Just keep yourself alive
Yes, I finally finished it. The character essay that I've been working on for...a while. It's cut into three parts, so, enjoy~.
To start off with, we'll start in on Sol's past pre-Gear Project. In other words, the time when he was still Frederick. Considering the fact that he was part of a project that was working on changing the very genetic makeup of humanity, he had to have been extremely intelligent. More than likely, he graduated early from both high school and college. And considering the nature of his job, Frederick met Axl Low for the first time while in college as well.
During his time in the Gear Project, Frederick was placed in the Human Enhancement Division of the project. The supposed goal of this group was to try and utilize the newly-discovered magic energy in order to try and enhance the life of humanity (i.e. cure disease and gain immortality). However, during the Project, Frederick began to get suspicious of his superiors’ intents. (2014)
And rightly so. At one point, he went to confront his boss (That Man) to find out why the division was suddenly getting cut off in terms of funding, during which he found out the true intentions of the Gear Project: to create a new breed of lifeform that could be used as disposable super-soldiers. To say the least, Frederick wasn’t amused. He demanded that the experiments would be stopped, and that he would leave if they were going to continue. However, That Man had plans for the researcher, and rendered him unconscious as he turned to leave. (2015)
The transformation that took place when Frederick became the Prototype Gear was a long and painful process. Numerous tests were conducted on him, including countless injections and many painful infusions into his very being. The end result in this was a complete transformation in the Prototype’s DNA, not human, but yet not an animal, either.
With all this going on, at one point, the Prototype snapped. Laying it wait, it feigned weakness from the sedatives it was given until the right time. Drawing in magical power, it escaped captivity, causing the lab that it was contained in to explode. Within the conflagration, That Man confronted the prototype, declaring that “I am not to blame for this, Frederick. You are the sole badguy in this situation.” (2016)
With its mind still fragmented, the Prototype fled the ruins of the facility. During its recovery, remnants of its memories as the human Frederick surfaced at random times, causing it to lash out. However, after some time, it created a new identity, merging the memories and intelligence of the human Frederick with the instinct and raw power of the Gear. Its new name: Sol Badguy.
Sol used his knowledge from his time as Frederick to create a limiter headband to keep his powers under control as well as to retain a human appearance. It’s also during this time that he created the completed Outrage, an Anti-Gear weapon of immense power.
It wasn’t until 2073 that things started to move forward again. That Man completes Justice, the first Commander Gear, and puts her into motion to attack humanity in the next year. During this time, Sol started wandering the planet, going to destroy Gear “factories” and other facilities, although his attempts wouldn’t give much progress, and the Crusades would begin. He would continue his wandering and fighting Gears, only to end up saving a six-year old child that would later on have an enormous impact on his life- Kliff Undersn. This happened in 2099.
Sol continued his quest, his main goal now being that he would destroy all Gears and their creator: That Man. After he finished this, Sol vowed to destroy himself, thereby ending all Gears and the knowledge of their creation once and for all.
Eventually, during 2172, Sol decides to join the Holy Order under his “new” identity, now a bounty hunter going after Gears. In actuality, he was recruited by the very same man that he had saved over seventy years earlier: Kliff. There’s some idea that Kliff knew that Sol was the very same man that had saved him when he was a child, but he made no mention of it to anyone else, or Sol, for that matter. And even with Sol’s constant insubordination, Kliff still held him in his favor, even saying that he was still part of the Order if he left after he took Fuuenken.
Fuuenken is especially important to Sol, as it is one of the pieces of Outrage that he had made so long ago. It’s speculated that Kliff wanted Sol to take the sword back all along, therefore remembering the incident so long ago. Since the original timeline was corrected thanks to I-no’s intervention, there’s no need to go into that, but there was a major battle in 2173 in Rome where Ky was nearly killed. It’s also during this time that Sol confronted Justice himself for the first time. Frustrated that he couldn’t defeat her, he ended up taking Fuuenken with him.
