Quote Originally Posted by KageTokage View Post
That kind of made me question why they even bothered with it in the first place because basically every purpose it served could've been accomplished through more mundane means and it felt like it mostly served to build artificial suspense.

The main role it played in the entire mess was allowing Mikoto to be used as Resonant fodder...but they could've just as easily made Misija be an antagonistic Echo user akin to Ysayle and had her be captured strictly for her knowledge of the relic instead.
Honestly, I think it might just have been the sort of thing where you have to try it before you learn it won't work.