa drained Aelita's memories completely, giving XANA the keys to Lyoko and the ability to materialize himself. Activating the four way towers (and possibly the other towers aswell), XANA used to created a black vortex above the factory using the factory's satellite equipment. Current theories for this phenomenon include that the black cloud is XANA's actual physical form, that the vortex was a TAP from which XANA used to emerge, or that he used the routers to 'Space-Construct' himself. As XANA was leaving, all parts of Lyoko began shutting down, pointing to XANA being important in Lyoko's maintenance.

With XANA leaving Lyoko, Hopper was probably free of his control and had full access to Lyoko's resources. Using that, he was able to restore Lyoko to operating condition aswell as restore Aelita's memories and the missing fragment. That fragment contained Aelita's memories of her past life and completed her vDNA, making her truly human once again. What became of Hopper has not been disclosed. Current theories include that Hopper replaced XANA as Lyoko's maintainer, that he is now dead, after restoring and automating Lyoko to run without XANA, or that he is still living but still imprisoned. That is a question left for the next season.
_____________________________________________________________________

Any questions, comments, or tips are welcomed. Other than that, let the refining process begin.

[TB3]

I'm buzzing nicely now, reading that excellent summary while listening to an UMSD remix does wonders for a low mood.

[DL offline]

that summary kicked...butt. Basically all that is left is to wait for the next season or just compelate the findings so far and revise them as necessary. We should probably do this one at a time for sake of accuracy. Or if you guys want to do something else that is cool too.

[animenologist offline]

Msinly we need to update based on the new information that all this trouble was not due to a virus. So the materialization just created an imperfect Aelita that lacked all the missing memory fragment. And of course, it has to be before the events of Season 1, since Aelita still can't be devirtualized. Also based on the meories from The Key, Jeremie didn't specifically program clothes for Aelita, and when she was materialized, she was materialized with the same outfit she was virtualized in. So basically, everything save that specific fragment was completely in Aelita's player folder.

I'm thinking thats what XANA did to Yumi in Missing Link. By removing a specific fragment that kept her from being a complete human, she prevented Yumi from being devirtualizing, though XANA's draining of Aelita was more extensive, stealing all memories of her past life. I'm probably guessing that due to XANA's inexperience at that time and his lack of power, he didn't realize he could of stole the keys to Lyoko and used it to materialize himself. Thus why the entire time in Season 1 was spent trying to kill her.

Thats probably the first step to finalizing, just to rethink every situation the gang has been through with that recent discovery of the missing fragment.

[TB3]

So, which episodes has Aelita's 'virus' played a large role so far with us;

MARABOUNTA
COMMON INTEREST
VERTIGO
(by extension) ATTACK OF THE ZOMBIES

Now in Marabounta, Jeremie said he built the Marabounta from a Multi-Agent-System he found in the files. XANA-Hopper later said XANA was built from a Multi-Agent-System.

Couple this with the idea that Hopper was beginning to go senile and we have a possible explanation for why Jeremie lost control of the Marabounta - like XANA, built from the same base, it was flawed, agressive and out of control from the start due to the Multi-Agent-System being constructed by a brilliant but increasingly unstable man.

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Vertigo is also easy to explain - it's not that Jeremie bugged up the antivirus (which he did but anyway), it's that Aelita never needed a virus at all - Jeremie thus added something to her vDNA which was unescessary, and this extended through into her human DNA with the net result of her invisibility and her inability to enter a tower.

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Common Interest is far more complex, because how do you establish a link between a human body and a supercomputer by the transfer of data from one to the other. Theories would be welcomed.

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Attack of the Zombies is also easy, because we can keep YDV's Xanvirus-Metaform for this episode, just tweaked specifically for the Zombification process.

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I also want to salute Animenologist for an excellent suggestion that Aelita could not be devirtualised because her memory was missing.

However I still think Aelita's DNA was missing as well - because Jeremie would have found it in the files and realised she was once a human being, even though he never seemed to notice her virtualized clothes swimming around in the data-stream.

I think we really need to have a think about the Rematerialization program and how it works, based on the following points;

1. Jeremie needed to create a DNA sequence for Aelita (Cruel Dilemma). This means her human DNA was lost.
2. Aelita was first virtualised in the clothes she wore in 1994 (False Start and The Key). These clothes therefore must have existed in the computer as virtualised data, and Jeremie recovered them.
3. Despite this, Jeremie never realised Aelita was a human being.

