Alia

Alia (エイリア) is a character of the Mega Man X series. She works as an Operator, Navigator and Computer Specialist of the Maverick Hunters and first appeared in Mega Man X5. She briefs X, Zero, Axl and other Hunters about their missions and guides them through the areas, giving information about the objectives, recent developments and spotted Mavericks. She also manages the transfer actions at Hunter Base. In Mega Man X8, she can be unlocked as a secret playable character, like her two Navigator comrades, Layer and Pallette, imitating the style and moves of X, though she is limited by the fact that she cannot use Armor parts. Before working for the Hunters, Alia was part of a team of Reploid Research scientists and was close to her colleague, Gate.

Personality
Alia is a very dutiful character. She tries to move her personal feelings and concerns away (especially during the Nightmare Incident) to carry out her work for the sake of everyone. She's caring deeply for the members of her team and does her best to guide them through their missions without being harmed. Alia rarely shows any weaknesses, but the Nightmare Incident revealed a deeper, more emotional part of her personality, giving herself the blame for Gate's reasons for becoming a Maverick trying to wipe out all low-level Reploids to create a new nation under his ideal.



Researcher days
Before joining the Maverick Hunter forces, Alia used to work at a research lab analyzing the potential of Reploid engineering. She also used to have longer hair during that time (which she restored to its original length in Mega Man X8). One of her colleagues was Gate, who was believed that Alia held feelings for. Gate, who was obsessed with the non analyzable data of X and Zero, devoted all his time and power to create Reploids whose DNA were as unreadable as those of X and Zero. Eventually, he succeeded, creating superb Reploids with non analyzable DNA and was praised immensely, which brought the rage and jealousy of his colleagues upon himself. Though she regretted it afterwords, Alia was drawn into a conspiracy of the other researchers sabotaging Gate's creations, trapping and destroying them during their missions or have them being declared Maverick for dubious reasons. Alia was directly responsible for the destruction of Blizzard Wolfang, but was forced to do it, stressing her quite a lot. After Gate left full of hatred and bitterness, she decided to start all over again herself, becoming a member of the Maverick Hunters.

Mega Man X5
Alia made her debut in the X series as X and Zero's navigator. While she played no crucial role in the plot aside from aiding in level navigation, she does talk a bit in the ending where Zero went Maverick and X's memories of him were erased, commented on her doubts of X's return as a miracle and believing something to be behind it.

Mega Man X6
Alia's character was greatly expanded in Mega Man X6. Gate, her former colleague, had obtained a piece of Zero's remains and had analyzed it, creating the Nightmare Virus from it, as well as the Reploid High-Max and the Zero Nightmare, a purple copy of Zero which was blamed by Gate as the source of the Nightmare, and started a made-up campaign against Zero to become a new hero for the people and Reploids. While X (and the later recovered, original Zero) investigated the areas and defeated the Nightmare Investigators, Reploids constructed by Gate to analyze the Nightmare, Alia revealed to the Hunters that she used to work together with Gate in a Research Team and was part of a conspiracy to sabotage his Reploids, which had now been revived by the Nightmare Virus. Blaming herself for Gate's bitterness, she tried to convince him to surrender and stop his plans of creating a new nation for top-level Reploids only before he ended up being killed himself.

Although she tried her best, Gate didn't listen and fought X and Zero, ending up being defeated by them and damaged beyond repair by the revived Sigma. She was given a choice by X who had dragged Gate's remains out of his destroyed lab whether to try to repair him or not. What exactly became of Gate afterwords was never revealed.

Mega Man X7
Alia also assisted during the events of Red Alert by adding in stage navigation like before. She did not have a major impact on the plot like before, but she did show up in all three endings. She contacted Zero in his ending to wake him up and appeared in X and Axl's endings to discuss Axl's progress.

Mega Man X8
Like all other characters, Alia experienced a major design change in Mega Man X8. Like the others, Alia's appearance was thinned, removing all her bulkier body armor parts and exchanging them for some more slender ones. Apparently, she also decided to let her hair "grow" again, like it used to be during her days as a researcher. Furthermore, though less noteworthy, her bust size was increased for unknown reasons, as well as have her 'breasts' moved closer together to look more human-like than robotic.

In the game's plot, Alia did her usual work supporting the Hunters with information about the stage layout, the upcoming bosses and eventually about Reploids which had a DNA core suitable enough for Axl to transform. She also analyzed the New Generation Reploids' source of viral immunity - their Copy Chip - and also revealed that the DNA of the New Generation Reploids resembled that of Sigma. She also located Sigma's base on the moon. Her final appearance in the game, although off-screen, was her call for X and the others after they had taken out Lumine.

As a hidden goodie, Alia can be unlocked as a playable character after completing the game once, using Alia as the player's Navigator at least two times more than Layer or Pallette. Alia's movesets and abilities were modeled after those of X, being able to charge her Buster for more powerful attacks and receiving the same Special Weapons from defeated Mavericks than X. However, she was unable to charge up the gained weapons. Also, like with all other characters, her stats and abilities could be upgraded by finding Rare Metals and researching them. Though copying X's style, Alia, like the other two Navigators, received no pre-boss battle dialogue with the Mavericks when selected as part of the team.

The Elf War and Neo Arcadia era
Like most of the X series characters, Alia's ultimate fate is unknown. There is no information available whether or not she lived to see the end of the Maverick War or was killed/retired at some point or became a Maverick during the Elf War by the powers of the Dark Elf and the Baby Elves. In case she survived both conflicts, she may possibly have continued her duty as an Operator for the Neo Arcadian forces (as a form of Maverick Hunters still exist there) or may also have retired from active duty. Capcom has yet to reveal what happened to her.

Trivia

 * In X8, because of her being parallel to X in gameplay function, Alia is the first female character to have the Variable Weapons System.
 * Despite the design changes of the other characters like X and Zero in Mega Man X8, Alia's redesign was rather well received by the fandom.
 * Fans of the Mega Man X series often criticized Alia's initial behavior as a Navigator because she tended to contact the player multiple times throughout the levels, slowing down the pace of the run, a problem pointed out mostly by speedrunners because these dialogues with her are unskippable. For a long time, the fact that her hints would often point out an already-obvious situation or obstacle had also been the butt of a popular running joke among series veterans. However, Mega Man X8 introduced the option of entering a mission without using Navigation by Alia, Layer or Pallette.
 * She bears a great resemblance to the main female protagonist of the Mega Man Zero series, Ciel (especially when Alia wears her hair down, like in X8). Like Alia, Ciel briefs Zero on his missions, though she shares this task with the operators Jaune and Rouge in Mega Man Zero 2, 3 and 4. Interestingly, they are both also scientists.
 * In X's ending in Mega Man X6, Alia mentions having plans of working on an antibody program that will delete the Maverick Virus for good. This further gives a connection to Ciel, since it was the latter's ancestress that developed such a program, the Mother Elf.