The following are true events that absolutely happen in Xenoblade Chronicles X. You have to clear Telethia, the Endbringer 777 times wearing nothing but the Six Stars Ritual armor set, on foot, using only Backslash. And you can't be disconnected from the server during the entire duration or you have to start over, after a Nintendo representative chops your Wii U in half with a katana.

Due to the stringent requirements, I am the only person on the entire planet to have unlocked these cutscenes. Out of the goodness of my heart, I have decided to publish a transcript so that nobody else has to go through through the same purgatory. By no means have I made up any of the following in a sardonic rage following my experience of the half-baked, clearly incomplete storyline of Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Lemme tell you, though, the gameplay's pretty fun.

30-something years before the start of Xenoblade Chronicles X

Location: The Oval Office
Time: 9:48 PM, for no significant reason

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, SWEEPING INTO THE ROOM AND SITTING BEFORE STEEPLING FINGERS: "Break it down for me."

A SWEATING, HARRIED AIDE: "Mr. President, we have encountered alien life."

"Tell me what we know."

"The extraterrestrial is a nubile English-speaking woman who is completely indistinguishable from a normal human being aside from having blue hair. She claims that in 30 years, an alien force will annihilate the Earth."

"... Hawt."

"What about her claims, sir? They have species-wide ramifications, but are completely unverifiable. I don't think the rest of the world is going to believe us."

"What's she wearing?"

"Er, a skintight black jumpsuit with high heels and an exposed bodice, sir."

"Man, I love it when the Japanese write the future."

Many long, tedious debates later

Location: Project EXODUS HQ
Time: Who cares

ENGINEER 1: "So what's the plan?"

SOME OTHER ENGINEER: "The plan is to digitize humanity's consciousnesses and store them on quantum drives. A select few will be transferred into robotic bodies called mimeosomes in order to staff the crew, maintain the drives, defend against attackers, etc."

"That's incredible."

"These mimeosomes are designed to perfectly emulate the human body. Rather than constructing these vital cyborg protectors with valuable functions such as fast thought processing, eidetic memory, night vision, extreme survivability, wireless communication, or built-in laser guns, our scientists have successfully spent 85% of our projected budget on duplicating human tear ducts."

"I'm so glad I'll be able to express myself emotionally over the more pressing needs of humanity's survival!"

"Yeah, right? I don't know if I'd be able to stop myself from questioning what it means to be a human being if these mimeosomes weren't as human-like as possible."

"The best part is how incredible care has been put into emulating a human body due to the concerns of the board about playing god, but the mimeosomes are arbitrarily able to jump 300 ft. and constantly run at 35 MPH!"

"The military wants to be put in Terminator robots capable of surviving without oxygen, food, or water, fitted with a communications array, flight capabilities, and dangerous armaments. I told 'em we simply didn't have the technology."

"I can't believe they were willing to throw away our species' heritage in the name of protecting our species' heritage. What a bunch of jokers!"

After spending a few decades strip-mining the entire planet

Location: Project EXODUS HQ
Time: why is this even here

AIDE: "Sir, Project Exodus is going as planned. It's time to draw up the personnel lists."

PROJECT EXODUS DIRECTOR, THAT GUY THEY NAMED MIRA AFTER: "Excellent. Now, let's review the qualifications."

"Yes sir."

"In order to qualify as one of the mimeosome crew members of one of the many ARK ships, a candidate would have to be prepared for any situation. We require individuals with superb technical knowledge to ensure smooth operation as we transit. Given that we have no knowledge of our foes or any other planets we might flee to, we need professional, emotionally stable, resourceful individuals who are capable of dealing with and surviving as many situations as possible. Additionally, they'll have to be skilled in combat operations given the high likelihood that they will encounter hostility from alien forces."

"That sounds about right, sir."

"OK. I need you to ensure that as many worthless civilians, mentally unstable psychopaths, space racists, and death row criminals are signed on as crew as possible."

"What about military, sir?"

"Make sure all of them are as unstable and unprofessional as possible. So unprofessional that they don't confirm kills, simply stand around and stare/give monologues instead of reacting to dire situations, openly defy orders, forge alliances in the field with absolutely no intelligence but gut feelings, and walk at a leisurely pace when the survival of humanity as a species is on the line. So unstable that the death of a comrade or a loved one instantly turns them into serial killers."

"Sounds very good, sir. I have just the people in mind."

Some time later, during which humanity has devoted the entire planet's resources to building giant spaceships

Location: Project EXODUS Construction Bay 12
Time: flies when you're having fun?

CHIEF ENGINEER VANDHAM: "So what's all this?"

SOME BROWN-NOSING ENGINEER: "Chief Vandham! Colonel Elma, who was advanced in military rank despite a complete lack of experience and professionalism, is supervising the construction of something called a Trion shield to surround the Lifehold. Apparently, it's some kind of forcefield that is completely impervious to alien energy attacks."

"Completely impervious?"

"COMPLETELY impervious. To everything except penultimate bosses, sir."

"That sounds incredible. So incredible, in fact, that I won't question why no more of these are produced on an individual scale to protect our soldiers or on a larger scale to protect, perhaps, an entire ship."