Thus I can only assume the following occured;

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When XANA first stole Aelita's memory, he corrupted her avatar and her playing card (which together form the hub of a virtualised person). Consequently her original DNA strand (and her biological data and backups) was severed from her and never detected and recovered by Jeremie because it's in a locked-down section of the supercomputer that no-one can access (to protect the DNA from human or AI tampering). From Jeremie's perspective, she never had a DNA strand to begin with.

Aelita's 'non-biological' data file was severed but because it's not in a locked-down section of the computer remained as an easily recovered file, but nameless due to being severed from her avatar. Jeremie found it and decided it was an early virtualisation experiment with inanimate objects. Convientently the clothes matched Aelita's predicted sizes so he decided to use them on her (bit of an assumption by me here - please improve).

This left poor Aelita on Lyoko with only her vDNA, her Lyoko attributes and her incomplete 'Conciousness' file. The Materialisation Program used these to extrapolate an 'ideal' DNA sequence for her, and thus she came out in Code: Earth identical to how she went in. The only changes were in her mind, with a big grey area where her memories should be.

Between S1 and S2, Jeremie made a slight change to Aelita's vDNA to allow her to later accept the (unnescessary) anti-virus, thus the slight alteration in her appearance due to changes in her projected 'ideal' DNA strand (this idea is now backed up by what happened in Vertigo - see above). She also threw her old clothes away because they no longer fitted, and they bought her a new wardobe.

This now leaves us with a few possibilities.

As Aelita is now 'complete', Jeremie could link together all of her elements (her conciousness, her vDNA, her new DNA) into a single file, and devirtualise her normally.

Alternatively, her avatar/playing card might still be corrupted, requiring the use of the Matt program to remove her from Lyoko.

In either case, Jeremie can now (if he wants) remove the superfluous antivirus links within her, and she would revert to her S1 appearance. He won't however, as it would be impossible to create a satisfactory excuse as to why Aelita has suddenly changed form.

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That's me for the night. Please read this through and analyse it for the slightest inconsistency or error - we are now in a position where we have to make everything work.

Good luck!

EDIT: It might be worth writing a small chapter devoted to this subject - 'The Three Faces of Aelita.'

[animenologist offline]

Probably to expand on what TB3 said about Common Interest, since Aelita was materialized incomplete, wouldn't she have same properties that the fake Yumi from Image Problem, the Kankrelots from False Start, and the Krabs from A Bad Turn? In the 3 cases, its a tower that maintained control of them, but they were still physical creations and continue to remain until the return to the past (this is assumed with the fake Yumi, because they never showed what happened to her when the tower deactivated). Since Aelita's missing fragment was located in Carthage, when materialized, the supercomputer may have still considered her a creation of XANA, and thus why she was still linked to him. Since she is human, she will have mental resistance and since she was a resident on Lyoko, she has the same signature as a spectre, thus XANA couldn't control her like any of his other creations, but she still is a creation of the supercomputer and has links to it, without the necessity of an activated tower.

In terms of what happened in Attack of the Zombies, since you say it was this XVM virus that zombified those that interacted with it, could not the same principle apply to Plagued and Swarming Attack? Again it was an alpha creature infected with a spectre, that spread its influence (presumably by bites and scratches, that similarity is maintained from Plagued).
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Probably the question of Jeremie's materialization program can be answered if its known what inspired him to create it. Coming across technology he is unfamiliar with, something with no documentation of its operation or creation, technology he had to learn for the most part from scratch with help only from Aelita. Exactly what made him suddenly think that it was possible to do the reverse?

It is realized that Jeremie had access to Aelita's coding, as he was able to scan for the missing annex program in Just in Time from his desktop and probably what he used as the basis to use for his test program to make sure his materialization program would work. Possible that save for the missing memory fragment that contained her memories and possibly a record of her actual DNA, everything else was there, her conciousness file, her avatar, her non-biologicals.

