Ciel (Mega Man Zero)

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Ciel
Game series	Mega Man Zero series
First game	Mega Man Zero
Creator(s)	Keiji Inafune
Voice actor(s)	Rie Tanaka
In-Universe Information
Classification	Human
Loyalty	Resistance

Ciel (シエル, Shieru^?) is a fictional character in the Mega Man Zero video game series. Her name means "sky" in French. She is voiced by Rie Tanaka.

[edit] Character history

Ciel is a human and former Reploid researcher that worked for Neo Arcadia. When Mega Man X disappeared eight years before the events of Mega Man Zero begins, Ciel created Copy X to replace him. ^[1] Amazingly, Ciel is supposed to be aged 14 during Mega Man Zero, which means she built Copy X at the age of 6, making her a child prodigy. ^[2]

However, when the Neo Arcadia government began oppressing and executing Reploids to solve their energy crisis, Ciel migrated with Reploid refugees to a ruined city. Knowing they were being falsely accused, she decided she could not stand by helplessly, and she soon became somewhat of a mother figure to many of the Reploid refugees, particularly a young girl she named Alouette. Times grew more desperate, though, and she eventually found her only hope to be uncovering a legendary hero that most people didn't even believe in anymore: the legendary Maverick Hunter Zero. She sought and eventually found him, using one of her Cyber-Elves, Passy, to wake him up.

Zero, whose memory had been robbed, helped Ciel escape and then helped her with several missions for the Resistance. He kept protecting her dutifully, until he finally brought down Copy X.

After the fall of Copy X, Ciel and her band of Resistance members left their ruined base and joined up with another opposition group. Since that time, she has set herself to work on discovering a new source of energy to bring about peace, and handed off the reigns of running the Resistance off to Elpizo. With Zero's return to the Resistance, she redoubled her efforts to bring about peace.

During the time period covered in the second game of the Zero series, Ciel researched the possibility of using two Baby Elves as a source of energy. This system was not completed until some time between the second and third games, and was called the "Ciel System".

By the beginning of the third game, Ciel had completed the selftitled Ciel System and had sent the ruling body of government of Neo Arcadia notes describing the new energy system. Shortly after this, the scientist Dr. Weil assumed control of Neo Arcadia and attempted to force her to give him the system. Zero once again protected her and the Resistance from the forces of Neo Arcadia. Though defeated, Weil still controlled Neo Arcadia. Ciel, seeing this, decided to reform the Resistance Base into a mobile unit, able to travel to wherever they were needed.

As the fourth game began, Ciel, Zero, and the Resistance came across a human caravan fleeing Neo Arcadia. It is then explained that Dr. Weil controlled Neo Arcadia since Copy X's departure, and that they escaped because the once human nirvana had become dangerous thanks to Weil's rule. Even though the human refugees didn't appreciate their help, partially because of the Resistance's cooperation with reploids, Ciel asked Zero to aid them anyway. Working as the Resistance Base leader this time, Ciel helps Zero to stop Weil's new device, The Ragnarok, from destroying the new human encampment at Area Zero, which also happened to be where the Eurasia Colony fell at the end of X5. After a lengthy battle with Weil on the Ragnarok itself, they manage to save the humans and free Neo Arcadia from the clutches of Dr. Weil.

With this, peace between humans and Reploids had finally been achieved after their hundreds of years of war. Yet the price was heavy as Zero dies on Ragnarok when it breaks apart and burns to bits in the atmosphere. Despite Zero's habit of ressurecting, it is decidedly impossible for him to have survived this time. Yet he had finally achieved the ultimate peace that X had been searching for ever since the beginning.

During the fourth game's credits, Ciel falls on her knees and cries from Zero's death as Ragnarok's pieces fell from the starlit sky. At the credit's end, she stands up strong and dries her tears, promising to the missing Zero that she would not make Zero's sacrifice to have been in vain and that she would keep the eternal peace between humans and Reploids that Zero had finally been able to create. She then finalizes by saying that she knows Zero is still alive somewhere, and that she knows he will come back because she believes in him.

The fourth game's final scene shows Zero's broken helmet, lying on the broken ground where Ragnarok's pieces fell - with Zero nowhere in sight.

In Megaman ZX, it is revealed that Prairie's 'Sis' was actually Ciel, who designed the 6 Biometals. However, Prairie isn't Ciel's biological sister, as she was a reploid created by Ciel a hundred years ago. Ciel has gone missing since an investigation of the outer areas.

[edit] Personality

One overwhelming word that could be used to describe Ciel's character is compassionate. She has a deep and sincere emotion for all she sees suffering. For this reason, she helps Reploids. But ironically, it is also for this reason that she feels guilt for having Zero risk life and limb, as well as for having been the one to create Copy X, which was one of the reasons why the Reploids where being hunted down anyway. It is not his duty to do so, and she feels selfish to ask so much of him when he asks so little in return. This is the same emotion that makes her care for all of her Resistance members, but works against itself.

Although more of a scientist than a fighter or leader, Ciel finally takes a stand and commands their group during the fourth Megaman Zero game in a trailer-type resistance base. Helping Zero with saving data or just helpful caring advice, she had matured a lot since the first game.

One of Ciel's highest passions is her surrogate Reploid daughter, Alouette, who she cares for seemingly deeper than anyone in the world. It has been said that Ciel can relax no matter what's happening, as long as Alouette is close-by. Alouette of course, feels the same way towards Ciel.

Many fans of the series believe that there is some romantic connection between her and Zero. Her compassion towards Zero before, during, and after every mission seems more complex than her connection with other characters, thus hinting that she may have fallen for Zero.