To be fair, Smoke's presence in the game was supposed to be a secret so they wouldn't have shown him in the prologue. He doesn't show up in this screen about Sub-Zero and the Cyborgs either:


That said, Smoke could not have been a chosen one in the original simply because he was automated BEFORE the invasion started, so by the time the gods put their protection on the heroes, he had no soul for the gods to protect or for Shao Kahn to steal.
But the question wasn't really "was Smoke a chosen one", it's just "Did Raiden ever meet Smoke before, in MK2 or 3?" Well...since Sub-Zero was on Raiden's side in both games in the original, it's certainly not impossible for Raiden to have seen or met Smoke at some time in either game. That said, the story gives the impression that Sub-Zero fought the cyborgs either all by himself or with Scorpion's help, he didn't have the rest of the chosen ones dogpile them or something like that...so it's definitely possible Raiden could've gone all that time without ever once actually meeting Sektor, Cyrax, and Smoke in their cyborg forms.
Still, Raiden COULD have awareness of things or people without witnessing them in person because gods are supposed to have long-distance, near-omniscient senses, or when he's not around hanging out with Liu and co., he could be sitting in the heavens watching his planet for trouble and see these dudes and what they're up to.
For example, he'd never met Kabal or Stryker before MK3 and yet somehow both were chosen. He knew who Sub-Zero was and what he'd done from the moment he met him in Mythologies. In fact, pretty much every person he ever meets, he always knows their name already. He's gotta be familiar with everyone in the Lin Kuei and what they're up to because these are important and dangerous mortals worth keeping an eye on.

This is cool, I've never seen these pictures before.

These pics play on the screen when you let the arcade version of MK3 sit and play demos.

Here's a link to the full set.

I REALLY wish they'd remained true to these images when they got to the MK3 part of 9's story mode. Sindel's body floating in the dark as Shang resurrects her, The horde of centaurs stampeding across a desert, the city at night with a giant red hole in the sky, souls flying around as people drop dead in the streets sort of like the montage after the containment unit blew up in Ghostbusters 1...this imagery is so much more atmospheric and epic than anything the cutscenes in 9 managed.

This scenario may have already been addressed, but here is my idea of what I think could be done:

All the events of what happened with Cyber Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot should not be changed. However in the next game, we learn that Noob Saibot has not been destroyed but instead that he being knocked into that portal actually shoots him up to the heavens where he is in audience with the Elder Gods. Naturally, it is his mission to eliminate the Elder Gods because he serves Shinnok. But Raiden received warnings of what Noob Saibot is capable of leading the Netherrealm armies into both Outworld and Earthrealm and the destruction wrecked. And so Raiden and the Elder Gods devise a plan to attempt to convert Noob Saibot to their side because of the potential he has and use him as an agent against Shinnok. Noob agrees to the plans of the Elder Gods, and Raiden attempts to revive the "Bi-Han" in him, and succeeds by making Noob embrace his former self, re-introducing "Sub-Zero". But, as the game progresses on, it turns out this revived "Sub-Zero" is actually a double agent and tricked the Elder Gods the whole time and brings about the forces of the Netherrealm eliminating just about all the Gods except Raiden and Fujin.

As for Cyber Sub-Zero, along with Smoke and Jade, they were the souls resurrected by Quan Chi that did not fight Raiden when he was in Hell trying to make a deal to join forces against Shao Kahn. Therefore, Cyber Sub-Zero, Smoke and Jade serve as the bodyguards of Quan Chi and uses them not only to lead the Netherrealm armies in Outworld and Earth, but eventually against Shinnok himself as he makes a bid to become supreme ruler. But the Lin Kuei, at this point still evil, want to get back both Cyber Sub-Zero and Smoke, and since the Lin Kuei are based in Earth and the Netherrealm is invading it, the Lin Kuei (along with Sektor and Cyrax) will have no choice but to join forces with Raiden, Cage and Sonya to combat the Netherrealm armies. In fact since Shinnok is also invading Outworld, both Earth and Outworld will have to join forces against fighting the bigger threat of the Netherrealm.

I just hope Noob returns in 10. Like...I know I've said several times I don't care about the sequel...but the truth is, I care at LEAST enough that if they turn Bi-Han back into a Sub-Zero, or have what happened to Scorpion in Deception happen to Noob now, I'm gonna call bullshit because that's not in his character to ever go back to being even SEMI a good guy. He's evil. He's one of the MOST evil. You gotta accept that.