Two years later, Kliff, Ky, and Sol fight Justice again, with the first only stopping after collapsing from exhaustion, Ky being miraculously spared, and Sol fighting Justice with Fuuenken. During Sol’s fight, his limiter is knocked off, revealing the mark on his forehead. Delighted, Justice attempted to exercise control over him, but to no avail, since Sol himself was the prototype, he had not been “programmed” to be under the orders of a Commander Gear. In her confusion, the rest of the Order was able to seal her away, allowing Sol enough time to get his limiter back on before it was revealed that he was a Gear. With this, the Crusades came to a close, and, disenchanted with their methods, Sol leaves with Fuuenken, earning Ky’s enmity.
After this, Sol went back to his usual bounty-hunting jobs, only coming out of the shadows when the rumors of Justice being revived were spread in 2180. He then entered the Second Holy Order Tournament in order to confirm the rumor and, if so, confront Justice directly to end things once and for all. It’s during this fight with her that he reveals his identity as the Prototype, which explains why she wasn’t able to gain control over him despite the fact that he’s a Gear as well. Sol then vowed to kill That Man afterward.
A year later, the events of the novel Lightning the Argent occur. Sol and Ky find out about the illegal activities of the Blackard company, which was trying to create a Commander Gear. Ky stops their plans of creating her as such, and Sol gives her his limiter (it’s speculated that he either built another or had a spare to put on later) in order to let her live a normal life as a human.
It’s only a few months after that when rumors of another Commander-type Gear would appear. Another tournament would be put into place with a large bounty on whoever could kill this new Gear. Sol eventually confronted this new Gear, Dizzy, but spared her life, surprisingly. Dizzy then ends up joining the Jellyfish Pirates and is claimed “dead”, with Jam Kuradoberi claiming the bounty.
But things didn’t stay peaceful for long. A servant of That Man’s, I-no, starts causing trouble only a few weeks after Dizzy’s defeat. Annoyed, Sol goes out to try and defeat her. During this time, he confronts Ky as well, and tells him to stay out of his business when the younger man asks him why he’s still fighting. After defeating I-no, he then confronts That Man, but is soundly defeated when all of his attacks are blocked. That Man then tells him that he shouldn’t die just yet because there will be something coming up that will “have greater impact than the Crusades”.
Sol Badguy is easily one of the most powerful characters in the Guilty Gear universe. Canonically, he is able to defeat Megadeath-class Gears (Second only to Commander-type) on his own with the limiter in place. Takes a while, but he can do it. Even so, such displays of raw power are rarely if at all used. Sol prefers to hold back on his opponents, only using what energy is necessary to take them down. Part of the reason for this seems to stem from the fact that he has Fuuenken in the first place. The weapon gives him an almost steady stream of magic to work with, therefore giving him the opportunity to constantly attack without having to worry about recharging his magic energy as much.
Another reason that can be attributed to Sol’s lazy fighting style is force of habit. Prior to gaining Fuuenken as a weapon, he was forced to conserve his energy, as recharging his magic would take some time to complete.
One would think that removing the limiter would make this much easier, and in all honesty, it probably would. However, removing the limiter, even for a short period of time, would incite one of two things. First, it would result in a release in energy that would be almost immediately recognizable as a Gear’s. Second, it breaks down his limiter a bit more each time, making it that much harder for him to retain his human form. Sol knows that the more he uses his powers as a Gear with the limiter on, the more his limiter will break down, which is why he’s almost constantly repairing it.
Even though Sol does try to go out of his way to avoid using too much power at one time, it’s sometimes something he can’t avoid. In this case, he initiates a move in his arsenal known as the Dragon Install. This move specifically unseals part of Sol’s Gear powers at the cost of him being temporarily worn down afterward. The aftereffects vary between versions, but they can range from slight fatigue to nausea to utter exhaustion depending on how much power he uses. The stronger versions of this move, in my opinion, bring out some of the features of Sol’s full-Gear form. Physically, this includes elongated fangs and nails, gold-yellow eyes with cat-like slits for pupils, and in the strongest versions, wings and a tail. As evidence from Guilty Gear 2: Overture shows, Sol can use the Dragon Install to the extent that he shows his full-Gear form. However, this is shown to be as a result of his limiter eroding greatly, and Sol only used this version of the attack in order to fight That Man.