Its possible that he originally thought that Aelita was a programmed AI, but was under construction to be synthesized into flesh and blood when he discovered that materialization was possible and maybe even thought existed, since XANA seemed to show signs of containing such knowledge. After all, he didn't have much suspicion when XANA-Hopper said that he never suspected of Aelita appearing in flesh and blood. Could of assumed that Hopper was going to recreate Aelita in the real world, but failed. Jeremie could of made the assumption that all that was necessary to recreate her was right there in her folder and all that was needed is to decode and build it. Under these assumptions, Jeremie could of gone through the process of recreating a materialization program if he thought the supercomputer had the program, finishing it, if he was give a skeleton of the program, or could have created it from scratch, using whatever he could piece of the knowledge he was given from messing with the supercomputer and XANA. A lot of what I think depends on how it all started, which is still left unanswered.
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And again, I'm not entirely on board with the whole Jeremie changing her DNA theory. I hope I'm not sounding like a jerk, but I still don't agree based on evidence presented, and thus I still have an opposing view.

Anyways, this is a picture of Aelita in 1994 according to the flash back.


This is Aelita currently in present form.


Both of which came from "The Key".

Now this may be due to my inattention to artistic detail (I suck as an artist), but based on what I can see, eyebrows are the same, eye shape, ear shape, and what I can see of the hairstyle is the same. Take of this what you will, but I don't mind anyone tearing my observations apart. Its the only way we can get closer to the truth.

[Cassius335 offline]

Thanks for the summary, animenologist. It's nice to know what's going on.

So XANA's out and mobile? Cool.

Wonder if Hopper made any adjustments to Lyoko when he was rebooting it?

As to Aelita's appearence: Maybe she could use a haircut?

[DL offline]

Ok I am going to take a stab at the common interest probelm. We can safely assume that Aelita's missing fragment is like a part of her brain, since it is memories. If a part of the brain were to die the person would not necesarily die unless it was a large part. So we can assume that Lyoko was acting as a support system for that part of Aelita's brain, the part that controled her long term memory, the memories from her past life. So if Lyoko were to be shut down that part of Aelita would die, causing the rest of her to die. This message would most likely be sent through the air via electrical impulses, that only Aelita can receive. So when the supercalculator shut down the last thing it did was send an impulse to Aelita causing her to die.

[TB3]

I tip my head to you Animenologist on the 'change her DNA' thing - looking at those pictures I agree there is no visible difference (though there is something I can't put my finger on) - I still think Jeremie changed her DNA, but only in Vertigo with the net result of her invisibilty.

I think if we amalgamate your ideas and mine we are close to the truth - Jeremie found Aelita's playing-card, with her conciousness, vDNA and possibly her clothes present - but all data refering to her as a physical human being were lost when her memory was severed - still present but undetectable and unrecoverable.

As for Attack of the Zombies, Swarming Attack and Plagued I'm not sure if we can lump them together. I can't remember how XANA spread his infection through the Hornets in Swarming Attack, but in Plagued didn't we see the rat's eyes develop electrical circuits - based on this is still lean towards the idea of router-infection for the first two attacks, and actual viral bodies for the third as an advancement of the original - XANA now has a limited control over the far more complex human body without straining the routers, of which only a few linger in each zombie brain to serve as the control element - the main objective of the XVM was to mutate the brain into something less intelligent and easier for the routers to control.

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As for the 'Common Interest' problem we now have two theories, both well-argued and of equal validity. I'm actually torn between them.

In the case of DLs argument however, we have a possibly backing-up factor in 'The Key.' If I'm reading DL right he suggests Aelita is tied specifically to Carthage.

In 'The Key' Aelita was shown as dying with her memories stolen - I'm not quite sure how this would kill her.

HOWEVER - the second XANA got the keys he used them and all of his data streamed out of Carthage into the towers, and as he left Carthage (but not the rest of Lyoko) shut down. If DL is right, this would cause Aelita to die on earth or on Lyoko, and that is what happens.

Hopper however has had a split-second to flee from his tower to his daughter's side and together they complete the keys to Lyoko (I personally think the Scyphazoa copies rather than removes memories). With Hopper's conciousness in control he suddenly gains omnipotence in Lyoko, and he restores his daughter's missing fragment and then Carthage (Aelita's eyes opened just as Carthage began to restart and Jeremie's comments seem to link the restoration of Lyoko with Aelita's return to life).