Wouldn't that just make Bi-Han more evil? After he were forced to revert back to his Sub-Zero persona, he would cunningly begin playing a role of a double agent for the whole time thus maximizing the destruction. I think Omegali22's idea was quite worthwhile. Even Shao Kahn, in desperate measures that is, allied to his greatest nemeses in Armageddon and Kahn is above Noob in the current evil charts, ultimately.

Nope. I will not accept it. Here is why:
In MKM he was arrogant and immoral (it naturally comes with him being hired assassin), but ultimately not evil enough to join Quan Chi or assist Shinnok's scheme. If anything he was as evil as Hanzo Hasashi, when he was human. Maybe slightly more, given that he killed Hanzo in cold blood. However question remains what Hanzo would do in the same situation?

You've got to remember - rivalry between clans started because of Takeda treachery and honor is a serious business in the Asia, so killing someone from a rival clan is a honorable thing to do. From a winner point of view of course.

Acting defiant is not the same thing as being good. Honestly, if you play Mythologies, or at least watch every cutscene on Youtube, the way Bi-Han acts, it almost doesn't make sense that he turns Quan down, joining the bad guys seems right up his alley after what a ruthless, cocky douchebag he acts like.

The only explanation there can be is that he just didn't LIKE Quan personally and wanted to tell him to fuck off. Consider that at the time, he didn't believe it when Quan told him "look, you're gonna end up here when you die anyway, why not just sign up now and save some time?" After that, Raiden tells him "Quan Chi was right, dude" and Bi-Han doesn't do a damn thing to change his ways or show regret or repentance, and then he's HAPPY when he becomes Noob Saibot, so for all we know, maybe when he got back home, he decided "y'know what? If I'm gonna go to Hell when I die anyway, maybe Quan was right and I should've just sided with him when I had the chance?"

Consider that Scorpion in every game acts like he regrets and mourns the bad things he's done and doesn't LIKE being in Hell. He was only an assassin to support his beloved family and he's sometimes talked about honor in a "fighting fair" sense and tried to spare people. Even in MK9 he seems to hate himself after he kills Bi-Han and is clearly unhappy to still be working for Quan Chi when Raiden talks to him again towards the end of the game.

The only time Bi-Han ever spared anyone was a pretty girl. We've never gotten a chance to see him interact with his brother before becoming Noob, but he certainly seems to have stopped caring about him and started considering him a disgrace and an enemy at the drop of a hat...and as Noob, he clearly REVELS in being evil and living in Hell which is exactly the opposite of how Scorpion feels and acts.

The key to this is the line "..he still has a soul..." To me, that means his was never truly extinguished; it was always there, just struggling for dominance and self-assertion. The impression I've always had is that the soul cannot be destroyed by the process unless its owner is truly willing to give it up; hence why it worked for Sektor, worked partially for Cyrax, and didn't work at all for Smoke.

And there's the fact that he's being pursued by Kahn's minions - IE his extermination squads, who've been tasked with taking out Raiden's chosen ones. I feel the intent was definitely there to have him be one of Raiden's chosen. What follows is conjecture, but seeing as how Kabal was scarred and Cage killed as the invasion started, I'd figured that Kahn or Tsung would have been able to tell exactly where Raiden's guys were right after he'd killed everyone else on the planet, probably by detecting the few souls still out there, and immediately sent his hordes after him. Those centaurs were striding across barren wastes with purpose (god, how I miss the imagery of the post-apocalyptic dead world MK3 evoked. Agreed 100% they should have stuck to the attract images).

Further, I've always seen that ending as going hand-in hand with Sub-Zero's, which states that he defeats Cyrax and Sektor with Smoke's help.

The way I view the events is, in a nutshell, they escape, Smoke gets taken and automated (probably by Cyrax and Sektor themselves), then is sent along with the other two to get Sub, Smoke possibly being attacked by some of Kahn's goons along the way. Sub manages to help Smoke get his soul/autonomy/free will/whatever you want to call it back - I think soul's still the best term - they take on the two of them together, beating Sektor and reprogramming Cyrax. From there they join the main offensive against Kahn's forces, during which time Scorpion does an about-face as he's sworn to protect Sub-Zero. Smoke gets captured during the fighting.

It's wonderful, how the patchwork nature of the old games inspires such discussion and interpretation, isn't it?