While in any mode of Dragon Install, Sol gains significant boosts to his strength, speed and stamina. Essentially, he becomes a tank: he can take immense amounts of damage without flinching and deal it right back at his target(s). His techniques also become more powerful, often resulting in moves gaining fire attributes where they had none before.
There is, however, a major psychological effect, which only gains in duration when the technique is extended. Sol gains more of his personality when he was first converted as the Prototype: overly aggressive and violent, lashing out at anything that tries to get in his way.
Despite all his callousness, Sol’s a pretty complex character. He drives others away, trying to make sure that they don’t get close. This is mostly because of a deep self-hatred that he has. He hates himself for what he has become, so much so that he has gone as far as to call himself a monster because of it.
Even though his actions have saved and helped countless lives within the Guilty Gear world, Sol doesn’t do it for atonement or for the sake of helping. On the contrary, he helps if only to stop That Man’s plans, whether they help or not doesn’t make any difference to him. But this doesn’t mean that he’s ignorant of the consequences of his actions. Because of his experiences, Sol is extremely in tune with what is going on in the world and what the consequences of his actions entail.
He’s no martyr, either. The only way that Sol will willingly die for anything is if he knows that he’s stopped That Man once and for all. Unlike Ky, he does not have a savior complex. He will not throw his life away just to save someone else. This doesn’t mean that he won’t save anyone, though. He just tends to consider the situation thoroughly before acting.
In fact, Sol thinks things through more often than you might think. He heavily internalizes for all possibilities before acting. Sometimes he will act on impulse, he’s still somewhat human, after all. But for the most part, Sol will think things through before making his final move, often resulting in battles quickly won.
References used:
Dragon Install information
Guilty Gear timeline, Part 1
Guilty Gear timeline, Part 2
Gear classifications
Explainations on the Guilty Gear world as a whole
And as a special incentive to reading my rambling, the Guilty Gear 2: Overture OST. Or at least part of it. 8D; Here you go, kids!
To start off with, we'll start in on Sol's past pre-Gear Project. In other words, the time when he was still Frederick. Considering the fact that he was part of a project that was working on changing the very genetic makeup of humanity, he had to have been extremely intelligent. More than likely, he graduated early from both high school and college. And considering the nature of his job, Frederick met Axl Low for the first time while in college as well.
During his time in the Gear Project, Frederick was placed in the Human Enhancement Division of the project. The supposed goal of this group was to try and utilize the newly-discovered magic energy in order to try and enhance the life of humanity (i.e. cure disease and gain immortality). However, during the Project, Frederick began to get suspicious of his superiors’ intents. (2014)
And rightly so. At one point, he went to confront his boss (That Man) to find out why the division was suddenly getting cut off in terms of funding, during which he found out the true intentions of the Gear Project: to create a new breed of lifeform that could be used as disposable super-soldiers. To say the least, Frederick wasn’t amused. He demanded that the experiments would be stopped, and that he would leave if they were going to continue. However, That Man had plans for the researcher, and rendered him unconscious as he turned to leave. (2015)
The transformation that took place when Frederick became the Prototype Gear was a long and painful process. Numerous tests were conducted on him, including countless injections and many painful infusions into his very being. The end result in this was a complete transformation in the Prototype’s DNA, not human, but yet not an animal, either.
With all this going on, at one point, the Prototype snapped. Laying it wait, it feigned weakness from the sedatives it was given until the right time. Drawing in magical power, it escaped captivity, causing the lab that it was contained in to explode. Within the conflagration, That Man confronted the prototype, declaring that “I am not to blame for this, Frederick. You are the sole badguy in this situation.” (2016)
With its mind still fragmented, the Prototype fled the ruins of the facility. During its recovery, remnants of its memories as the human Frederick surfaced at random times, causing it to lash out. However, after some time, it created a new identity, merging the memories and intelligence of the human Frederick with the instinct and raw power of the Gear. Its new name: Sol Badguy.
