Neo Arcadia

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A picture of Neo Arcadia, from the booklet to Remastered Tracks Rockman Zero 3 - Telos.

Neo Arcadia (ネオ・アルカディア, Neo Arukadia^?) is a fictional city-state in the Mega Man Zero series, produced by Capcom and created by Keiji Inafune and Inticreates Ltd. In the Mega Man Zero games, the protagonist, Zero, and the rest of the Resistance battle against Neo Arcadia's persecution of reploids, the intelligent robots of the Mega Man series.

Neo Arcadia is hinted at in Mega Man X5, when Mega Man X expresses his wish to build an "Elysium" where humans and reploids can coexist, ^[1] but it is first introduced in Mega Man Zero, where it is instead a technologically-advanced dystopia.

[edit] History

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Neo Arcadia is introduced in Mega Man Zero, and the player is introduced to as Zero is introduced to it: Zero, just woken from a century-long stasis, discovers that he is now in a dystopia where Reploids are horrifically oppressed. Joining with Ciel, the human leader of the Resistance against the Neo Arcadian government, he discovers that this oppression is apparently at the direct order of his comrade, Mega Man X, now leader of Neo Arcadia. As the game progresses, however, it is revealed that this isn't the original X, but, instead Copy X, a copy of X Ciel had build after the disappearance of the original. Zero defeats and deposes this imposter, and leaves Neo Arcadia.

Mega Man Zero 2 reveals that the Resistance's battle against Neo Arcadia was far from over, however. The three remaining members of the Four Guardians, Copy X's generals, have continued rule in his stead, and the death of Copy X, much like the death of X himself, has been covered up. When Zero returns this time, he discovers that the Resistance is under the leadership of Elpizo, who is obsessed with destroying Neo Arcadia. Zero is forced to intervene to stop Elpizo's overzealous plan, and eventually destroys him when Elpizo destroys X's body and unlocks the destructive power of the Dark Elf.

Near the beginning of Mega Man Zero 2, Ciel describes how Neo Arcadia became so oppressive. As Neo Arcadia grew, a shortage of energy developed. ^[2] Instead of dealing with these issues, instead Neo Arcadia made a scapegoat of its Reploid citizens, blaming them for the growing energy consumption. Copy X, who lacked the emotional maturity of his namesake, ^[3] grew willing to sacrifice the reploids for the sake of the humans, and under his command reploids were indiscriminately and randomly labeled "mavericks" and executed.

In Mega Man Zero 3, it is revealed that the founding of Neo Arcadia is placed after the end of the "Maverick Wars" (the events of Megaman X series) and the "Elf Wars", two world wide battles in the fictional Mega Man Universe. These wars cost many Reploids and human lives and in Mega Man Zero 3, a cutscene reveals that the Elf Wars are responsible for the destruction of 90% of the Reploid population and 60% of humans. ^[4]Events later in the game revealed that Dr Weil had manipulated the scenes and surfaced as the dictator of Neo Arcadia by legal means of Ordinance 8.

In Mega Man Zero 4, the city-state suffers from Weil's persecution and amid the crisis of Neo Arcadia and dissidents living in Area Zero, the city-state was fired by Weil's own Ragnarok cannon, destroying it totally although Weil survived. It is most likely that Neo Arcadia will cease to exist, based on the fact that humans and Reploids in Mega Man ZX have found their own nations elsewhere.

It is hinted that Neo Arcadia is located somewhere in the Horn of Africa region based on a screen shot of Ragnarok from spacing firing onto Earth in Mega Man Zero 4.

Mega Man X is credited in the backstory of the videogames as having founded Neo Arcadia on the basis of preventing any more bloodshed and providing the stability needed to maintain said peace. Unfortunately, during the later stages of the organization's development, Mega Man X disappeared to utilize his body to seal the destructive power of the Dark Elf, which had contributed to the conflict in the "Elf War" years prior. ^[5] This left Neo Arcadia without a governing leader and troubled the lack of X's presence would be detrimental on the society quickly directed a young scientist named Ciel to construct a replacement, appropriately named Copy X. ^[6]