Predictions and Observations:
The Facility II

Episode Aired: October 25, 2008
This Post Posted: October 30, 2008

Looking back over duels with cross-backs ("On Your Mark..." and "A Blast From the Past"), I notice that they come with really important lines. Trudge crossed-back right before he said, "Your deck's made up of cards others threw away, and no matter how you patch it up, trash is still trash!". Jack did right after he said, "You never WERE much of a fighter!" and before "Haven't you LEARNED, Yusei? You can't just cower and hide and hope to survive."

"If I don't step up, I'll never live it down." Not only is that a very well-said line, but this isn't the first time. It reminds me of Yusei's chance to take Stardust and back down; he couldn't have lived that down, either.

Who does Yunagi think Yusei is? Does Yunagi know about Signers? Have they met before?

Yusei replies to Yunagi's query of "Who are you?" with "Just a guy trying to get by." But we're seeing right now that this isn't true; Yusei is sticking his neck out in a huge way to defend someone else. Yusei isn't JUST trying to get by; he's playing a bigger game than that. Why would Yusei say that all he was trying to do was get by, when he is the last person to give up on something more than just survival? Going after Jack wasn't "just getting by" either; far from. From the perspective of living safe, his riding to the city and challenging Jack was about the stupidest move he could make.

Girai Gumo is a favorite of the Paradox Brothers. What the heck?

Someone even said the words creepy crawlies. "Yuse don't like bugs", remember? Seems to be doing just fine against Tanner's monsters, though. Arachnids like Girai Gumo aren't insects, tecnically, but I doubt Yusei's phobia splits hairs that finely.

So Jack's Sign is the right wing? Which part of the dragon is on Yusei's arm? I have this feeling from one of the failed theme songs (Rev It Up: "Don't underestimate the Dragon's Tail...") that it might be the tail. How many parts are there, how many Signers?

And how does it work that, through all the ages from the star people on down, there's only ever one Signer for each piece of the dragon? That's actually kind of a fun question. Does it run on the Buffy system, in which there are several people who are potential Signers and when one Signer, say, dies, one of the potentials becomes the next Signer for that piece? I argue against that one because Yusei was a good duelist before his match with Jack, therefore if their destiny as Signers is what makes them good duelists, then every potential Signer would be a ridiculously gifted duelist. If so there would be more really impossibly amazing duelists than there are, and we would have met a Signer in Yu-Gi-Oh! or 5D's by now, as they'd all rise right to the top of the league. It may operate on an Avatar system, whereby in the moment one Signer dies, the next one is born. This would fit in everything except if the world ended up being under demon attack while one of the Signers still eats cards if handed them. That's the risk they take in the Avatarverse, I suppose, but with more Signers, the odds are greater that when disaster strikes, one of them will still be in diapers. Then again, in Avatar it was a destiny thing-- Aang was twelve, and still destined to save the world, and it worked out-- so I'd imagine that the Signers and when disaster strikes is predestined, too. Maybe that's how it works.

Goodwin told Mr. Armstrong, who's probably a high-up in the Facility, to keep an eye on the duel, make a report, and especially make a note of any unusual occurrence. What was he expecting to have happen in Yusei's duel?

"I never met a card I didn't like." That's a really nifty quote. Very Jaden, actually, but Yusei said this. Yusei's deck is made of thrown-away cards, and Yusei turns the weakness of a deck scrounged from the trash into a strength, because he never met a card he didn't like.

It raises my opinion of Tanner that he not only recognized a good opponent when he saw one, but respected him when he realized Yusei actually knew what he was doing. How many bullies do we meet that continue to underestimate the good guys even after it's been made plain that they aren't messing around, just because it boosts their own egos? Tanner actually gave Yusei a duel, because he was smart enough to give credit where it was due and not underestimate him. By the middle of the duel, Tanner wants to see just what Yusei can do.

