Goddess Fall Theory & Other Nikke Analysis

The Goddess Fall Theory is a lens to view the story of Goddess of Victory: Nikke centered on the in-game historical event of the same name. I believe this event is pivotal in understanding the greater narrative structures of Nikke and it's unique form of storytelling with the themes presented. Evidence towards this theory will be presented in this blog, with this post being background for those who haven't thought about it in a while or are new.

What Was the Goddess Fall?

One of the first events a player can encounter upon gaining access to the outpost is the brief encounter "Elevator Ghost Story." Rapi explains that 70 years before the events of The Commander (originally 30 but ret-conned to better fit with other timelines) a ZX Mass-Production Nikke led 200 Nikkes to the surface to flee subjugation from the Ark. The Central Government cut the cables of the elevator (Model GQWRA-01249) used to ascend to stop this perceived defection, which sent the elevator crashing down a distance of 4 kilometers. The Nikkes aboard the elevator, not wishing to destroy the Ark from what would be a catastrophic high speed collision, all decided instead to self destruct to protect humanity; Rapi both calls this a death sentence and ". . . the noblest thing in the world." Anis then explains how this event, later dubbed the Goddess Fall, sparked more widespread enforcement of Nikke rights to the point it exists when The Commander begins leading Counters. The player is given two options when asked their thoughts: "... I feel sad about everything. // I feel grateful for them." After this event, the Elevator became a common symbol for Nikke rights in political discussions. Importantly, the elevator from the Goddess Fall is confirmed to be the same one in the Counters outpost. The event ends with the spirits of the Goddess Fall possessing Neon and promising safe passage so long as those who ride it deem the executed as noble.

This aligns very closely to how The Commander views Nikkes as living beings. His goal is to treat them with dignity and to respect their autonomy, which puts him at stark odds against The Ark as a whole. The Goddess Fall represents how Nikkes have the capacity to understand and execute on sacrifice, even to those who scorned them previously; as will be dissected in future posts, this regularly puts them in a state of humanity even closer than the humans on The Ark.

Interestingly, the generic loading screen when starting the game for quite some time was a visual of Rapi riding the elevator with the Commander while the song Godness Fall (based on the original mistranslation of the event in English) played, indicating that every time you loaded into the game you are watching a recreation of the event framed around Rapi.

1. When looking at this, my eyes follow the color path of eyes > chest bomb > detonator > legs > boots > IEDs. At first glance I genuinely thought she was holding her own chest bomb detonator but the UI was hiding the bombs at her feat. Ultimately she does have full control over her fate, even if she still uses terrorist tactics; by standing in the center of the daisy chain she would be annihilated by her actions no matter who presses the button.

2. Her boots are probably the same ones she left the Ark with in the first place. Very sturdy model but without materials or the luxury of capital the only thing she can do is tape them up and keep pushing. This may also be a form of self-pennance as feet in a Christian context are heavily tied to forgiveness.

3. The rest of Exotic squad get cute collars or chokers to hide their bombs, but E.H. has an alarming and almost comical C4 taped to her chest. Given how much pride Elysion takes in their Nikkes, Ingrid in particular, I believe this is entirely self imposed. Does Ingrid have the detonator? Could she really kill her own sister so passively? Does the Commander have it? I don't think E.H. would find it meaningful if the vest only could be used for suicide, so my top guess would be originally Ingrid but maybe the Commander as part of a future treasure quest.

4. She is clearly very uncomfortable with a gun even if she knows how to use it. The hand grip isn't going anywhere while connected to the picatinny rail but it's still taped, her trigger disciple is terrible (inb4 the gun isn't loaded, see rule 1 of gun safety), the limp wrist means she's holding it almost entirely with grip strength, and the barrel is pointed at her foot. To me, this reads as being a control freak who misses the forest for the trees. It makes sense she was tricked so easily.

5. The Gray Man hat is so silly and also plays into E.H. kinda missing the big picture. The point of being a gray man is to stand out as little as possible, but she's got a massive bomb taped to her chest and is armed to the teeth. Trying to blend in makes her stick out even worse, and this is almost certainly intentional by Shift Up as it's one of the most baffling character design choices I've seen in the game.

Security Theater, as defined in Wikipedia, is the practice of implementing security measures that are considered to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to achieve it. This is a running theme in how The Ark handles most issues; the Rapture conflict is presented to civilians as a hard-fought war when in reality humanity is on its last dregs. In the Sin Editor event, Label and the Commander both each the consensus that the Ark is almost always on deaths doors as her sole job is editing records to obfuscate this fact. In contrast to Label's secrecy (a topic for another post), I wish to focus on the warship in the room: Aegis Squad and their prideful captain, Helm.

Helm's advice story follows attempts to keep the Admire afloat (metaphorically). The Admire is an incredibly advanced warship designed solely by Elysion to flex their technological prowess, as it boasts weapons capable of killing tyrant-class raptures. The Central Government forced Elysion to sell the Admire as to limit the military capability of private corporations, as they already create all the Nikkes. This comes into issue when accounting for The Ark being deep underground, as Helm points out herself there currently is no need for an Ark Navy. The justification used by Aegis Squad and the Central Government as a whole is simple: 'One day we will reclaim the surface, and when that day comes this will help us continue the war and fully take back Earth'. But there's a specific line used by Helm when fundraising that draws specific attention:

There is no way the Admire is capable of preserving peace, yet its existence still spurs people to donate in the concept of a world where it might be helpful. This is very intentional from Helm, as she seems keenly aware of what truths can be bent and what lies can be implied; it also becomes very evident that this is eating her alive.

The advice story continues with the Counters working on a very flashy advertisement simulating what the Admire would look like if it were on the sea. Helm refuses all donations, stating that the ad was fake and ending the party early. This culminates on a terror attack on the Admire, being swiftly dealt with by Helm's prowess as a captain. Happy ending, roll credits.

It makes sense that Helm wishes to see the Admire to its full potential, but why the Central Government? If they know that Ark is always on the brink of collapse, why invest so much money into the biggest cash sink possible? We can see it clearly after the climax of the advice story with the terror attack on the Admire:

The donors all *felt* safe from the Aegis response so they donated money to the Central Government to keep it functional. At fear of stating the obvious, this is a transactional exchange: The government keeps providing the feeling of safety, and in exchange the wealthy donors spend money that otherwise would accumulate and choke the economy in the long run. Where this is worth analysts comes from the fact that functionally this costs nothing to the government as the whole venture is kept alive by donations, and in turn they provide no service but the feeling of safety as opposed to actual safety. At the time of these events, any donor is paying for the idea that maybe this massive ship will somehow be brought to the surface and will probably help them win the war, and the Central Government gets all the acclaim as if that fact is both guaranteed and has already occurred.

This isn't meant to paint Helm in a bad light. I'm harsh here only to the Central Government, as unlike them Helm has shown a genuine belief the war will reclaim the surface as opposed to just pumping false life into a dying humanity through capital. She sees the systems and acknowledges them, but in the current state playing the game the system provides is the only way to make real change. She is much like The Commander in this regard, so it makes sense how they were drawn so close to one another.