Running head: 9S 1

9S 2

This paper will be focusing its analysis on one of the two main characters at the

beginning of the game, named 9S, and how his relationship with another android he is assigned

to will shape him along with the events that occur within the story, Nier Automata. 9S, an

android that is appointed the role scanner, where his purpose is to gather information on the

enemy machine life forms and analyze them to help the androids have a better grasp on their

enemies. 9S is paired with another android named 2B, who is a combat focused android whose

job is annihilating the machine threat.

Environment

The beginning of the video game “Nier Automata” is set in a post-apocalyptic future

environment where nearly all of humanity is wiped out from existence due to an invading alien

species. The aliens have never been seen, because they sent an army of intelligent machines to do

the “dirty work” of annihilating humanity. The remaining humans on earth left, and took refuge

on the moon, sending highly intelligent and strong machines of their own called androids, that

are nearly indistinguishable from human look, intelligence, and behavior. These androids have

obtained full autonomy, and are capable of thinking for themselves, depending on the role given

to them. Hundreds of years have passed; plants and wildlife have destroyed most of humanity’s

presence, giving even major cities, a forest and jungle like look.

Personality Clash

Due to 9S’s programming of being a scanner android, 9S is typically a curious android,

but because he is not human, and cannot age and develop like a typical human being, we can’t

completely accurately say he is within the term, adolescent, but to simplify and understand his

character we will say that 9S is in some way an adolescent, due to his natural ability of being
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curious and wanting to absorb as much information as possible about anything and everything.

2B is the very polar opposite. 2B comes off as much colder and disconnected from her peers, she

informs 9S as a punishment that “feelings are prohibited”, catching 9S off guard. Throughout

the game 9S struggles with Critical thinking, questioning everything that doesn’t add up within

the story and the world. About three hours into the game they come across machine life forms

that are speaking words with meaning, saying things such as “scared”, or “it hurts”, or “help”,

and as you progress throughout the game, more and more of these scenarios come up that just

don’t seem to add up with what the androids have been taught about the machine life forms.

Throughout the story, 9S faces Erikson’s Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt. 9S

struggles to contain his own thoughts and curiosity, and is often scolded by 2B for it. 9S is also

trying to establish a personal relationship with 2B as the story progress, such as trying to call 2B

“ma’am”, but is immediately scolded; or asking to be called “nines”, but is also scolded for that.

2B is trying to be as distant and mission oriented as possible, whereas 9S wants to feel “normal”

and “human like” and question everything.

Let’s put 9S and 2B in a scenario to better understand their personalities in a simpler way.

9S and 2B are placed within their own separate boxes and told to guard the inside of the box. As

a combat android, 2B would follow orders, and if needed stand guard forever if she was told. 9S

however is different, he would exhibit problem finding and would question, “What is so

important about this box?”, “Why am I being told to guard this and not somebody else?”, “What

is outside of this box?” If curiosity got the best of 9S, which it will, he would push his limits and

try to find an exit, to see what is outside of the box.

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Machine development

On their journey 2B and 9S come across two other intelligent machines, thinking they are

androids, only to realize they are actually machines named Adam and Eve. Designed to appear

human, have thoughts of their own, and capable of carrying emotions of their own, you would

almost think they are androids like 2B and 9S. This is considered a critical period among many

other moments within the story and 9S’s psyche, because of the conflict of feelings. Machines

are the enemies, yet here are two machine life forms standing before them and appear no

different than them. Adam and Eve inform 2B and 9S that the aliens are dead, that they, the

machines, were capable of developing complete self-awareness and realized how their creators

were “weak” and killed them. Making the androids think that for all this time they were at war

with an unknown alien life force, only to have realized those said aliens have been dead this

entire time. Adam and Eve propose to 2B and 9S that they betray the human race and help Adam

and Eve capture the humans and dissect and learn from them. It would seem that Adam has a

unique fascination of humans and is almost as if trying to become one himself. Refusing, 2B and

9S are forced to fight Adam and Eve, leading to the machines retreating. 9S reports his findings

back to headquarters where the androids are forced to rethink their ways of going about this long

drawn out war.

Existential Crisis

Skipping a bit ahead in the story, 2B and 9S have an encounter with Adam, resulting in

9S being severely injured, and ending in 2B killing Adam. 9S is sent back to their base to recover.

During this time of separation, 9S hacks into the base and discovers secrets that don’t make

sense to what he is told. The commander sees that 9S was snooping and decided to finally spill
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the secrets to him. 9S learns that from the moment this war started, humans have been dead.

Humans never retreated to the moon; they were all destroyed on earth. Androids are only told

about the humans because, to quote the commander “We need a god worth dying for.” This is the

beginning of sending 9S into an existential crisis. 9S’s whole life, he was told how much of an

honor it was to serve the humans, how amazing it will be to reclaim the earth from the machines

and let humans inherit it again, only for it all to be a lie.

9S is not given enough time to wrap his mind around this, because he has to quickly meet

back up with 2B to help her fight Eve, who is enraged after learning they killed his brother.