Okay, run that wacky magic by me one more time...
So, a long, long time ago, no canon reference when, before the Incas lived in Peru, another civilization lived there known as the People of the Stars. Their culture was founded around a very powerful and wise star they called the Dragon Star. It endowed their king, the Star Dragon King, with wisdom, and their civilization thrived. Until the gate to the Shadow Realm opened, which is never good news, really. I wonder if this event occurred circa, say, 3000 BCE, the canon date for a very interesting supernatural occurrence across the world in Egypt. Anyway, as the star myths tell it, the "Demon Lord" and his forces attacked (I wonder if we've met the Demon Lord before-- do they mean Zorc, perchance?) and the Star Dragon King turned to the Dragon Star to rescue them from destruction. Which it did, by sending the Crimson Dragon, which swept over the Earth, buried the Demon Lord and his forces deep underground, and saved everybody. They made sure they could do it again if they had to, by creating Goodwin's order, the Guardians of the Star, and probably also by creating the first Signers and a way their power could be passed down through the ages. Now, three-hundred-fifty-nine-and-a-half lifetimes later (the only measurement we gotis Goodwin's saying he's the three-hundred-sixtieth Guardian, and it seems to add up to no more than 3500 years at the most generous, which is chump change to us, especially since this happend HOW many years after the original?), Goodwin has taken the Oath of Iliaster and is the current Guardian of the Star, and he thinks that the Demons' return is imminent, so he's gathering the individuals with the power to summon the dragon, the Signers, individuals with the dragon's mark, like Jack and Yusei.
Iliaster was defined as "the power that gives everything in nature its inner essence and outward form. The universe- energy- mankind- Iliaster is the power flowing through all of these things, binding them together." or, in layman's terms, "magic glue." Now, how does it differentiate from Neo-Space and duel energy, is what I'd like to know. However, it's interesting to try and reconcile Iliaster and Neo-Space. Goodwin swore to maintain the balance of the universe (his exact words) by taking its oath, and Neo-Space is all about balance. Light and darkness; fries and ketchup. In Jaden's time, we had some trouble with an overabundance of light, which is just as dangerous as an overabundance of darkness. Iliaster, being of the stars, ("aster" is star in Greek, from which we derive words such as "astral", "astronomy", "asterisk", and "star" itself) is clearly a force of light, meaning that the balance has shifted, and those who want to keep things balanced must now fight on the side of light. You can't have light without darkness, nor darkness without light. As Goodwin said, Iliaster gives things their inner essence and outward form; if you're looking at something, light allows you to distinguish colors and shapes (that's the outward form, but it's magic, so it illuminates inner things too apparently), while darkness allows you to see anything but a bright white page.
Now, questions. How does Goodwin know that disaster's imminent? He said, "Soon the Demon Lord's forces will gain more power than they ever have before." Who's going to be really really sad, jealous, angry, and greedy soon, more than humanity has been in about three thousand years, and would Goodwin know anything about that? Look, I get the feeling that I've had some unfair misconceptions about good ol' Goodwin, especially since he's telling us what's going on now, but this is the final holdout in them: what if he's the cause of this big boatload of misery, and wants to find the Signers so he can do something awful without winding up getting himself toasted by a gleeful Demon Lord?
Goodwin said that the People of the Stars were pre-Incan, they actually could have been as late as about 3000 years ago, which would be circa, oh, 950 BCE at the very earliest. Which would be our count for when the Guardians were formed, which could be when there was no longer a Star Dragon King to handle the job, which could be in the civilization's decline, rather than right after the Shadow-Realm-related incident, which probably would be earlier (I'm still not ruling it out that this is the same Shadow-Realm-gate-opening-apocalyptic-badness we saw firsthand in Egypt; if it affected the future, it sure affected the rest of the planet in the present). I just found some info on the Nazca culture, which predated the Incan and created the Nazca Lines they were floating over, no earlier than 200 BCE, which do actually exist. These giant geoglyphs' creation, whether they could even have been made by man, and their purpose is still a mystery. It's one of those "probably religious" things. This is actually checking out with real history and mythology. Good for it!
Next question: Did someone say the Shadow Realm? 'Cause you know that's an invitation for interesting lines of thought. Who opened the gate to the Shadow Realm, and DID it have anything to do with the star people themselves? In Egypt circa 200 BCE, since that's our time frame here, anyone we know from the Ancient Past was about three thousand years gone. I think Egypt might even have been conquered by someone else by then.

