Colonel Redips

Colonel Redips (リディプス大佐) is the main antagonist of Mega Man X: Command Mission.

History
Initially, Redips acts as the commanding officer, sending X, Zero and Shadow out to Giga City to deal with Epsilon. Shortly after, X loses contact with him during Chapter 2 and only hears from him again in Chapter 5 when Professor Gaudile boosts the transmitter. After Chapter 6, the interference becomes too bad and Redips is not heard from again until the start of Chapter 9, where he promises to lead a unit into Giga City. He appears in person after Epsilon's destruction to congratulate X.

Shortly after the plane's arrival, though, X and his group are attacked as Redips declares them traitors and wanted criminals. Once X and his group reach Redips in the East Hunter HQ, Redips declares himself as the ruler of all Reploids and engages X in battle. After his defeat, he reveals he possesses a copy chip and had been with the group for a large portion of the first half of the game as Spider, gathering Rebellion member data and keeping them on the right track. He then retreats to the Orbital Station Babel.

Great Redips
"Surprised? But why should you be, my young subjects? You will be the first to witness the divine miracle!" -Great Redips

Great Redips is the second form of Redips and the final boss.

Once in Orbital Station Babel, X finds Redips using a bizarre machine to power himself up with the Supra Force Metal recovered from the missile and Epsilon's body. After admitting he was using X to acquire the metal, he declares his intent to use the Supra-Force Metal to evolve strong enough to rule the entire universe and transforms into a giant battle body.

At first, Redips' regenerative and barrier abilities prove too much for X and his friends. Surprisingly, a repaired Ferham comes in and rips out Redips' regenerative Supra-Force Metal fragment, greatly weakening him to the point where X was able to defeat him, turning him back to his original form. With his dying breaths, Redips tells X, Zero, and Axl that, due to their unwillingness to evolve, they are the ones that should be considered Mavericks. Afterwards, Ferham takes the Supra Force Metal she stole, jumps off the satellite, and self-destructs in order to destroy it.

"I'll take it to a place so far away that nobody will ever find it." -Ferham

Abilities (Great Redips)
When in this form, Redips becomes a true threat and has the power to heal himself every turn since he has Supra Force Metal Right until Ferham pulls it out to let X and his party defeat him. He can use Codebreaker after Ferham removes SFM-R, which has the potential to inflict DOA (Death on Arrival, or instant death) on one party member. Another attack he has, Memento Mori (Remember You Will Die in Latin), can potentially place every status ailment excluding DOA on the party. Deus Ex Machina (Day of the Machine) hits the entire party three times with meteors. Supra Force Metal Left, the piece that was not taken from him, supplies a barrier to Great Redips and performs strong elemental attacks. In addition to the other attacks, Great Redips can use Carpe Diem (Sieze the Day) after Ferham removes SFM-R, which, if it hits, drains the entire party's WE meter and inflicts some damage on the side.

Strategy
The Supra-Force Metals on his shoulders can be targeted separately—and the player definitely need to get rid of them because otherwise it won't be possible to do much damage to Redips. The one on his left shoulder (that is not grabbed by Ferham) is restored after a few rounds. However, while it is gone, Redips' defense is lowered, so the Hunters can do full damage to him. You will probably need a dedicated healer for this battle, because most of Redips’ attacks hit all allies. He also likes using Codebreaker a lot (this has the potential to insta-kill). And he has an attack which gives random status ailments to the entire party, but doesn’t do any damage (Cure Alls are useful for this). Also, don’t bother with stat increasers for this battle because the Supra-Force Metal uses Format a lot, removing them all. Redips also has an attack that removes your WE. People on the sidelines aren’t affected, of course, so if you can drop someone out of the battle right before he uses that attack, that character will be spared. The main trick to this battle is to destroy the Supra-Force Metal while X is at 100% WE, transform into X’s Hyper Mode, and blast Redips with the Charge Collider while his defenses are down. Use Cooldown after this and wait for the next opportunity so that you are not wasting your Hyper Mode rounds. Two or three Charge Colliders, plus the attacks of your supporting team member (the one who’s not healing), should be enough to take care of Redips. Before defeating him, it would be good to have Marino use her Action Trigger to steal the Supra-Force Metal fragments (be sure to target Redips and not any of the fragments on his shoulders). There are two fragments of Supra Force Metal: SFM fragment a : It regenerates 200-300 LE each turn, WE is restored to MAX every turn, but causes 99 erosion. SFM  b : Adds 100 to Power,Shield and Armor. Adds 20 to Speed. Doesn't regenerate any specific amount of LE or WE and causes 99 erosion (to equip this fragment it is important to buy Neutralizer-30 at the Secret Force Metal shop, or level up until Level 100).