As for Hopper - well are there any ideas?

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Most of the above is wild theory on my part - Animenologist might have the right idea - I really want to hear your thoughts and your improvements.

Cheers!

[Taelia offline]

How young did Aelita look like in the first flashback?

[TB3]

I'd guess when we saw her in the snow somewhere between five and nine.

[Taelia offline]

Awwww...she was so cute!

[Osiris offline]

thinking about hopper it TB3 is right and he now has control in lyoko would it be possible that he is now running lyoko similar to the was xana was running it before he got out i was thinking that maybe lyoko needed xana in it to run when he left lyoko shut down and was killing aelita when you said hopper restored her fragment and restored lyoko maybe he is now running it?

just a thought please be nice my first post on lets talk tech and I like you review animenologist it was great does anyone have any pics of aelita in the flashback in the snow as i haven’t seen it?

[YDV offline]

I know! ^.^

Err.. anyways.. back to business. I'm so mad that I'm not allowed on the computer... look at all this work you guys got done without me!

I -really- don't think the alteration to her DNA structure is what changed her appearance. You're trying to overthink what is 90% chance of simply being a change in her character design, basically a "new look" for Season 2. I wouldn't be surprised if they did it again for Season 3 (although I hope they don't @.@)

I agree on most of the things in TB3's last post...

In 'The Key' Aelita was shown as dying with her memories stolen - I'm not quite sure how this would kill her.

If I'm not mistaken (I don't want to befuddle your thoughts on her being "incomplete"), I believe that having such a badly fractured consciousness file would cause the supercomputer to basically give up on trying to sustain it. It can't just be one solid file, people have thought processes every second, so it would have to be constantly updated. Presumably, with the missing fragment that caused her to be linked to the Towers, Carthage, and essentially XANA, the virtualization program or whatever maintains all the avatar files was having enough trouble as it was with her missing a vital part of herself to hold her consciousness file together and keep it in working order. Once her Keys were stolen (I still believe Hopper gave this to her as what was originally in her Lyoko Powers that somehow merged into her brain), the Avatar program couldn't stop her vDNA file from imploding, as well as keep her consciousness steady without falling apart and being lost, so it chose to quit trying to sustain her consciousness file and kept her vDNA stabalized-- it was screwy because the Keys were, according to my theory, part of both her LP section of the vDNA and her consciousness.

The simplest way to say it would be that she was too incomplete for the computer to keep her thoughts alive without risking her very essence (the vDNA file, since she didn't have a true DNA backup strand at the moment).

Well, that's what I believe, anyway. The idea of her connection to Carthage being severed and "killing" her in the same fashion turning the supercomputer off would is probably better. I'm probably even contradicting myself (I think I drew up a chart or something that showed how she was bound to the Towers and thus Carthage. No, wait, it was showing that since she was, she was the only one who could sense activity in the Towers.)

Wait a minute.. idea. Since she could sense activity in the Towers, someone (both XANA and Hopper in this episode.. I think..) utilizing the Keys and therefore activating all Way and Normal towers would probably bombard her with so much data feedback that she'd probably die anyway! So perhaps Hopper made Carthage shutting down once XANA left a precautionary movement, since the only way he could do that is once he had the Keys! And all Hopper had to do once XANA was gone was turn off the safety program. MAYBE.. maybe, since he was going on and on about how he and Aelita would "rule" Lyoko or whatever, Perhaps he gave -himself- a copy of the Keys to Lyoko! Yeah! That's how he was able to establish omnipotence after XANA left! ...Maybe. This is all jsut little ideas I had, they most likely aren't valid. Anyway, once he did that, he simultaneously gave Aelita her missing fragment and de-activated the Keys, because again, her being conscious while someone was doing that would probably "overload" her brain.

I don't know... you guys can revoke or flesh this out as you please.[/list][/quote]

[Osiris offline]

About aelita not being complete would it be possible for when she was first materialised for an error to have occurred or xana did something as she was materialised like he did in code: earth to link her to the computer

[animenologist offline]

Osiris - we came to the conclusion that the missing fragment has been missing since Aelita's first virtualization, since she has been prone to deletion since Season 1 and since the materialization program just took her incomplete code and translated it normal physical creation, like how XANA materialized those things in Image Problem, False Start, and A Bad Turn. All the talk about a virus in Code: Earth we concluded was just an attempt at rationalizing XANA's link to Aelita despite her physical form.

