Paradise Lost

What is Paradise Lost?

For more details, see the Wikipedia page on the subject.

Paradise Lost is an epic poem about the Fall of Man, written by the english poet John Milton. The two arcs of the poem center around Satan after his fall, and Adam and Eve before and after they eat of the Tree of Knowledge.

Who is Lumine?

Lumine is a Reploid, a man-made machine with humanlike intelligence and feelings, and the leader of the Reploid rebellion in Megaman X8. Sigma, the preceeding leader of eight of the earlier Maverick Uprisings revived into an incomplete, demonic form possessed and animated by the Sigma Virus, acted as Lumine's tactical cover-slash-sockpuppet and, more or less, his second-in-command.

Lumine was kidnapped at the beginning of the game by Vile (whose last appearance prior to this game was in Megaman X3), portraying him as a victim and diverting the attention of Hunters away from himself. He used that occasion to launch his occupation and distract the forces capable of foiling his plan with a decoy Maverick Uprising to buy time for the Reploids' escape into space.

Before the events of the game, Lumine was the director of the orbital elevator Jakob, which connects to the mobile space module Gateway to allow access to the moon. He secretly planned and orchestrated the creation of the Sigma Palace, the base of operations from which he would supervise the false Maverick Uprising destined to stall the Maverick Hunters to complete his plan to leave the earth with his followers.

And, finally, despite his intentionally androgynous appearance which was supposed to allude to the genderless angels, I consider Lumine to be male as is the default for gender-ambiguous Reploids (mostly animal-type Reploids).

How do the two relate?

I believe that, beyond Megaman X8 having "Paradise Lost" as a subtitle, there are other connections between the Fall of Man and Lumine's decision.

Lumine's role in the game seems to mirror that of Lucifer in Paradise Lost, albeit not in exact chronological order. Lumine rebels against the human creators of the Reploid, and leads his fellow robots to rebel and take away valuable space exploration resources. He also tried to reason with Megaman X and bring him to his side, before he fought against him, Zero and Axl in a final battle and ultimately lost.

He did however leave his mark in Axl, in the form of a tiny shard of himself in Axl's head. After completing the game with Axl striking the final blow against Lumine, an alternate appearance and armor for Axl is unlocked, and it offers enhanced abilities, a color scheme that resembles Lumine's very closely, and heals the scar on Axl's face and turns his eyes yellow like Lumine's. It's believed that the shard of Lumine causes that alternate, nameless armor to appear.

What's the link between all this and the InsaneJournal layout?

Absolutely nothing! :) I just wanted to blather about that and show off and fill some stuff into my wiki.

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