Confrontation at Far East HQ
Colonel Redips: Well, if it isn't X! Incredible. You're still alive.

Zero: How could you...! What are you up to?!

Colonel Redips: Me? Well, let's just say that... I'm in charge. I am the ruler of all Reploids.

Zero: You're what?!

X: Explain yourself. Under your orders, we went to Giga City, fought Epsilon, and successfully quelled the Rebellion Army. So that was all just a set-up?

Colonel Redips: (Heh heh heh...) I guess you could say that. But I really must thank you for defeating that pesky Epsilon... Making it possible to achieve my goal!

X: Answer me! What are your plans here?!

Colonel Redips: I told you! I am destined to rule!

Zero: You're insane!!

Colonel Redips: My, you Maverick Hunters are brave. Just what do you intend to do to me?

X: Redips! You... You... Maverick!

In-battle lines of Colonel Redips

 * "Foul Mavericks! You will perish!" (intro battle line)
 * "Hrrgh, so it takes more to beat you!" (upon defeat)

Trivia
It's also just as likely that Axl was using the data he'd learned and/or most likely procured about Jango's invasion of New Hope and figuring that the Jango they'd just fought at the time at Far East HQ was just a clone, which would verify that X and Spider had fought the real Jango and thus turn this angle of discussion to naught. Both of these counter-point theories are seemingly supported by the fact that as X and Spider head to Tianna Camp to save Nana, which the story implies was an immediate order from the Resistance strategy elder Chief R upon reacquiring Central Tower, the first thing Spider does is complain about being ordered around by Chief R and ambiguously state that he's only willing to work because of his "own goals". A further element to this would be that the very first strike of Redips' betrayal upon the Rebellion's defeat would be his commissioned aircraft carrier's cold-circuit gundown murder of R.
 * The name Redips is Spider spelled backwards. However, it was spelled as "Rideps" in the instruction manual, possibly done to keep players from figuring out the connection before even playing.
 * Redips is arguably the one villain in the series closest to a true megalomaniac. He initially dubs himself "ruler of all Reploids" before his first fight with X, but soon declares his intention to rule the entire universe, calling the Earth "a tiny speck". While Sigma has also tried both world and Reploid domination, he never showed schemes any farther than that, and Weil simply wanted everyone to suffer endlessly under his rule.
 * Other than Spider, it's somewhat implied that he may have also been the Wild Jango that attacked New Hope in the beginning of the game. Axl mentioned after succeeding in X's second encounter with Wild Jango at Redips's headquarters that someone with the same chameleon chip abilities as Axl used their copy ability to mimic Wild Jango, then deduced that someone with a similar copy ability was in Giga City. This could possibly be taken as meaning that someone had used a copy chip ability to mimic Jango during the incident at New Hope, prior to the revelation that the culprit behind all the chaos was Redips himself. It can be inferred from Axl's DNA Change action trigger that the copy shot can be used to duplicate defeated enemies, meaning Redips theoretically could've killed Jango and impersonated him to attack New Hope. Assuming this was true, Redips was technically fought first in Chapter 2. This would rule out the possibility of him and Spider having been one and the same the entire time as well as confirm that Redips was the real host of the two onwards.
 * However, one must take into account that he was able to clone/revive Jango, as well as mostly all the other Rebellion station heads defeated by X's command team when Spider was among them, separately at once at Far East HQ (though that ability may be a byproduct of Supra Force Metal). Furthermore, Axl was not with the team during the Wild Jango incident, nor had he seen Jango before fighting the duplicated Jango at HQ to player's knowledge, yet he somehow managed to be able to copy him in his Action Trigger move. Thus, unless it can be said that he procured the data on Jango from the others and that the use of such data to act alongside an enhanced cloning ability was what he was talking about, then factoring in the revelations of the Jakob Project incident many years ago, one could also theoretically accuse Axl of being the Jango that invaded the base.
 * Redips is the third main villain to not be manipulated by Sigma, after Gate and Lumine.