This story was written as a Father's Day present for my dad a few years ago. The Cruxis core system, which is implied to be a computer of some sort, is mentioned twice in the game – both times by Kratos. So, I thought it would be interesting to invent a few more details about the system based on my own experience with computers. Credit goes to Namco for the awesomeness that is Tales of Symphonia and to a certain university (which shall remain nameless) for its arcane and frustrating network-connection procedures.
Core System
The knock at the door to Yuan's chambers was noticeably hesitant. "Lord Yuan?" an angel's voice called from the hallway.
This can't be good, Yuan thought, glancing up in irritation from the ancient manuscript he had been skimming though. What the hell is going on now? "Enter," he called impatiently.
The door swung open, and Remiel flew in. Yuan suppressed a grimace of distaste. The green-clad blond angel was the most ambitious of Yggdrasill's aides. Not quite up to Kvar's level of overambition, Yuan admitted – that arrogant Grand Cardinal had certainly been a tremendous headache this week! – but still ambitious enough to be highly irritating.
"What is this all about?" Yuan demanded.
"Lord Yuan, your assistance is needed with the Derris-Kharlan core system."
Damn. I don't need this interruption. And I thought everyone knew that I'm no expert on the core system. "What sort of assistance?"
"Lord Yggdrasill did not specify. He only instructed me to bring you down at once."
Yuan frowned in puzzlement. It had to be pretty bad if he was being pressed into service, regardless of Kratos' absence. "Hmmm. I'm not sure I can help, but I suppose I'd better go anyway." I'll finish looking for information about the Eternal Sword later, I suppose.
"So what's wrong with the core system?" Yuan asked, surveying the assembly before him. The five Desian Grand Cardinals and half a dozen angel aides stood clustered around the shaft that housed the mainframe of the organization's central computer system. In the background, present but not actively part of the proceedings, hovered the Lord of Cruxis, Yggdrasill. Was it just Yuan's imagination, or was there a faint worry line between the eyebrows of his former friend, the ancient-hero-turned-evil-overlord? Admittedly, it was very rare for all five of the Cardinals to be present at Central Headquarters simultaneously. That was not a good sign.
"It seems to have crashed," Pronyma replied, evidently the spokesperson. "We have been unable to determine how or why this has occurred, Lord Yuan. Perhaps you can sort this out?"
"At first we thought the network was down again," added Forcystus. "However, usually when there is a network failure, one of us can come here and access whatever we need to in order to get it up and running again."
"And ... you haven't been able to do that this time?" Yuan asked bemusedly.
"Correct." Forcystus nodded sharply in the direction of the shaft.
"Did you try shutting down and restarting—" Yuan began, but he was interrupted by Rodyle.
"It didn't work," snapped the bespectacled Cardinal.
"What?"
"Rebooting the entire comm-net didn't work. We weren't able to do it in the first place," Rodyle expanded, clearly irritated by the present lack of a solution.
"How, didn't work? All you have to do is log into the system from right here and command anything which is experiencing problems to shut down and restart. If that doesn't work, the system should instruct you to disengage the locks on the necessary access panels to the main shaft so you can manually shut down and restart ... whatever components you need to restart," Yuan answered, faltering slightly at the end. He was lucky to remember as much as he did. Dammit, Kratos, he thought furiously. What the hell is the matter with your supposedly-foolproof computer system? I don't know any of this stuff!
"Apparently the problem centers around signing into the core system itself." Yggdrasill spoke up for the first time, floating forward. "None of them have been able to do that. Will you try, now, so that this ... annoying little mishap ... can be resolved?"
Yuan heaved a sigh. "Well ... I'll give it a shot. No guarantees."
"Thank you, Lord Yuan," Pronyma said coolly.
Yuan didn't reply; he was too busy concentrating, in an attempt to recall all that Kratos had ever taught him about the computer system that was the closest thing Cruxis had to a heart and soul. The closest thing this benighted crew has to a heart and soul ... other than Martel, anyway... No, don't think about that! This was no time to let a grief he should have laid to rest centuries ago take him over. Biting his lip, he presented his identification to the scanner and punched in his personal code. The machine gave a rude "blaaaaatt" in response, and red text flashed across the screen.