I have to disagree with you there Razor. Sub-Zero at the time was still alive and was still Lin Kuei. Had swore an oath to the clan. So despite being cocky and an ass.
He still had his HONOR.
So joining Quan Chi wouldn't make since at all..
Plus you got to remember, this guy best the Elemental Gods... so who is Quan Chi and Shinnok to him?
But when he died at the hands of Scorpion. That stripped him of his oath and his humanity and allowed him to gain benefits from the BrotherhoodOfShadow as being the darksoul Noob Saibot.

There only one thing we can agree on.. Noob Saibot should stay... theres no benefits to Bi Han being Sub-Zero again.

The hazy thing about Cyberninja soullessness has always been the question "Well if they don't have one anymore, where did it go?" Because obviously Cyrax and Smoke get theirs back. So where were they in the meantime?

If their souls really were still in their bodies all along, just lying dormant...then how the hell were they immune to Kahn's world-suck? You can't have a soul and be immune to losing it just because you're not USING it at the moment, that would be stupid.

"Honor" means different things to different people at different times, it's an incredibly vague/versatile word.

For example, to Scorpion it can mean "fighting fair" sometimes, and sometimes it means "bravery". He hates the way Sub-Zero killed him "without honor" because he was already beaten and defenseless. He died "without honor" because he was begging for his life like a coward at the time.

I suppose the definition you're going for in your post is loyalty, to the Lin Kuei.

I have to admit, one of Bi-Han's few defining traits in Mythologies is he's blindly loyal to his clan...but I don't think he saw it as a choice between the Lin Kuei and the Brotherhood when Quan Chi was making the offer. The dialogue and his reaction sort of implies that to HIM, the choice he was making was between freedom and slavery, that he just didn't want to be a pawn for a sorcerer that up to this point, he'd been completely antagonistic with, and that's why he basically told Quan to go fuck himself. You gotta remember that in Mythologies, Sub and Quan don't get along from, like, the very moment they meet. They get off on the wrong foot because of the whole "you hired another ninja and I was forced to fight him off" thing, and Bi-Han just completely distrusts him and thinks he's a manipulative douchebag from then on, and he doesn't seem to like Raiden much for making him go to the Netherealm either, so clearly he's got issues with being "manipulated" and forced to do stuff against his will by sorcerers and gods.
Of course, as Noob, he's clearly changed his mind about all that, probably because he likes the power Quan has granted him. In a lot of ways, he's actually MORE free as Noob Saibot than he was as Sub-Zero.

Let me correct myself earlier that Noob was kicked into a soulnado, not portal.

Anyway, I think we all just about agree that Noob needs to be in the next game and he SHOULD play a big role. Now I'm sure most of you have seen my opinion of how Noob should be in the next game, and of course there can be some tweaking here and there, but I believe it's totally in his character that he would he do everything in his power bring more power to his masters Quan Chi and Shinnok. Let's not forget though that when Quan Chi and Shinnok were defeated in MK4 in the original timeline, Noob was essentially free to go about his own path. And he took full advantage of it by hacking into Cyber Smoke and developing an army of demon cyborgs based off of Cyber Smoke. Should Quan Chi and Shinnok once again be defeated in the sequel, and if Noob is still in the picture, we should not expect him to change his plans for domination and in fact, I just though of this right now, Noob's ending of joining forces with Havik from the Chaos realm may perhaps be the sequel's version of the "Deadly Alliance". (Although originally my first idea of a "Deadly Alliance" in the sequel is Raiden reviving Shang Tsung along with Liu Kang as zombies to combat the threat of the Netherrealm or down the road, Onaga...but that's for a different thread).

Imagine that, after Quan Chi and Shinnok are defeated, Noob comes in to fill their place and joins forces with Havik and ONCE AGAIN, the realms are invaded by the combined might of the Netherrealm and Chaosrealm. Someone had mentioned this in an earlier post, that at some point later on during the storyline in the sequel the Elder Gods choose Scorpion (Cage and Sonya Blade are totally dead by then) as their "Champion". So once again, Scorpion (Hanzo Hasashi) faces off against Noob Saibot (Bi-Han) not only to resolve their rivalries, but also decide the fates of all the realms. Wow...even I stun myself sometimes haha

So what do you guys think?

