Quote Originally Posted by Thighland View Post
You raise a fair point about the possibility that Calyx may not be driven entirely by logic, and I am considering the possibility that he simply doesn't see real Sphene as a threat to his plans. (Although that will probably come back to bite his ass eventually)
Though the interesting thing is that every time something doesn't entirely add up about his plan, it involves Sphene somehow.

Like we can both agree that Calyx' ultimate goal is the key right now, right? Yet in 7.0, instead of looking for it himself, he tasked Endless Sphene to not only retrieve it, but also allowed her full control over it. And either due to being ignorant of or not very loyal to Calyx, Endless Sphene handed us the key personally after her defeat, even though she seemingly didn't have to. Now, if Calyx' goal is to have the key, then why would he leave it in the hands of an autonomous creation whose motivations don't align with his? He basically allowed us to have the key, which doesn't make sense.
Simple: he underestimated us. And has been underestimating us, constantly; Endless Sphene by all respects would've been just fine as a custodian for the key, until Wuk Lamat and ourselves turn up; until we turn up there's not really any problem at all with Endless Sphene as far as his purposes go. Once it's clear we're not exactly giving back the key voluntarily, he hits us with a lightning bolt powered by a whole city... and that doesn't work. Then he throws us into the Valia Pira test battery, and that doesn't work. Then he throws Zelenia at us, and THAT doesn't work.

I don't think he has an 'unreasonable obssession' with Sphene, so much as he recognizes that Sphene is the beloved Queen of Alexandria, and that itself has power; if Sphene asks someone in Alexandria to do something, they do it. I do still think there's probably a level of duty, but again, not to an unhealthy degree; Calyx's original goal was to solve the very illness that faced Sphene, so I doubt he ever did the thing that confirmably gave up on it. It's like the high-stakes version of never throwing away that guitar you kept meaning to learn.