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Lady Iapetus ([personal profile] ladyiapetus) wrote2005-09-23 07:00 pm
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Code Lyoko Season 2 - Week One

Well, we've had a full week of new Code: LYOKO episodes, and suffice it to say the second season looks very promising. It's nice seeing Aelita materialized in the real world, going to school at Kadic and interacting with more people than just Yumi, Ulrich, Odd and Jeremie. And in just these past five days we've learned more about Lyoko than we ever discovered in the first season.

So far we've learned that Lyoko was created by Franz Hopper, a man who used to teach science (or computer sciences, or some similar subject) at Kadic. He owned an old house near the school called "Hermitage" that is now abandoned, and that has a third secret passage to the factory where the supercomputer is (the other two passages being in the woods and in the boiler room of the school). He kept a diary, presumably about his creation of Lyoko, which was encrypted and burned onto CD-ROMs. Sometime before the start of the series Franz Hopper disappeared, but not before leaving a briefcase containing his diary discs in a storage locker at the train station. He hid the key to it in the clothing of an old doll named "Mr. Puck", which Aelita found and recognized from the mysterious visions she's been having.

Naturally a lot of the fans are creating their own theories about Aelita, and her connection to Franz Hopper and Lyoko. And yours truly is no exception.

Conspiracy Theory #1: Aelita Was Once Human
   Once upon a time, Aelita was just as human as Jeremie, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd. Franz Hopper was her father, or guardian in some fatherly way. She was probably homeschooled, for if she had gone to Kadic in the past there would have been some record of her somewhere. For reasons unknown, Franz Hopper created the supercomputer XANA in the very lower levels of the old factory, designed and created the world of Lyoko, the materialization/devirtualization programs and the scanners making entry into Lyoko possible. Somehow XANA, possibly being an experiment in creating artificial intelligence, grew in malevolence as it evolved until it got out of Hopper's control.
   Down the line something caused Hopper to flee. Possibly someone at Kadic found out what was going on, or he had found a way to stop XANA for good and the computer got pissed; who knows? He put the discs with his diaries on them inside a briefcase, locked the briefcase inside a storage locker at the train station then hid the key inside Mr. Puck, Aelita's favorite plaything. Hopper gave the location of the key to Aelita, then took her to the factory via the secret passage at Hermitage and virtualized her in Lyoko. Probably promised that he'd return soon to rematerialize her and shut XANA down for good. But when Franz Hopper leaves, he disappears off the face of the Earth.
   &Sometime afterwards, XANA gets shut down - either the computer did this to itself to conserve power, or some outside source triggered the shutdown. Not only did this turn XANA dormant, but it put Aelita into something like suspended animation. When Jeremie, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd discovered the supercomputer in the factory and restarted it, the restart wiped Aelita's memory clean - all she remembered was living on Lyoko, nothing of the real world. It wasn't until after she was materialized and she discovered the abandoned Hermitage that her memories started to come back in the form of nightmares and visions.

Conspiracy Theory #2: The Aelita-Taelia Connection
   Taelia, Aelita's near-twin introduced in the season 1 episode "The Girl of Dreams", was related to Franz Hopper in some way; a favorite niece or something like that. She was over at his house quite a lot (frequently enough to warrent her own bedroom, it seems), but didn't live there. Sometime during her childhood there was a horrible accident - Taelia's parents were killed, and Taelia herself was left comatose with little to no hope of coming out of it.
   Devestated, Franz decided to recreate his beloved Taelia by creating a sprite in Lyoko in her image. To complete the simulcrum he implanted Taelia's memories of her times spent at Hermitage into the sprite and gave her the name Aelita - an anagram of Taelia. After discovering the materialization program Franz Hopper materialized Aelita in the real world he brought her to Hermitage to live with him.
   Time passes, XANA grows in intelligence and malevolence. Franz, for reasons unknown, prepares to make his escape. He hides his diary discs in the train station locker and hides the key in Mr. Puck - Taelia's favorite toy, and by extension Aelita's. He then takes Aelita back to the factory by way of the Hermitage passage, virtualizes her back in Lyoko with instructions on how to find his diaries about XANA if she should ever be rematerialized. Franz then flees, never to be seen again.
   More time passes. XANA is somehow shut down, putting Aelita into a suspended animation state. When our four friends from Kadic discover the supercomputer and restart it Aelita also "wakes up", but her/Taelia's memories are repressed, inaccessible. So she doesn't remember being in the real world before. Yumi, Ulrich and Odd start fighting XANA on his own turf while Jeremie searches for a way to materialize Aelita in the real world. Meanwhile Taelia at some point has miraculously emerged from her coma. Naturally she bears a very strong resemblance to Aelita. Her foster family or social worker enrolls her at Kadic, where she is extremely reluctant to speak about her past. The reason she had no "memories" of Lyoko when Jeremie brought her there was because Franz Hopper had kept XANA and Lyoko a secret even from her.

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