How was Mega Man supposed to end?

    The talk about Mega Man in my first post got me thinking.  How was Mega Man originally planned to end?  Was an end planned?  I do think so, based on some of the things that were going on in the games.  I have had an idea bouncing around my head for a long time now.  First, I will share with you the facts.  Hopefully some of this stuff is interesting and maybe you didn't know it all.  I will be ignoring Mega Man 9 and 10 for this one.  They were made far after the fact and by different people, and obviously are simply trying to be retro and not progress the story.

    Mega Man games were pretty standard up through Mega Man 6.  The plot simply consisted of 'Dr Wily causes problems and Mega Man stops him.'  The most complicated it got was that Dr Wily was forcing Dr Cossack to do something, or that he put on a disguise and called himself Mr X.

"Dr Who?  I don't know who you're talking about.  Clearly, I have a beard and sunglasses and thus am someone totally different!"

    Mega Man 7 started to have a bit more of a plot.  It introduced the combo of Bass and Treble, who have dogged Mega Man ever since.  I always wondered at the names.  They were given musical names, as if they were Dr Light robots.  Did Dr Light go 'Well, I don't remember building these guys but I guess I did.'  Although in Japan they were Forte and Gospel, of course.  Anyway, whats the difference in Mega Man 7?  Well, at the end, this happens:

    Um, wow.  Bad grammar aside, that's pretty serious.  Dr Wily has been defeated and surrenders.  Mega Man decides it's time to end it for good.  Wily exclaims that a robot can't harm a human, to which you can see Mega Man's response.  Wily is then rescued by Bass, who comments 'He who hesitates is lost.'  Would Mega Man have pulled the trigger if he hadn't be interrupted?  Does the Mega Buster have a trigger?  Probably not.  Then Mega Man 8 comes along.  It introduces Duo, the space robot, as well as the possibly silly 'Evil Energy.'

Any energy that forms a skull by default can't be good.

    Dr Wily starts messing with the energy of a space robot that had crashed on earth after a battle with Duo.  The details aren't that important for our discussion.  Mega Man fights robot masters and deals with Bass yet again.  Then he confronts Wily.  After defeating him, Wily surrenders and begs forgiveness.

    It's no 'Die Wily!' but Mega Man still sounds like he's tired of this crap.  Now, I've read that the Japanese version of Mega Man 7 was less obvious.  After Dr Wily says a robot can't harm a human, Mega Man merely responds with '. . . .'.  But even so, Mega Man had threatened him.

    After the events of Mega Man 8 were the events of Mega Man and Bass.  This wasn't released in america for a while and lots of people probably missed that it existed.  It mostly consisted of battling a robot that Wily had built to replace Bass, by the name of King.  Storywise it only seemed to push the fact that Bass was not completely under Wily's control.  So where else can you get some story from?

    Well, there were two Mega Man games released in the Arcade.  Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man: The Power Fighters.  They were structured like fighting games.  All you did was defeat the robot masters.  The games let you play as Mega Man, Protoman and Bass.  The second game also added in Duo.  It seems a weird place, but it's where we got our next plot progression.  Mega Man's endings were standard 'he poses with his friends' type stuff.  But this is Protoman's ending.

    Dr Light informs Protoman that he will die without being repaired and that, as his creator, he is the only one that could do it.  Protoman responds with 'Don't worry about my problems, I know my body better than anyone else.'  Protoman leaves, refusing his help.  Well, Protoman is dying?  Why wouldn't he accept help?  He didn't actually say 'I'm fine', but rather 'I know my body better than anyone else.'  So it's possible he's already aware that he's dying and simply knows it can't be fixed.  Well, that's depressing.  Whats going on in the Bass ending?

    Well, Dr Wily wonders why the heck Bass keeps destroying his robots.  Bass says that it's to prove he's the strongest of Dr Wily's creations.  Dr Wily says that his current project will be more powerful than anything else.  Bass gets a glance and this is the responce.