As for what TB3 stated in his post, I share YDV's agreement. A lot of it makes a lot of sense. Though I diverge in thought from YDV. I feel that Aelita's consciousness files which contains the tiny crumbs of her memories, is what holds the keys to Lyoko. By draining her memories, I believe that the Scyphozoa basically damaged her conciousness, so virtually speaking, she was dead. That's why her virtual body remained though her mind had been damaged so badly. After XANA left, Hopper was freed from his control and since Hopper contained the keys to Lyoko aswell, used them to restore Carthage to normal and repair Aelita's broken consciousness and restore her lost fragment. What effect that had on Hopper himself, I'm not to sure of, which I hope may be answered next season.

Makes me wonder what kind of imprisonment XANA had Hopper in. It had to be strong enough so that he was unable to be free of himself normally nor be able to actively get into contact with the gang for 2 Seasons. Yet at the same time, Hopper must of been able to maintain some independence, since Hopper had the keys to Lyoko within his own memory. Had XANA gained complete dominance over Hopper, he would of been able to take the keys from Hopper and not needed Aelita. To reciprocate Ulrich's question, where has he been for the past couple years?

[TB3]

As an aside, I had the idea that Hopper and Aelita each had half 'a key'/'of the keys' to Lyoko (Hopper said 'together' they would hold the keys), and thus needed to be together in order for the key to be complete and for them to gain omnipotence. XANA for his part had to copy both of their data to gain the power.

Thus Hopper could not free himself from his prison (which I sugggested was the Carthage tower), until Aelita entered in 'Franz Hopper'and they made contact breifly enough for Hopper to achieve a limited freedom for the events of 'Contact'.

This interaction occured again in 'Revelation' and allowed Hopper to take control of the tower and speed up the decoding program.

And finally this occured in 'The Key' when Hopper gave Aelita her memories back and then restarted Carthage.

Thoughts?

[Osiris offline]

oh sorry i didnt see that part where you already worked that out
do you think it would have ben possible for hopper to still have some control over xana even though xana inprisened him

[animenologist offline]

But if that were the case, that XANA needed both Aelita and Hopper's memories for the keys to Lyoko, than why did XANA need to do a complete brain drain of Aelita to get her half, but not Hopper? Seems odd that they each contained a part of the key which is needed by XANA, wouldn't Hopper be in a similar mental state as Aelita would be, basically a comatose almost mentally dead state? And yet he maintains some form of conciouness, even a bit of independence, while Aelita was dying. Seems kinda inconsistent.

[TB3]

As I said earlier, this is based on the supposition that Aelita died because Carthage had turned off, not because her memories had been copied.

And if we look at the idea of Aelita dying because the computer couldn't support further damage to her avatar, there's nothing to suggest Hopper was damaged, thus he could have survived the process.

My one bit of evidence as to how Aelita's memories are merely copied and not stolen - we know XANA has the ability to remove memories in chunks (he did it to her in the past) - yet we never see him do this with the Scyph - suggesting there is something else going on. Also remember XANA does not want to risk killing Aelita before he's copied all her data or the kids could just pull the plug, so the Scyph might be hardwired to not kill her.

The problem is we now have two or three schools of thought on this matter, how do we agree on a common ground. I think the main points of debate are the following;

Why Aelita 'died'

What constitutes 'the keys to Lyoko'

How Hopper got free and how he rebooted Carthage

As for the whole 'Materialisation Program' and 'why Aelita would have gotten deleted' and 'what happened to her human DNA etc' I think we've agreed on;

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When XANA stole Aelita's memory fragment in the past he damaged her avatar and her biological data and DNA were lost, sundered from her and unrecoverable.

When Jeremie first began looking at-depth into Aelita's coding her found the digital data of her clothes and this led him to the idea of materialising her to free her from Lyoko.

The Materialisation Program converts the vDNA to DNA via the normal codec (Missing Link), and from that DNA extrapolates an 'ideal' full DNA strand which is sent to the scanners with her conciousness and non-bio data. Although Aelita never changed physical form between 1994 and the two seasons, alterations to her vDNA can modify her DNA by tweaking the 'ideal' DNA strand, such as seen in Vertigo.

