What interests me about the experience of playing Armored Core 6 is the comparison between Walter and Ayre. When Ayre shows up, I’d grown so attached to Walter and expectant of his detached and impersonal way of engaging with you that it had me searching Ayre’s gentleness and earnestness for ulterior motive. Walter’s not a bad guy per se, but to have someone as kind as Ayre — I don’t know, I began to stop caring if there WAS an ulterior motive on her end just because that warmth and companionship was really nice. It’s nice to have things to take for granted in a world like AC6 where you can’t easily tell who to trust. Rusty’s a bit like her too — he’s got a good heart, but it’s weathered by cynicism and tempered with caution. Walter doesn’t really know how to relate to you at all and, while it seems like he cares about you when discussing you in private, he’s all business when it comes to actual conversation.
It’s just a good thing Ayre DID genuinely turn out as kind as she appeared. She could’ve played me like a fiddle.
A sheep in wolf's clothing and a wolf in sheep's clothing, or character analysis of Handler Walter and Ayre
(Amazing art by u/Count15, also known as Kubaushi)
So, um, I love AC6, and it's entire cast. From Arqebus's egotistical Snail to Balams' most pathetic little scrimbo Iguazu. But no two characters have put so many thoughts in my head as Ayre and Walter. They're your most direct companions, and yet they couldn't be more opposite of each other while still being so similar.
Now I know that AC6 thrives on the individual readings by different people, everyone is going to see the story and characters differently so while I do pose some strong opinions here I think everyone's own interpretation is the most correct one.
But to get back to the topic at hand, I don't think that the opposites of those two are talked about enough, Walter, and Ayre exist almost entirely separated from each other, and somehow, they managed to be such polar opposites. The game isn't even afraid to paint them that way, like at the end of act 1. Walter wants you to rest while he gets stuff sorted with Balam, while Ayre is pushing you to go through Grid-086. Or during the attack on the refuelling base mission, while Walter laughs off the whole "walking advertisement" bit that Arqebus is shilling and just encourages you to get it done ASAP while Ayre wants you to make as much of it as possible.
But there's a greater example of this, beware of the spoiler for the endings below:
Both play a major role in LOR and FOR, but both for different reasons, and it all starts with Walters's speech right before the Escape, he has no expectations of you, no mission, no orders. The only thing he tells you is that you should "find your own freedom." Sure, he asks you to continue the legacy of the RRI, but only because it was his life's mission, his only goal so he might as well ask his closest friend in what he thinks is his last words. And he actually does stick with it. In FOR, he thanks you, but also, apologizes for asking you of such a burden. In LOR, he actively breaks through corporate brainwashing to spare you. He goes out of his way and even sacrifices himself for you, for "the freedom you chose".
Ayre, on the other hand, doesn't, her "I'll support you" falls on deaf ears when you realise she's not in it for you. You're just her vessel doing as she likes, and the second you disagree is the second this "bond" you've made is gone.
And before you say that, she's lashing out because of you doing a genocide of her people, Walter thinks the exact same. He believes that the further propagation of Coral will result in Humanity's downfall as Coral takes over the galaxy. They're both fighting for the same thing. It just so happens that they're different species.
Related tangent about the nature of Coral:
But are they? Coral and Humanity are almost the same, both spread infinitely, both want to completely take over anything without a care for the environment, and both want to use each other for a selfish benefit.
Coral wants to merge the hivemind with humanity and to use them as vessels.
While Humanity wants to use the Coral as infinite energy, to power their weapons, and to notably use it for cheap human lobotomies.
But there does exist one point of separation between them, Coral knows that Humans are people, but Humanity does not know that Coral are people.
The majority of humans involved in the Coral War see it as a war over oil, you can count how many humans know the true nature of Coral on one hand, and one of them is you. And that's assuming that RRI knows that Coral are a people, and to be a pedant, let's count them:
1. 621/Raven/You
2. Father Dolmayan
3. Walter
4. Carla
Out of the actual thousands involved in this war, 4 people know the true nature of Coral, AND THREE OF THEM WANT IT GONE PERMANENTLY NO MATTER HOW THE STORY DEVELOPS. The most poignant of them all being Dolmayan, who also interfaced with a wave mutation like you do, and yet he still chooses to fight you to the death over it.