Defeating Eve by hacking into him and weakening him, 9S is corrupted by Eve and is slowly

being rewritten as a machine and is forced to be killed by 2B. 9S begs 2B to kill him and she

stands over him, choking the life out of him until he is gone. A huge characteristic that clashes

with 2B’s personality is shown here, she begins to cry. Throughout the whole game 2B is

informing everyone the irrelevance of feelings and attachment, but in this moment she breaks

everything she stands for and shows complete emotion and vulnerability. After she kills him, she

says “it always ends like this”, which the player would pass it off as a comment meaning she’s

tired of seeing her colleagues die, but we’ll be coming back to this later, because it’s a very

important detail to the story later on. Soon after, remains of machines come to life only to turn

out you hear 9S, it turns out he backed himself up on a machine server, saving his own life

moments before his own death.

A complete character change

Soon after, the android base where all the androids reside, is taken over by a virus created

by the machines, wiping out all the androids and turning them into machines, leaving only 9S
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and 2B. 2B is soon infected and separates from 9S, not wanting to infect him and meets with a

rogue android, A2, who we meet in the middle of the game, and is given a mercy killing. 9S

witnesses this, but is unaware of why 2B was killed and assumes A2 killed her in cold blood.

This is where we come across a major character change in 9S. 9S loses all sense of self and has

decided that his very existence is absolutely meaningless, and the only thing he has left is

showing nothing but aggression, killing all machine life, and avenging 2B.

9S essentially becomes bloodthirsty, showing overt aggression and is willing to kill

anything in his way of his goals. He explores the new towers that have formed from the ground

and discover secrets of the connection between androids and machines within each tower. During

his journey, 9S comes across two little girls, who are visual representation of the entire machine

network, and is told the truth of androids and machines. After killing the aliens, the machines

had no sense of existence. Looking at the humans and their history, the machines felt that

conflict was the meaning of existence. Thus, they created the androids, causing a never ending

cycle of war, death, and chaos. All this time, the androids were actually machines as well. His

journeys through these towers almost feel like a journey through his own grief work,

confronting feelings of complete anger, denial, and depression. A major turning point towards

the end of the journey of these towers, he meets again with A2. A2 tries to talk sense into him,

but 9S is long gone.

Curiosity killed the 9S

Upon meeting 9S in the tower, A2 informs 9S that there was much more to their roles as

androids, and not just being combat focused, or scanner focused. A2 explains to 9S, that 2B was

not actually 2B, but actually her real name was 2E. 2E was built to kill 9S models. 9S was made
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to gather information throughout his life, and once his mission was completed, 2E was set to kill

him. This explains the distant relationship 2E was having with 9S. The prohibition of feelings, no

personal connection, and the one very meaningful quote she says upon strangling him, “it always

ends like this”. 9S is enraged and begins to fight A2. During the fight 9S still continues to

question things about his existence and why he thinks the way he thinks. A great quote he says is

“It doesn’t matter! None of this matters! But if it doesn’t matter… who do I long for humans like

this? Why do I desire the touch of something that no longer exists?!” A2 responds along the lines

of “It’s how we were made; it’s a part of our programming.” Only to be interrupted by 9S and

told to shut up over and over. 9S decides that if that’s the case, the only solution is to destroy the

core of all machine and android kind, ceasing them all to exist. 9S is experiencing such a strong

sense of negative identity that he is willing to even kill himself and everything in order to show

that he cannot possibly be the one thing he was taught is the enemy, showing that he has

developed a severe sense of post conventional moral judgment.

9S successfully kills A2, but not before she has a flash back to 2B, also now known as

2E’s final words, “take care of 9S”, and thrusts her blade into him, killing him as well, and

accomplishing 2B’s task. We are left with an ending of dread, but at the last minute the pods, a

small robot companion that each android is assigned, question the morality of this ending and

decide that this is not how it should be and defy their programming, rebuilding their android

companions, giving them a fresh start. To quote one of the pods “A future is not given to you. It

is something you must take for yourself.” Hoping that this time, the androids will be able to

finally live a better life.

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PTSD and loss

The last third or quarter of the game, you are experiencing 9S, and his mourning over the

loss of his companion, 2B. As soon as 2B is killed 9S’s sense of Morality is completely skewed

and goes off seeking justice on his own. Not only is 9S dealing with grief, he is also

experiencing severe signs of PTSD. Finding out about the meaninglessness of their war, and that

essentially the “Gods” they were fighting for died many years ago, 9S’s life was shattered, the

only thing that allowed him to develop such resilience was 2B. 2B held him together, and it was

after that loss, that finally his full symptoms of PTSD were shown. The panic, the anger, the

blind rage, 9S was stuck in the past on the idea of humans, and was obsessed; and that obsession

and that curiosity was what brought the end of him.

Conclusion

Many of the characters have so much depth to them, I could have analyzed any of them,

however, 9S stood out as the most human among the machines and androids. As stated before, he

was almost as if an adolescent in the beginning of this game. Innocent and unaware of the cruelty

and truth of the world, and curious, wanting to learn about everything around him. 9S’s transition

from innocent to broken seems very realistic, if somebody were to discover that their whole

belief system and meaning of existence was a lie they would easily descend into the form of

madness that 9S descended into.

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References

Clegg-Kranok, M., Seifert, K., Hoffnung, R. & Hoffnung, M. (2017) Lifespan

Development, 3e. USA, Academic Media Solutions.

Taro, Y. (2017). Nier Automata [Computer software]. Osaka: Platinum Games.