    The fact that Dr Wily created Zero isn't that shocking at this point.  But Dr Wily is actively constructing him.  This is the last bit we get for quite some time.  When Mega Man returns, in Mega Man 9, it's just another standard Wily plot.

    So where was all of this leading?  Well, it's time for my theory.  Afterwards I'll toss out some evidence from the X series to back up my thoughts.  I once had a friend who 'totally swore, you guys' that he had a friend who worked at Capcom.  That friend supposedly leaked the information that Zero himself either had a copy of Dr Wily's memory, or he had transferred his mind digitally.  Dr Wily was always into robots, but he never seemed big on improving himself.  Would he take that step?  Well, he had to have been getting on in age and Mega Man seemed like he was ready to end it all.  Maybe he would start considering his own mortality.

    So imagine Mega Man shows up for yet another final confrontation.  Protoman doesn't seem like the sort of guy to die in bed, so if he's dying, he'd probably go out with a bang.  What would be the most dramatic way to do that?  Probably saving Mega Man in some manner.  For arguments sake, lets say he dies protecting Mega Man from Bass.  So Mega Man has just lost his brother and had already been pretty pissed at Dr Wily.  So perhaps this time, he doesn't hesitate.  But what if Wily was in the process of uploading his mind to Zero at this point?  That process is interrupted, Zero doesn't wake up.  Mega Man may have only appeared to kill him because he is now 'brain dead', but as far as the world knows, Mega Man took his life.

    Why do I feel this scenario is reasonable?  Well, according to a comment from Capcom at one point, Dr Light was already constructing X at a similar point to when Dr Wily was constructing Zero.  So X is in the works during all this.  But when you start up Mega Man X, you get this message.

    Why would he include such a warning?  Why was X sealed away in the first place?  Well, imagine you are building a robot with his own free will.  Suddenly, near completion, your current greatest creation murders someone.  You might start worrying what your new creation will do with this free will and have a few second thoughts.  So X was sealed up while diagnostics were being run on him.

    So how would the world react to Mega Man killing?  I'd like to think there would be people going 'so the crazy guy isn't going to try and kill us anymore?  Woo!' but there might also be some fear.  If the most powerful robot in the world is capable of killing, who says he won't decide to take over the world?  If you want the sad ending, perhaps Mega Man was disassembled.  But I like to think something else.  In my vision, Dr Light removed all of Mega Mans weapons and told the world that Mega Man was no more.  Which was true in a way, as now there is only Rock.  Then maybe he, Rock and Roll retired somewhere nice.  As he got older, maybe he recalled Dr Wily's technology and uploaded his own memories somewhere, himself.

"X, I left these recordings that update somehow with each of your games.."

    What about Dr Wily?  Well, when Zero awakens he seems to be quite out of his mind.  This may be a result of Dr Wily's upload being messed up.  He had a battle with Sigma, which ended with a 'W' appearing on his forehead jewel and Sigma punching him out.  This uploaded things to Sigma himself, leaving Zero free of Dr Wily's influence.  

    Sigma's own hardware wasn't designed to run Wily's code.  It made him go freaky and became the Maverick virus, but he didn't become Dr Wily.  But maybe, over time, the voice in his head started getting itself together and whispering to him.  First Sigma mentions him in end of X2, that he is the 'last of the doctor's creations'.  

    Later in Mega Man X5, Sigma says he's been working with an 'old man', and you get this familiar boss.

    You fight the 'Black Devil' while the background flickers with a W logo.  This is all pretty blatant.  What if Dr Wily had completely woken up in Sigma now and was cooperating with him?

    This game ends with the apparent death of Zero and X.  However, if you're in X's ending, you get to see what happens after Zero dies.  A 'mysterious figure' shows up and X is somehow found repaired.  

"Dangit, and the warranty expired in 20XX."

    So Dr Light, the only one who would know how to fix X, shows up.  But how can a hologram repair anyone?  Well, I like to think that he had help.  A couple of robots who may not have weapons, but who have a perfectly good pair of working hands.  Who have been hiding out from all the troubles of the world somewhere peaceful.

    Just a thought.