Yuan returned the computer's rudeness in kind with a hiss of "Dammit...!"
He'd tried everything he could think of, but the system simply refused to let him or anyone else sign in. Confused and frustrated, Yuan gave up.
"Even you cannot make it work?" Yggdrasill asked him, sounding slightly alarmed.
"No," Yuan returned. "It's no good. I don't know how to fix this, I really don't."
"Can't we just R.T.F.M.?" asked Rodyle impatiently.
Yggdrasill looked puzzled at this remark. "What?"
"Read the manual," Forcystus clarified, cutting out the expletive. "That would be the sensible thing to do, under any other circumstances. We should have done that from the start. Except ... to my knowledge, the Cruxis core system has no manual. Correct?"
"It has to have a manual!" Rodyle insisted. "Something as big as the core system wouldn't have come without a manual. It's just too important!"
Yuan could feel his patience evaporating even more rapidly. "Rodyle, the core system wasn't bought. There is no place to buy something like that. It was built on-site, from what amounted to junk and spare parts at the beginning. Half the pieces were custom-made to the needed specifications. More than half! And it was programmed in similar fashion."
"Made and programmed by whom?" Pronyma inquired.
"Kratos," Yggdrasill sighed in irritation. He looked as if he wanted to say more but couldn't find words that were insulting enough.
Yuan decided not to point out the fact that Kratos hadn't quite done everything himself. Some of the details, like setting up the communications network that connected the Desians' systems at the outlying sites to the central Cruxis computer, Kratos had delegated to his brother seraph ... and regretted it, when Yuan had proven himself to be less adept at computer engineering. Hence the frequent comm-net failures that the Cardinals were so used to dealing with.
Kvar swore under his breath. Yuan pretended not to hear the cardinal mutter, "Pathetic inferior being ... no wonder it's broken!" This was not a good time to start sniping at Kvar, no matter how good it would feel to vent several weeks' buildup of frustration...
Forcystus glanced sharply at the machine. "Do you think he might have deliberately sabotaged it, before he left? Just to cause us even more trouble?"
"Maybe," Yuan replied dubiously. "Although my impression of him was that he always considered himself above that sort of thing."
"Apparently not," Pronyma answered. "So much for Lord Kratos' high-and-mighty sense of honor."
"Human vermin," Magnius growled. "It would have been easy for him to hit it with his sword a few times on the way out..."
"No," an angel aide spoke up, "the machine has sustained no physical damage that we can detect."
Magnius' scarred face twisted into a confounded expression. That brute just can't bend his mind around the idea of breaking something without whacking the hell out of it, Yuan thought. Fool.
"Kratos' Flamberge would have made a very big, smoldering dent in that thing, if he'd used it," Kvar pointed out.
You'd know best what that blade can do, wouldn't you, Yuan managed to keep himself from saying aloud. He stifled a smirk at the recollection of how much damage Kratos had inflicted on Kvar and his facility, during their raid on Asgard Human Ranch to rescue Botta. All hell had literally broken loose then – Kratos, displaying a rare inability to stick to one plan, had decided to free all of the ranch's captives. It had been intended as a covering move to confuse their enemies, but of course things had quickly gotten out of hand. By the time they were done, the parts of the ranch that hadn't exploded had burned nearly to the ground.
"He must have done something with the system code, or some subprogram, before he left," Kvar continued, bringing Yuan back to the present.
"A system-wide lockout, on a time-delay," Forcystus mused. "That seems likely."
"So how do we unlock it?" Rodyle demanded.
"We can't," Yuan replied through clenched teeth. "Even my admin capabilities don't go this far, they're still too limited compared to Kratos'. You saw how I couldn't even log in. Kratos is the only one who can unlock this system, in its current state. Or so I would assume, since I can do nothing."
"But..." Pronyma put in desperately, "Lord Yggdrasill, don't you have administrative powers in the system as well? Can't you override Kratos somehow?"