"A device like that would be laughably useful."

"Sure would. By the way, I need you to drop a memo to the engineers constructing the Lifehold."

"What is it?"

"I need them to waste as much space in its construction as humanly possible. Not kidding here! When you enter the Lifehold, it should be as spacious as the fucking Sistine Chapel. The majesty of it should blow your goddamn mind. It should be so distracting you will stand and stare for about a minute, engrossed in its glory, instead of performing whatever vital function (say, turning on the backup power) that you were sent to do."

"We'll get a gothic architect on it right away, sir."

"Super slow elevators."

"Already on the list, sir."

"Also, ensure that there is absolutely no protection surrounding the quantum drives in case of such emergencies as flooding, emergency impacts, extreme temperature differentials, etc. You know, common things that might occur when traveling through uncharted space or potentially crash landing on unknown planets. And in the very likely case of fragmentation on atmospheric entry, I'm sure that a locator signal won't be needed at all. After all, it would be much more efficient and adventurous to comb the entire surface of a planet by foot."

"Indubitably, sir."

"Now, we're going to need some kind of defense system in case the core is breached by enemy forces."

"Hmmm. How about automated turrets? Forcefields? Neurotoxins?"

"No, all of that sounds far too practical, efficient, and possibly successful. Here, I've got it: an impractically slow system that generates horrible, uncontrollable monstrosities out of the limited genetic material we are going to need to reconstitute the human race. As these creatures are generated, onlookers will be forced to confront their nature as deterministic combinations of genetic material and suffer existential crises."

"How aptly poetic. We'll get right on it."

"Oh, and one more thing?"

"Yes sir?"

"Make sure you throw away all the backup drives. Redundancy is for chumps!"

"I'd expect nothing less from the brilliant mind of our chief engineer!"

On the eve of the destruction of Earth

Location: McDonald's
Time: Lunch

FIRST OFFICER: "Sir, the extraterrestrials have entered the solar system. We can expect to see combat in Earth's vicinity within hours. We need to begin evacuating ASAP."

CAPTAIN MAURICE CHAUSSON, TURNING TO ADDRESS THE CREW OF THE WHITE WHALE WHILE FRIES DRIP FROM HIS MOUTH: "This is it, people! Remember to stick to the plan."

"Sir, what is the plan?"

"We're going to fly straight through the crossfire and pray we don't get vaporized."

"That sounds like a terrible idea."

"Don't worry, crew. Precautions have been taken to ensure our survival."

"What are those precautions?"

"The main characters will be flying with us instead of the Russians."

"Genius."

After crash-landing on Mira

Location: New Los Angeles
Time: Quack O'Clock

DOUG: "Man, you seem really down, Lao."

LAO: "Hey Doug. I'm just so torn up about how my family didn't make it onto the White Whale."

"That's a real bummer, man. It sounds just like how essentially everybody's families didn't make it onto the White Whale and in fact how technically NOBODY made it onto any White Whale anywhere. Except for that one hot alien chick."

"Yeah, but my family was super special so my angst is super special. It seriously grinds my gears how unscrupulous Project EXODUS employees managed to staff this ship with a collection of worthless civilians, mentally unstable psychopaths, space racists, and death row criminals when they promised my family a slot."

"Yeah, not sure how that happened. But hey, on the bright side, at least completely incompetent former military like you and I were able to get on board very easily."

"It makes me so angry that I've decided to hold the entire race accountable for the illegal actions of a few unethical individuals, despite the fact that my family is still alive and by doing my job admirably I'll be able to see them again. Instead I'm going to demonstrate my undying love by ensuring their complete annihilation, along with the rest of humanity as a species, by selling out to our xenoform enemies."

"Lao, you crazy man. You just crazy."

"Thanks Doug. Dude, where are you going?"

"I have to go do another Skell Flight Module test. I can't wait to take a highly volatile experimental piece of equipment on a test flight in the vicinity of a dense civilian population center."

"You're doing God's work, Doug. I better take off too. I have to behave suspiciously around my team of trained soldiers while they fail to report my behavior up the chain of command like any functional pseudo-military organization would."

"See you around."

Sometime around Chapter 1

Location: Division Drive
Time: nope

IRINA: "Hey Gwin, did you ever notice how since Elma found that one crew member work started actually getting done around here?"

GWIN: "Yeah Lieutenant. Normally I'd be deeply ashamed of how every single other mission appears to end in disaster, but instead I'm too busy struggling with the deep-seated pain of being constantly friend-zoned by you."

"Did you know that this is the extent of the character development we're going to get over the course of this entire game?"

"It's a real shame I'm going to continue being memetically useless and you're going to continue being memetically Elma-sexual."

"Does anybody actually get any character development in this game?"

"... No."

After Nagi is recruited and completing the Affinity Mission "The Mission"

Location: In front of BLADE Tower, Administrative District
Time: waits for no man

SOME WEEABOO: "Defense Secretary Nagi! Why are you so awesome?"

DEFENSE SECRETARY KENTARO NAGI: "Because I'm Japanese, of course. Why else would I possess the most powerful, broken Art in this entire game, be the only recruitable party member to have 5 ability slots, and be able to flash step in cutscenes?"