Sorry for this side tangent. Going back to Ayre and Walter now:
So, both of them are fighting over the same thing, a goal universal to everyone, survival, and yet Walter cares more about you than the perceived genocide of Humanity and as he dies he expresses it. But Ayre, when put in the same spot, can not help but throw shade on you and Humanity, and while I will not fault her for that it is important to point out, but even more importantly her actual death, in FOR when you shoot her down she plays with your emotions one last time "Our shared dream" a dream she imagined you have and that idea is so paramount to her perception of you that she cannot imagine any other option.
And now maybe this speaks more about me than anything else, but I am so tired of having to live up to other people's ideas of me, this nebouls me that cannot exist in a reality outside of the conceptual space. This post is entirely selfish, a way for me to air out my frustration against the "popular opinion" because I cannot perceive a character like Ayre as anything but morally gray at best while every point of discourse around her goes on about "wifey" and how amazing she is. Call it whatever you like, but it is just a result of my own lived experiences.
Sure, Walter is a liar who actively uses lobotomized people to do his bidding, the same people he lies to, but he gives a damn about them, he cares for them so much as to forsake his mission, his facade of cynicism and coldness whistling away bit by bit until it's not there anymore, he's trying to be the wolf so that he can pretend to bare the atrocities he's committing in the name of human survival.
And call this a cynical and bad faith reading but, Ayre, on the other hand, is also a liar who actively uses lobotomized people to do her bidding, but she couldn't care any less, because to her this isn't about you, about 621, and it will never be. In Ayres' story, you are a convenience that either follows expectations or dies. She doesn't see what she's doing as wrong in any way, and I don't disagree. She is Coral, and that's her species, but to pretend that it is in any way about 621 while trying to play at your emotions is trying to be that sheep.
This is before even mentioning that to side with Ayre is betrayal of EVERYONE who saved you, Carla, Walter, Chatty, but also Humanity itself.
While to side with RRI, it is to betray only Ayre, who was never on your side.
Sorry for the lengthy read, and thanks for getting through it, I know this is long and pointed, but these two characters have become some of my favourites in anything so I wanted to talk about them.
been working on this crossover for a good while now. was like "it'd be funny to put a pile bunker on a rainworld vulture" and then i doodled a 621 slugcat to go with their pet pilebunker and the rest is history
arquebus and balam are also iterators now (advancement despite division/through material force). not iterators in the traditional sense, they're here to serve as staging grounds/living quarters/war platforms for their respective peoples, who originally had their eyes set on a specific void-affected region with weird properties and were willing to fight each other for access to it.
the iterator solitary overseer was built over a very void-affected region as a research outpost, which went fine until the arquebus/balam ancient facrions saw the region and decided they wanted it
mostly because everyone wanted to be the first ones to figure out the whole deal with it, and perhaps get famous off sparking a second scientific void revolution if they're lucky. whole space race type situation except it's a void race and all sides are not above straightup killing each other.
when the ancients all disappeared their iterators did not stop. when sapient life popped up ADD and TMF both grabbed their local slugcats and scavengers and enlisted them in the conflict. after enough fighting, SO tried to stop it all and their plan triggered the rainworld equivalent of the fires of ibis. congrats dude that's the worst anyone's done it
snail's from ADD's region outright and grew up in a time when they were already very well known- he aimed to become one of their most trusted agents and got there. this went directly to his head and now he thinks that he speaks their will.
michigan's originally from a nomadic slugcat colony who passed througn TMF's region and basically got detained. he initially led his colony to fight back, but eventually managed to strike a deal with TMF to stay if the rest of his colony was is allowed to gtfo
walter was found as a slugpup by iterator solitary overseer (rubicon research institute narrative equivalent). they're dead now and he's trying to finish what they could not, as per canon. i think he actually got handed off to michigan's colony pre-fires which is how the two of 'em know each other
rusty's from SO's region, post-fires, same with the rest of the rubicon liberation front. here they just wanna fucking live can these goddamn iterators stop sending purposed organisms and other slugcat/scavengers to fight right over their homes ffs
also SO is named after overseer despite being the RRI equivalent because walter's using their comms equipment and therefore their name in the current day. yes it gets confusing sorry