The leader of Cruxis shook his head. "Regrettably, no. When the need first arose for a core computer system, I delegated the entire project to Kratos. He was the one who had suggested the use of one centralized system in the first place. I, having other responsibilities, never saw the need to do anything with the system while it was under Kratos' care, so not only do I lack administrative capabilities, I have no account whatsoever in the Cruxis computer network."
Speak truth, Mithos. You thought messing about with a computer system was beneath you. That's why you never had anything to do with it while it was still working, Yuan griped mentally. And now it's too late to correct your mistake...
"So we're completely screwed, is that it?" Rodyle's voice rose to a strangled yelp, interrupting Yuan's thoughts yet again.
"Basically, yes!" snarled Yuan. "You want a manual for the core system, Rodyle? Fine! Hand me a piece of paper and something to write with, and I'll make you a manual! It'll be exactly four words long: Go ask Lord Kratos. That's the closest thing anyone can give you to a manual! Because the REAL manual, insomuch as there is one, is all in Kratos' head! He IS the Derris-Kharlan core system! Or he was, before he decided to resign his post!"
"Enough, Yuan," Lord Yggdrasill cut in. His false-adult voice quivered with ill-concealed fury – at Kratos, at Yuan, at the general situation ... at himself, for not deigning to get involved with the computer system before now? Not knowing the exact source of the Lord of Cruxis' anger, Yuan desisted, having already made his point.
Rodyle, Kvar, and Magnius all fumed silently. Forcystus just shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose with his one hand. Pronyma glanced worriedly back and forth between Yuan, Yggdrasill, and the other Grand Cardinals. The angel aides, still hovering around the edges of the scene, were all as blank-faced as ever, except for Remiel, who was frowning slightly.
Yuan sighed. "If you don't need me for anything else, I have work I need to get back to. I suppose if you want answers, you can try tracking Kratos down ... although Kvar already failed quite, ah, spectacularly at actually capturing him. Did you finally manage to put all the fires out?" he inquired as an afterthought.
It was a cheap jab, but it was still effective. The blond Cardinal was left spluttering in rage and humiliation as Yuan, not bothering to wait for a reply, flew off.
"Can you describe the problem with the system?" Kratos asked, frowning.
They were in Yuan's office at the Renegade base near Triet. Unable to retrieve anything from Cruxis' crippled computer, Yuan had snatched as many likely-looking documents as he could from the libraries in Vinheim castle. The various books, papers, and scrolls would scarcely be missed, Yuan had decided. Yggdrasill never went into the libraries anymore. Surely something in there could provide the clues Kratos needed, to find a way to use the Eternal Sword...
"It won't let anyone in," Yuan replied. "Everyone is completely locked out, including me. Yggdrasill, having no account, has no hope of overriding anything either, naturally. The Cardinals weren't pleased."
"Hmm."
"It just says 'Invalid user account - primary administrator permission needed' whenever anyone tries to sign on," Yuan added.
Kratos looked up from the scroll he had been reading. "Oh," he said, in a voice of enlightenment, then added, "That's not a problem, Yuan."
"Not a problem?" Yuan exclaimed. "Kratos, do you have any idea how pissed Yggdrasill is about this? And the Grand Cardinals?"
"I'm sorry. I should have been more clear. What I meant to say was, that's not a problem with the Derris-Kharlan core system. It's working perfectly," Kratos stated matter-of-factly.
"What?" Yuan asked. "Oh. So you did reprogram it before you left. Forcystus suspected as much..."
"No," Kratos replied, with a slight shake of his head. "I didn't even think to do anything with the system, when I stormed out."
You were THAT angry? Yuan wisely didn't ask. He opened his mouth to ask another question but shut it again quickly as Kratos drew a deep breath and prepared to continue.
"However, sabotage would have been redundant," Kratos went on. "What is happening now is a result of some of the earliest system programming I put into place. It was meant to be a safeguard, back in the day when we feared that we would be discovered, attacked, and somehow all killed. This particular safeguard was meant to keep a conquering enemy from being able to use the core system for their own purposes." He paused, with a regretful sigh. "Now, of course, hardly anyone would believe the truth about Cruxis and the Desians even if we told it to them. Demonstrably."
"Hmm?" Yuan had been tracking just fine, until that last remark. "What do you mean, 'demonstrably'?"