"And those Wrothians! Why are they so awesome?"

"Because they're Japanese too, of course. Why else would they be presented as an unstoppable mercenary force based on the Eastern edicts of honor forced into servitude? Fortunately they have the incredible power to break free from their dishonored state in this video game because they are lightsaber katana wielding cat people, while in real life the country continues to languish under the foot of tyrannical Western imperalism! I especially enjoyed the amazing cutscene where Japan-I mean Wrothian soldiers annihilated the feeble American defense at the hangar, but they didn't want to do it so it wasn't really their fault!"

"Gosh, the Japanese are so honorable!"

"Yeah, right? I love how Ga Jiarg, the paragon of honor, demonstrated his incredible devotion to his code by allowing Elma's team to duel him for their freedom, only to go invincible during the battle and sic his lackeys on you!"

"Man, I wish I was Japanese so I could be that honorable!"

"This game was definitely written by completely neutral parties! You can tell because it's supposedly about America!"

"The best part about America is how all black people are either money-hungry backstabbers or psychopathic pizza store owners!"

"And how Asians drive the plot of this game by either being Chinese and therefore evil, or teenagers and therefore sex objects!"

"Hey, Linlee is definitely not a sex object and the censoring of her swimsuit costume in the Western release was totally unrelated!"

"And the main character of the game, unlike everybody else, is an alien, showing how this game is all about diversity and empowering minorities!"

"What about all the other culturally valuable and topical minorities that exist in real life?"

"The only minorities that matter are black people and homosexuals! Except the scriptwriters are only allowed to heavily imply the latter! Oh, and aliens, but only if they're hot."

"I love America almost as much as I love Japan!"

At an awkward time

Location: The Food Processing Center, Industrial District
Time: the most awkward possible

ELMA: "Celica, why do you have a British accent?"

CELICA: "I don't know."

ELMA: "Rock, why do you sound like a 10 year old child?"

ROCK: "I also don't know."

ELMA: "Do you do anything important in this game?"

CELICA: "... No."

Unsurprisingly

Location: Whatever dark cesspool the writers of this game wrote this game in
Time: Precisely 5 minutes and 25 seconds after answering the door only to find, to their horror, a smiling pair of Jehovah's Witnesses

WRITER 1: "Hey man, while we're trying to deal with the delicate issues of identity in this game's script, do you think we should touch on religion?"

WRITER 2: "Fuck religion!"

WRITER 1: "I'll do the standard 'all religions are delusional lies or secretly evil' spiel then."

How to definitely jinx it

Location: Outfitters' Yard, Industrial District
Time: Just before the Prog Ares gets stolen

DEEPLY SATISFIED ENGINEER: "Wow, the Prog Ares is possibly the greatest skell we've ever invented."

UNBELIEVABLY IRRESPONSIBLE ENGINEER: "I'll say."

"Should we put a password on it?"

"Nah."

Right before Chapter 12

Location: Prison? Who the hell knows
Time: deeply dramatic

GUARD: "So, Lao. How's life in the clink?"

LAO: "Pretty great, actually. I've been able to spend a lot of time not reflecting on how my immature, selfish, and irresponsible actions nearly brought about the destruction of the entire human race while busy receiving apparently no punishment at all."

"Wow. Sounds really deep. What changed your mind?"

"The opinion of a 13 year old Chinese girl I barely knew, but all the promotional material played up our relationship to the point of near familial status."

"Oh, Lin? The super genius teenager who somehow invented skell flight modules in her spare time, something not even allying with the hyper-advanced Ma-non, the Orpheans, or a fucking genius scientist from the future could accelerate or bypass?"

"Yeah, what's her name. I knew her and that rookie for like a month and they actually decided to prevent Elma from shooting me for some reason when the survival of the entire species was at stake."

"Speaking of Elma and her hypercompetent (except in cutscenes) team, I expect you know by now but they've gone to activate the backup power generator on the Lifehold Core."

"Yeah man. In fact, I'm really hoping that in a few moments you'll prove yourself so incompetent, you'll allow me, a known traitor with obvious emotional issues making me clearly unfit for duty, to pick up a skell and fly there so I can be the final boss of the game."

"Oh no worries. We both know that I have to do this so you can not redeem yourself at all for your previous heinous actions, which have already resulted in the deaths of countless BLADE members, and die a highly ironic death."

"What do you mean ironic? I was told it would be heroic and deeply meaningful."

"Well, if you hadn't betrayed BLADE in the first place, the enemy would have never retrieved the Vita, the only thing capable of breaching the Trion shield, which means you wouldn't have to go and do heroic things and could instead stay safe and sound in the brig. Or the Mimeosome Maintenance Center. Or whatever deeply insecure location we happen to secure prisoners in."

"So, in a way, even my own death is my own fault, huh."

"Well, it would be, except you don't even die."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah! You turn up after the credits having somehow survived at the feet of a mysterious hooded character."

"That's great! I bet every fan of Xenoblade Chronicles X will be thrilled to see me in the sequel. I'm the best character ever!"

I can't wait for the second half of the game to come out in 2 years! Except for Lao. That guy sucks.