Sol used his knowledge from his time as Frederick to create a limiter headband to keep his powers under control as well as to retain a human appearance. It’s also during this time that he created the completed Outrage, an Anti-Gear weapon of immense power.
It wasn’t until 2073 that things started to move forward again. That Man completes Justice, the first Commander Gear, and puts her into motion to attack humanity in the next year. During this time, Sol started wandering the planet, going to destroy Gear “factories” and other facilities, although his attempts wouldn’t give much progress, and the Crusades would begin. He would continue his wandering and fighting Gears, only to end up saving a six-year old child that would later on have an enormous impact on his life- Kliff Undersn. This happened in 2099.
Sol continued his quest, his main goal now being that he would destroy all Gears and their creator: That Man. After he finished this, Sol vowed to destroy himself, thereby ending all Gears and the knowledge of their creation once and for all.
Eventually, during 2172, Sol decides to join the Holy Order under his “new” identity, now a bounty hunter going after Gears. In actuality, he was recruited by the very same man that he had saved over seventy years earlier: Kliff. There’s some idea that Kliff knew that Sol was the very same man that had saved him when he was a child, but he made no mention of it to anyone else, or Sol, for that matter. And even with Sol’s constant insubordination, Kliff still held him in his favor, even saying that he was still part of the Order if he left after he took Fuuenken.
Fuuenken is especially important to Sol, as it is one of the pieces of Outrage that he had made so long ago. It’s speculated that Kliff wanted Sol to take the sword back all along, therefore remembering the incident so long ago. Since the original timeline was corrected thanks to I-no’s intervention, there’s no need to go into that, but there was a major battle in 2173 in Rome where Ky was nearly killed. It’s also during this time that Sol confronted Justice himself for the first time. Frustrated that he couldn’t defeat her, he ended up taking Fuuenken with him.
Two years later, Kliff, Ky, and Sol fight Justice again, with the first only stopping after collapsing from exhaustion, Ky being miraculously spared, and Sol fighting Justice with Fuuenken. During Sol’s fight, his limiter is knocked off, revealing the mark on his forehead. Delighted, Justice attempted to exercise control over him, but to no avail, since Sol himself was the prototype, he had not been “programmed” to be under the orders of a Commander Gear. In her confusion, the rest of the Order was able to seal her away, allowing Sol enough time to get his limiter back on before it was revealed that he was a Gear. With this, the Crusades came to a close, and, disenchanted with their methods, Sol leaves with Fuuenken, earning Ky’s enmity.
After this, Sol went back to his usual bounty-hunting jobs, only coming out of the shadows when the rumors of Justice being revived were spread in 2180. He then entered the Second Holy Order Tournament in order to confirm the rumor and, if so, confront Justice directly to end things once and for all. It’s during this fight with her that he reveals his identity as the Prototype, which explains why she wasn’t able to gain control over him despite the fact that he’s a Gear as well. Sol then vowed to kill That Man afterward.
A year later, the events of the novel Lightning the Argent occur. Sol and Ky find out about the illegal activities of the Blackard company, which was trying to create a Commander Gear. Ky stops their plans of creating her as such, and Sol gives her his limiter (it’s speculated that he either built another or had a spare to put on later) in order to let her live a normal life as a human.
It’s only a few months after that when rumors of another Commander-type Gear would appear. Another tournament would be put into place with a large bounty on whoever could kill this new Gear. Sol eventually confronted this new Gear, Dizzy, but spared her life, surprisingly. Dizzy then ends up joining the Jellyfish Pirates and is claimed “dead”, with Jam Kuradoberi claiming the bounty.
But things didn’t stay peaceful for long. A servant of That Man’s, I-no, starts causing trouble only a few weeks after Dizzy’s defeat. Annoyed, Sol goes out to try and defeat her. During this time, he confronts Ky as well, and tells him to stay out of his business when the younger man asks him why he’s still fighting. After defeating I-no, he then confronts That Man, but is soundly defeated when all of his attacks are blocked. That Man then tells him that he shouldn’t die just yet because there will be something coming up that will “have greater impact than the Crusades”.