Tanner had a Mirror Force trap facedown. This draws parallels to Yugi, who once said that card was one of his favorite traps (Match of the Millennium III), and also to Yusei, who played the strategical equivalent, Remote Revenge, a mere two episodes ago (A Blast From the Past II).

Yowch. That was quite a slam for Tanner by Jack. "Maybe next time I'll actually try", honestly! With that little flashback, in his saying that it was downhill from there, Tanner started reminding me of how Zane Truesdale's career was going in "The Demon" and "No Pain, No Game". But how did Tanner end up in the Facility? Does anyone but a professional have a turbo-dueling permit? Did Tanner's career tank to the point that he was no longer Kaibadome material, lost his permit, but wouldn't stop dueling? In addition, we have to ask how long ago was Tanner's fall from grace, because it tells us another clue about how long ago Jack betrayed Yusei and rode for the City, which we still don't know. Jack had to BE there before he could take down Tanner, and by the time Tanner challenged, Jack was already the league champ. One last thing; if Tanner wants to see Jack go down, wait 'til he hears about Meteor Stream.

In searching for Cabrera Stone, I found a Spanish island that incudes a Spanish national park, in which there may potentially be stones, but my most promising lead was a rather sarcastic article on the Skeptics' Dictionary (http://skepdic.com/) about Ica Stones. Apparently the stones were allegedly found in a cave near Ica, Peru, and are carved with, among other things, depictions of humans fighting huge monsters. Skeptics, including the Dictionary, consider them a "pathetic hoax", but some people, such as people who want to prove the presence of aliens in human history and creationists who want to disprove scientific theories of evolution, do seek to authenticate these 'relics'. The man who displayed them in his museum, Dr. Javier Cabrera Darquea, says he got them from a farmer who found them in this cave. This same farmer was arrested for selling them to tourists and it's possible he made them himself. There are still people who carve these stones today to make a buck, some copying pictures from books and magazines. Like the Crystal Skull last week, this relic seems at this point to be a false treasure, a hoax; nothing could be more fitting. And as an additional note, in the YGO-canon version of history, WE can think of a reason why monsters and people might be depicted at the same time WITHOUT dinosaurs. These also, like the Iliaster Shrine and the Nazca Lines, come from Peru, so we could even say that a true Cabrera Stone in this canon may depict the "great war of the demons" Goodwin spoke of.
Curse Reflection Doll from a friendly shaman in Africa-- Didn't find anything.
Stonehenge is, of course, famous. It's a mysterious circle of standing stones in England, and it's been theorized that it was a burial ground, a hospital, a torture facility, an observatory, a shrine, or even (Artemis Fowl fans) a pizza parlor.
A Totem Pole is well-known as a creation of pacific northwest Native American tribes. Some are meant to recount certain myths, others a celebration of culture or an artistic work, some meant to shame someone or several someones, and others even contain graves. It's a myth that the most important figure is at the top of the totem pole; it can be anywhere.
I finally found something at the last minute on the Piri Reis Map; no matter how many different ways I spelled it, I was misspelling it, and I had no luck until I had an inspiration re-watching the episode while working on my halloween costume (I'm Yubel) at three in the morning last night, and searched for maps drawn on gazelle skin. Thanks for that little tidbit, Yunagi! It was, in fact, drawn on gazelle skin, and that led me right to it. The Piri Reis Map, named for its cartographer, Ottoman-Turk general Piri Reis, was a world map drawn in 1513, based on several other maps of the day. It includes Columbus' explorations of the Americas, a continent that is VERY debatably Antarctica (which was supposedly first sighted in 1820; the general feeling back then was that there's something down there to balance out everything up here, and that might mean this piece of the map was invented), the mysterious unknown continent of Australia, and so forth. The accuracy of Piri Reis' coast of South America and the presence of "Antarctica" are of particular interest to historians and archaeologists.

That card Tanner drew at the end was Nobleman of Crossout. I can't remember what it does, only ballpark, but could Tanner actually have destroyed one of Yusei's three magic monsters before Yusei played that winning card? Did Tanner throw?

Yusei has shown in this duel that not only can he do a lot with very little, but that, like Yugi before him, he's good at turning a supposed disadvantage into exactly what he needs, using a card effect fully, even the part that's supposedly the bad part.

