I have no words (Devil Survivor: Overclocked) (*SPOILERS*)

There comes a time in one's life as a gamer - table-top, console, PC, what have you - when they see a circumstance unfold that is so unbelievably ridiculous that words fail.

And then, there are times when they see something so complex, convoluted, and needlessly complex - upward of Rube Goldberg-level fuckery - that their mind just wraps itself into a Möbius strip trying to figure out why someone would go to so much effort for so little gain.

And then... you have Devil Survivor.

Not the game as a whole, mind you. It's a bit far-fetched, but most of its metaphysics and mythoi are explained with enough detail and enthusiasm to spur suspension of disbelief.

But there is one aspect of the game that takes the above two concepts, twists them into an unrecognizable clump, dips said clump in Flubber, puts it into a pitching machine, and launches it full-force at its own head.

If you have not played DS: Overclocked, and would like to be surprised, read no further, because there are HUGE plot spoilers below the break.

They gone? Okay, cool.

Okay, the basic plot of Devil Survivor is that the main character and his two friends - techno-geek Atsuro and hardcore tsundere Yuzu - are trapped inside Tokyo's Yamanote Circle under a government-imposed lockdown, set up to prevent the spread of demons, which are being spread via altered handheld devices called Communication Players (or COMPs for short) which have been altered (in alarming numbers, BTW. I think there are more altered COMPS running around than there were sales of the 3DS in Japan. But I digress) to run Shin Megami Tensei's favorite MacGuffin: the Demon Summoning Program.

Anyway, on the 5th day of the lockdown, you meet up with Izuna, a member of an elite extra-governmental, extra-military organization called the Anti-Demon Force. She tells you that if the demons aren't dealt with by the seventh day of the lockdown, the government will kill everyone in the Circle using what they're calling the "final option". You know it's not a nuke - they won't risk damaging the buildings - or a neutron bomb - as the buildings are too compacted together to make a neutron bomb feasible - but they refuse to tell you what the "final option" is, citing national security.

But, the thing is, you can find out about what the "final option" is, if you hit the right cutscenes in the right order. I missed it the first time through, and completely lucked into it on this, my second playthrough.

I'm not sure if there is anything I can say to adequately prepare you for the bullshit you are about to hear, so let's go:

Early on in the game, Atsuro mentions in passing that one of his friends in the hacker circles went missing all of a sudden, saying something about a reporter entrusting him with a huge story. Reporter Shoji who is also trapped in the Circle also mentions her mentor who was tragically lost investigating a government conspiracy.

A chance encounter a couple days later has Atsuro meeting that old friend 10BIT, who was on the run from... someone. At death's door, he gives you a (non-altered, but damaged) COMP. After your meeting with Izuna, you help Atsuro crack the password and see what he and his reporter friend have been investigating.

Okay, so in the early 2000's (this is true), Japan had passed a law that banned resale of electronic devices older than three years. In the real world, they backed off of it with little more than a wink and a nod, but in the world of Devil Survivor, it had a more... ominous context.

In this incarnation of that law (and for a time rumored to be a part of the actual law) the government required all devices older than three years old to be inspected by a government authority before it would be permitted to be resold. Well, it turns out, that the reporter who was digging into this discovered that the inspections had an ulterior motive: a special microchip was placed in each "inspected" device. A chip that could be activated by remote.

Why?

Well, 10BIT's research found that the purpose of this chip was to amplify an electronic device's natural electromagnetic field. Obviously, even amplified, increasing the EM field on a single electronic device wouldn't do much on its own, but the theory is, if every such device - and there were likely thousands of chipped electronic devices within the Yamanote Circle alone - were to be activated and amplified AT THE SAME TIME, the field would join into one large, ultra-powerful field (basic field theory states that when energy fields with like energy come into concert, the strength of the resultant field is increased exponentially) blanketing the whole area, exciting the molecules of everyone and everything in the area, boiling them alive from the inside out.

Yes, you heard me correctly: there is a video game on the market, released within the past few years, in which a major plot device involves the Japanese government microwaving its own citizens.

Microwaving them.

I have so many questions:

1. This law was originally passed in 2002 - both in-game, and IRL. It's unlikely that the government was aware of the demon presence, let alone the plans of the Shomonkai, for ten years. Even longer, because someone had to cook up (no pun intended, but still funny as hell) this harebrained scheme, develop the science behind it, mass-produce the chips, and develop the devices that would interact with them. Sure, they delayed full implementation until 2006, but if this was a "massive government conspiracy", it had to have it roots well before the law was even debated, let alone signed into law. So if it was not developed in response to the demon threat, what was it developed for?
2. Did they really think that nobody would crack open those modified devices, see this weird chip, and ask questions? 
3. What if the chips on some of the devices burned out?
4. What if the people moved away and took their devices with them?
5. What if someone else found out about this and built a device to manually activate the chips? That seems to me to be a very legitimate concern
6. What if several devices in a localized area triggered their chips accidentally, causing death and injury to people? How would they handle that? And speaking of which...
7. How would they have been able to develop such a device - and, more importantly, test it - without ANYONE IN THE WORLD knowing about it? 

And perhaps the most important question of all:

• WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU CREATE SOMETHING THAT MICROWAVES YOUR OWN CITIZENS?!?!?

I mean, seriously? What kind of fucked-up, ethically-warped sadist would come up with this?

I mean, besides DARPA. (Fuck, I can see DARPA greenlighting research on the Demon Summoning Program).

But, yeah. This is just silly, over-the-top super-science that detracts from an otherwise great game.

Oh, I haven't seen Shoji yet after deciphering this crap. It was her mentor that was working with 10BIT on this. I wonder what she'll say.

And if she'll say it with a straight face.