In season one Aelita was at risk of deletion from not having a DNA strand. In season two the danger is the same as her DNA is not committed to the computer's memory when virtualised due to her damaged avatar.

Aelita's specific Lyoko attribute is her connection to the towers - allowing her to feel 'pulsations' from them and control the towers rather than just use them as a read-only terminal. This ability is possibly part of the Keys to Lyoko.

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Can we agree on this, because I've reading quite a few posts to create this almalgamated idea. Of course improvements are always welcomed.

All of this info on Aelita still means we could (and possibly should) devote a chapter of the essay to her, and possibly include a few paragraphs on Franz if we can agree what went on in the last few episodes.

EDIT: As a final note Jeremie would now appear to be able to Devirt Aelita conventionally, as in 'The Key' she appeared in the scanners direct from Carthage, seemingly without getting to a tower for the Materialisation Program to run.

[YDV offline]

Excellent! I completely 100% agree on all your points.

I think I'll have a go at the Keys to Lyoko, since I'm the resident Abstract Lyoko Mechanism theorist

Okay.. we know that Aelita has the following abilities:

-Permanent connection to the towers, and thus:
-The ability to sense activity in the towers
-The ability to fully interface and de-activate towers
-The ability to alter Lyoko's physical, geographic, and topological map, presumably via the connection to the towers

Pretty much all of them have to do with Lyoko's main terminals, the Towers.

Now, we know that Aelita had the Keys lodged somewhere in her memory/consciousness ever since some point in 1994, after her first virtualization.

Perhaps, from these Keys, come her above abilities-- let's call her first "Key" Tower Kinesthesia/Feedback (partly because it sounds cool. Gotta love them terms!)

There's something else that may or may not be a "Key" to Lyoko. Aelita's proficiency with computers and databases and programming and the like. Maybe she learned it all from living inside the supercomputer for 12 years of her life (oh yeah-- she was twelve when she was first virtualized. If she hadn't been, she'd be 24 years old! Well, according to theoretical CL chronology. Was it TB3 who said it was set in 2006...?) But then again, maybe not. Maybe it's another "Key". Just in case it is, let's call it Computational Proficiency.

Without necessarily including the former, very rough and possibly incorrect idea, the second "Key" would sort of "unlock" the potential of the TF key. The second key allows for complete omnipotence, omnivoyance, and all those other fancy omni- words, over Lyoko. It adds on, so to speak, the ability to feel towers to a much, much higher range. It includes all Way towers, and thus all normal towers, and probably Carthage too. With the feedback from all of those points, you would be able to pretty much know, feel, and influence everything in Lyoko, since all data passes through Carthage and Towers practically run everything in Lyoko.

What makes me wonder though is why did Aelita or Jeremie ever notice those before? I mean, wouldn't there be a line in her vDNA that says something to the effect of

Key2Lyoko=1, set variable to 0
If Key2Lyoko=2, then Aelita=∞? (I totally made that up.. don't yell at me, all you coding people *sweatdrops*) I mean, it just seems strange to me that Jeremie spent all that time hunting through her code, and yet he or even she; I mean, surely she's accessed her own program before. Or, wait, is that possible? Er.. nevermind. But why didn't Jeremie ever see the Keys? Were they hidden, possibly disguised as something else? Or were they in a restricted, restricted access section of the supercomputer?

I guess I'll tackle the third one now...

In order to answer how Hopper got free, we must first establish how he was contained. I mean, I've always assumed he was in some really advanced Guardian or something like that... but then again in order for XANA to keep him in one, he'd have to have a constantly activated Tower. And we know that's not possible, because of the super-scan. Although.. there was that one Tower in Carthage that wasn't picked up... but wasn't that because he corrupted the scan? I don't know, I never saw the rest of that episode. Anyway, a Guardian probably isn't the case.

So maybe he was in the supercomputer itself? AKA not on Lyoko? But he must've been... how was his life sustained if there wasn't an Avatar program keeping his consciousness going? Well, maybe there was... Yeah. Okay.