How careful do you have to be in the Satellite about telling people your name? Is that why bug boy still doesn't have one? I noticed it when Yusei didn't give his name to Tanner until they were friends, and not until Tanner asked. I can see the wisdom of a satellite, especially a satellite *duelist* who by definition has a quarrel with the law, limiting the number of people who can identify him by something the authorities can easily look up. We didn't know it, but the expository first scene with Yusei, Blitz, Rally, Tank, and Nervin ("We know how you feel, Yuse, but I think it's time to bury the past, move on, and forget about Jack Atlas...") showed us also how close these five are, that they were on first name basis. And we thought it was just making use of dialogue to introduce characters by name!

How can Bo Tanner get Yusei into the pros? He's in prison, for cryin' out loud! Maybe there are still some recruiting-type people in the pros who would listen if he tells them about a really amazing duelist. Considering Tanner isn't known for being nice, they would at least know, if they know him, that this guy must be good, to have impressed him. I suppose it really depends on how he ended up in the Facility whether or not he's still respected in the City.

The guards asked for "88". As in G2MA2-88, Yusei's Facility number? It's not completely clear whom they were asking for, but it was probably Yusei just because, like most good duelists, he tends to attract trouble. So what do they want with him? All we know is that Goodwin told the Facility to keep an eye on Yusei's duel. Did they perhaps mean to get ahold of him sooner, but when ordered to, they told Goodwin he was in the middle of a duel, and Goodwin told them to keep an eye on it and wait 'til it was over? I get the feeling this has to do with Goodwin's now knowing that Yusei is a Signer, or that he might be. What Goodwin said about Jack being more valuable than he knows, and about that being the source of his dueling talent rather than caused by it, also applies to Yusei.
So now that Goodwin knows that Yusei is a Signer, Yusei is suddenly worth a lot more. Since he got thrown in the Facility and then is probably about to be taken out again mere hours into his couple-month sentence, I don't think it will escape Yusei's notice that he is suddenly a lot more valuable. Goodwin now wants to protect Yusei as much as he's protected Jack so far, which we've seen in the form of, ironically, most of what Yusei has ended up fighting off. If Goodwin wants to protect Yusei, that means a free pass to the City, to keep him close-by, like Jack. Yusei is no fool, nor is he anywhere near heartless enough to do to Rally and the others what Jack just did to all of them; I bet he'll take full advantage of how valuable he is to get them free passes out of the Satellite as well. If they can't come with, he'll never agree to it. The question is, how big a demand is that, and will it be big enough for Goodwin to turn him down, even if it means Yusei won't join him and Jack, but either stay in the Facility or return to the Satellite? Jack might weigh in on this, considering that making Yusei a legit citizen of New Domino makes it legal to pick a rematch with him, this time with fans, even. In Yusei's book, though, Jack is about the last person in the world to be trustedand his vouching for Goodwin might do the opposite of convince Yusei; many duelists (such as Kaiba) trust their own assessment of someone's motives and abilities and base their decisions on that, rather even than trust of the person, but even that isn't an option here because Yusei thought he knew Jack and that his best friend would never betray him; if he was wrong about that, he can't make any assumptions about Jack or his motives. The real question though is whether Goodwin will be desperate enough to extend hospitality to four more satellites than he was planning on, and whether Yusei trusts Goodwin, his explanation of the Signs, and generally that there isn't some catch to all this.

They feed off misery? Misery in the City or misery overall? If the City is some point of mystical convergence (much like Duel Academy) and the Demon Lord's forces feed on anger, jealousy, greed, and sadness in the City alone, I can understand and even appreciate a strategy of keeping the quality of life in the City as high as humanly possible, even at the expense of another area like the Satellite. But if the bad guys feed on the sum total of misery in the world, I'd say that Goodwin aids them by keeping the satellites down.

"So I'm supposed to save the world. Why didn't you say so?" I like that line. Jack seems to be taking all this fairly well, aside from getting a bit jokey about it. I think it's still sinking in.

The next episode is "Fire It Up!" What could it be? What could it be? 'Til then! -Clio

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