Sol Badguy is easily one of the most powerful characters in the Guilty Gear universe. Canonically, he is able to defeat Megadeath-class Gears (Second only to Commander-type) on his own with the limiter in place. Takes a while, but he can do it. Even so, such displays of raw power are rarely if at all used. Sol prefers to hold back on his opponents, only using what energy is necessary to take them down. Part of the reason for this seems to stem from the fact that he has Fuuenken in the first place. The weapon gives him an almost steady stream of magic to work with, therefore giving him the opportunity to constantly attack without having to worry about recharging his magic energy as much.
Another reason that can be attributed to Sol’s lazy fighting style is force of habit. Prior to gaining Fuuenken as a weapon, he was forced to conserve his energy, as recharging his magic would take some time to complete.
One would think that removing the limiter would make this much easier, and in all honesty, it probably would. However, removing the limiter, even for a short period of time, would incite one of two things. First, it would result in a release in energy that would be almost immediately recognizable as a Gear’s. Second, it breaks down his limiter a bit more each time, making it that much harder for him to retain his human form. Sol knows that the more he uses his powers as a Gear with the limiter on, the more his limiter will break down, which is why he’s almost constantly repairing it.
Even though Sol does try to go out of his way to avoid using too much power at one time, it’s sometimes something he can’t avoid. In this case, he initiates a move in his arsenal known as the Dragon Install. This move specifically unseals part of Sol’s Gear powers at the cost of him being temporarily worn down afterward. The aftereffects vary between versions, but they can range from slight fatigue to nausea to utter exhaustion depending on how much power he uses. The stronger versions of this move, in my opinion, bring out some of the features of Sol’s full-Gear form. Physically, this includes elongated fangs and nails, gold-yellow eyes with cat-like slits for pupils, and in the strongest versions, wings and a tail. As evidence from Guilty Gear 2: Overture shows, Sol can use the Dragon Install to the extent that he shows his full-Gear form. However, this is shown to be as a result of his limiter eroding greatly, and Sol only used this version of the attack in order to fight That Man.
While in any mode of Dragon Install, Sol gains significant boosts to his strength, speed and stamina. Essentially, he becomes a tank: he can take immense amounts of damage without flinching and deal it right back at his target(s). His techniques also become more powerful, often resulting in moves gaining fire attributes where they had none before.
There is, however, a major psychological effect, which only gains in duration when the technique is extended. Sol gains more of his personality when he was first converted as the Prototype: overly aggressive and violent, lashing out at anything that tries to get in his way.
Despite all his callousness, Sol’s a pretty complex character. He drives others away, trying to make sure that they don’t get close. This is mostly because of a deep self-hatred that he has. He hates himself for what he has become, so much so that he has gone as far as to call himself a monster because of it.
Even though his actions have saved and helped countless lives within the Guilty Gear world, Sol doesn’t do it for atonement or for the sake of helping. On the contrary, he helps if only to stop That Man’s plans, whether they help or not doesn’t make any difference to him. But this doesn’t mean that he’s ignorant of the consequences of his actions. Because of his experiences, Sol is extremely in tune with what is going on in the world and what the consequences of his actions entail.
He’s no martyr, either. The only way that Sol will willingly die for anything is if he knows that he’s stopped That Man once and for all. Unlike Ky, he does not have a savior complex. He will not throw his life away just to save someone else. This doesn’t mean that he won’t save anyone, though. He just tends to consider the situation thoroughly before acting.
In fact, Sol thinks things through more often than you might think. He heavily internalizes for all possibilities before acting. Sometimes he will act on impulse, he’s still somewhat human, after all. But for the most part, Sol will think things through before making his final move, often resulting in battles quickly won.
References used:
Dragon Install information
Guilty Gear timeline, Part 1
Guilty Gear timeline, Part 2
Gear classifications
Explainations on the Guilty Gear world as a whole
And as a special incentive to reading my rambling, the Guilty Gear 2: Overture OST. Or at least part of it. 8D; Here you go, kids!