Hopper was kept prisoner in the restricted restricted access section of the supercomputer, which also contained the portion of Aelita's consciousness file that contained the Keys to Lyoko. I assume that, since he once again was not on Lyoko, XANA figured he'd never find a way out so he didn't keep as much watch as he could've. But then, XANA probably didn't know that that's where Aelita's keys were held (and presumably, Hopper's keys as well) and he was only able to get to them by hacking through Aelita's consciousness file by using the Schyphozoa. So all Hopper had to do was gradually (either over the course of a year or 13 years-- depending on whether the supercomputer was turned off or not. Jeremie did say "We turned the computer on together" in Franz Hopper...) hack through the multiple layers of passwords and blocks XANA undoubtedly had on him. Perhaps the same system that kept XANA dormant for so many years (again, this is iffy-- was the computer off or was XANA dormant?) was used. Anywho, once he had those off of him, he could probably access Lyoko by using "back doors" in the supercalculator's console. He probably didn't install them himself-- I mean, we know he was very precautionary, but how could he possibly know that he'd be locked in the restricted restricted access portion of the quantum computer he'd helped build by the very program he created to destroy Project Carthage? Speaking of which, perhaps they were back doors the PC team set up in order to access Carthage directly, perhaps by linking a laptop up in the supercalculator room and creating a Specter, in the event that the console was inaccessable. Anyway, once Hopper had access to Lyoko, all he'd have to do is activate his first Key and he'd be able to influence towers. Maybe it was a kind of yin vs. yang thing-- Hopper's keys allowed him to -activate- towers, and Aelita's keys allowed her to -deactivate- them. He'd never activate the second one, of course, as long as his daughter was on there: once again, having all the towers activated at once would send far too much feedback to Aelita's brain for her to handle and she would probably die. So he had to figure out a way to contact the gang so they'd let him out. He discovered that by accessing Lyoko directly through Carthage, he had access to the Specter Approach protocols and could access the outside world, and thus he possessed Sissi using the routers he probably hated, and so on and so forth. Anyway, once XANA had stolen Aelita's keys (Saying that makes me laugh.. I imagine an Evil Jeremie sneaking up behind Aelita and stealing her car keys or something xD) and shut down Carthage (he'd still remain connected to Lyoko because he activated his First Key), he could activate the Second Key and save his daughter's life. So basically he was free already, just not able to leave. (Although he could've transferred himself to Lyoko and used Jeremie's rematerialization program to get out but whatever it was a plot device lol)

Anyway.. that's probably all wrong and Season Three will probably prove it (I mean, really... what's easier to say, Hopper was kept on Lyoko and broke free or Hopper was kept inside the supercomputer and was able to get messages out by accessing the Towers through Carthage?

Revoke, Rebuke, et cetera!

[TB3]

Nicely thought out YDV.

Here's my own thoughts;

Tower #0 (or possibly #41) in Carthage could have been Hopper's prison - with all of his data shunted there and held. XANA did not need to fear the kids releasing Hopper because that tower seemingly does not show up in the scans (all of them reacred with shock when they saw it, and since it's in the 'hidden' realm of Carthage...well you get what I mean.)

In 'Franz Hopper' XANA needed a base for his clone of Hopper. Simplest means - run the routers from Hopper's tower so that they can extrapolate his appearance and personality/behavioural patterns direct from his data.

However, when Aelita interacted with the tower to shut it down, she unknowlingly made contact with her father, and for a breif second their 'omnipotence' keys completed each other (I like YDV's 'yin-and-yang; idea).

Hopper thus had the ability to leak a small portion of himself into Lyoko, and he used this weak extension to activate a tower and posess Sissi.

In 'Revelation', he made breif contact with Aelita again and consequently was able to boost his 'hacking-power' in Lyoko - deactivating the tower and speeding up the program.

Through the events of 'The Key' Hopper was in control of a tower to help the team out, still much weaker than XANA overall but able to control the Mantas. Crucially Hopper was not aware of the trap XANA had laid.

When XANA left Carthage via Lyoko's towers, Hopper was left unchallenged in Lyoko, and was able to join with Aelita without the use of a tower and once again complete their keys.

With their new power, Hopper recovered Aelita's memory fragment and then restarted Carthage.

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How does this sound - again I think the mingling of ideas would work well here since we're driving at the same thing.

Cheers!