"Never mind. I shouldn't have said that. In any case, the core system is programmed so that it cannot function without a certain degree of monitoring by its administrator. So if I don't log into the system for over a month, it assumes I'm dead and locks itself up completely, unless I input an administrative override code before leaving, to allow the system to continue to run in my absence."
Yuan, seeing where this was going, allowed a half-smile to creep onto his face. "And you didn't even enter that code before you left?"
"It must have slipped my mind," Kratos said mildly, returning his gaze to the scroll in his hands.
"I'm sure," Yuan grinned. He actually wasn't sure at all whether Kratos had deliberately left the core system to lock itself shut, or whether the erstwhile admin really had been too angry to remember to do anything with the system upon departure. It doesn't matter, he reflected. Cruxis is just as screwed either way.
"I still remember the code. But I've never actually had to use it, in the nearly three and a half thousand years the system has existed. Field assignments were a rare thing for me, by the time I built the core system, and I've never had any assignments since then that forced me to leave Derris-Kharlan long enough to trigger a lockout," Kratos added, by way of explanation.
"Oh, and I'm sure you're deeply sorry you forgot to unlock the system before you left!"
"Actually, I'm not the least bit sorry, although I admit it is rather inconvenient not to be able to access any of the data files concerning the Eternal Sword," Kratos answered without looking up. "And we can't look up anything else about the Angelus Project, either. Damn."
Yuan could see no point in poking around any further with regard to the Angelus Project, since the surviving subjects listed in the files had been rescued and Kvar's ranch had been rendered inoperable. He decided to let it go. "But Kratos ... Yggdrasill, Cruxis, and the Desians will be doubling their search for you, in the wake of all this. Doesn't that worry you?"
"No," came the reply, "not particularly."
"Why not?"
Kratos sighed again, sounding slightly annoyed this time. "Think it through, Yuan."
Yuan did. "Because they'll have to kill you to stop you, and you're no good to them dead since no one else can fix the core system for them? As well as the matter of Origin's seal?"
"Yes. Given their situation, they must attempt a capture, which I can either evade or break out of. A seraph can easily overpower a Desian Cardinal – as we've seen – and Yggdrasill would consider it beneath him to come after me himself. The only other person I have to worry about is you..."
"...And we're on the same side in opposing the Age of Lifeless Beings," Yuan finished. "Is that it. I see..."
"That isn't all," Kratos said, with the tone of someone about the deliver an unshakable argument. He looked up at Yuan again. "You see, Anna encouraged me to continue in my quest to stop Yggdrasill's madness, once I managed to convince her of the truth. She was very adamant, even insisting that she would do everything in her power to help me. I, however, do not think it is a good idea to let her become further involved. I must not..." He cut himself off abruptly, breaking eye contact as he did. Then he drew a steadying deep breath and concluded, "So, there is nothing other than death that will stop me now."
Kratos' eyes were distant, and Yuan could hardly fail to notice that his friend was gazing toward the Renegade base infirmary, where Anna was being attended by the medical staff. The rest of Kratos' face, behind his curtain of coppery hair, was set with determination.
Yuan hadn't seen his friend look like that since the Ancient War, back when there had still been some hope of a brighter future for the world...
"...I see," Yuan murmured. "I'll leave you to it, then, and do what I can to impede the search for you. I have no desire to see you die, you know, especially not before Yggdrasill's insane plans can be dismantled. But you're right about one thing..."
"Oh?"
"It's very inconvenient that we can't access the Derris-Kharlan core system either, since I'm locked out and you would unlock it for everyone by signing in. But it's especially inconvenient that I can't use anything from the system to aid the Renegades."
"Your Renegades," Kratos said firmly, "should have their own computer system, separate from the Cruxis network. It's much better security, among other things."
"Can you help us set one up?" Yuan asked hopefully.
"Hmph. I suppose so. I have other matters to address first, however. And I can't be the administrator this time. You'll have to learn how to do that yourself."
"Oh hell..." Yuan winced and put his hands over his head.
Much to Yuan's annoyance, Kratos couldn't quite hold back a smile at his brother seraph's dismay.