As much as I hate the way they killed off Shang...if he has to be dead, then Noob and Havik might actually make a pretty cool future replacement for the Deadly Alliance. The only possible issue is that Havik sometimes works with the good guys either to oppose a lawful-aligned villain, or just to be unpredictable or shake up a status quo.

"The only possible issue is that Havik sometimes works with the good guys either to oppose a lawful-aligned villain, or just to be unpredictable or shake up a status quo."

Good point Razor, but don't forget that even the Shang Tsung-Quan Chi Deadly Alliance eventually led both of them to turn on each other. Perhaps the same thing would happen with Noob and Havik, interesting.

Tricky business indeed. I've considered Smoke one of Raiden's chosen ever since MK3. It's my belief he was every bit as covered by our resident Thunder god as Stryker, Kabal et. al. So there's his safety net.

The missing piece, then, is Cyrax. He didn't start experiencing flashbacks to his human life until after Sub reprogrammed him; perhaps there is a bit of physical tinkery involved in helping the cyber-ninja get back what they've lost - I can certainly see Sub-Zero having to fight with Smoke, beating him, and helping him recover his humanity after a bit of adjustment (if the thought of an ice ninja with 1337 hacking skills seems silly to anyone out there, remember that Tobias' original aim was to have the Lin Kuei as a whole be very tech savvy. Sub-Zero had a suit and business cards in the MKII comic.). I wouldn't consider the soul 'not used' in the literal sense, but rather in a subjugated state, or dormant, perhaps corrupted and diminished to the point where Kahn couldn't get a grip on it.

It's not a science, but that's in a nutshell the way I see it.

Not every duo that gets created will come to a split up just because Quan Chi and Shang Tsung did it.

I suppose that, whether their souls literally left their bodies, or were buried so deep as to be undetectable and unstealable, perhaps it doesn't matter which because the result is the same: It's a fact that they were automated BEFORE the invasion started. Thus, all three cyborgs were incapable of being either drained by Kahn OR becoming members of Raiden's chosen - you just can't steal OR protect a soul you don't know exists. All three were genuinely neutral-aligned wildcards during MK3, including Smoke.

Assuming Smoke recovered his free will and soul during 3 with Sub's help, (which we don't actually know for sure because the next time he showed up, in Deception, he's programmed again and the game never specifies what happened to him in 3 other than he was deactivated in battle) then perhaps Raiden THEN added him to the chosen ones. Either that or his soul wasn't protected, but it wasn't in danger of being stolen either because Kahn was no longer casting his big mass soul steal spell by then anyway, the soul sucking was already long since over and the fighting had begun.

That could be thought the other way around too; the 'evil' dialogue implies that to HIM. Would've been a pretty geniously hidden message if you'd have intended that.

Often they do, read the history of WWII for instance. If Havik and Noob would represent separate realms, they would likely just want to benefit of the alliance until it ceases to pay off. It wouldn't necessarily have to happen the same way as with Quan and Shang but as long as the forces of light resist, this can happen.

As far as I can say MKM made a point that Bi Han is not a kind of guy who will join bad guys, even if he ruthless and cocky. His final dialogue with Raiden hints that his not that evil.


How do we know that he is happy being Noob Saibot?
For all we know Quan Chi could tamper with his soul to make him his loyal servant / revenge for MKM events. We never learn so far what exactly Bi Han could say about his transformation. As Noob Saibot he certainly enjoys it, but there is a question - how much Noob Saibot is Bi Han? Is Noob really straight continuation of Bi Han's personality or Noob is just Bi Han with amplified "evil" (with or without Quan Chi efforts), hence he do not think straight and doesn't act like Bi Han would?
Besides there is ending of MK1. I know it's not exactly a prove, since it was written before MKM was even considered. But it kind of fits with the whole MKM story. According to it, you can assume that Bi Han followed Raiden's advice and retired from his "profession". We don't know for sure if Tobias thought about this ending, while creaing MKM, but if he did, it prooves that Bi Han is not inherently evil guy.


Given that Hanzo Hasashi is not much better human being than Bi Han he certainly could become the same evil guy like Noob. The question why it didn't happened. I think Quan Chi specifically resurrected Scorpion as a specter with free will (or sorts, since he still following Quan Chi commands), since he assumed he would be more useful like that. Maybe Quan thought that Scorpion is easily manipulated as he is and there is no need to tamper with his soul.


As a Noob Saibot. We don't know nothing about how Bi Han and Kuai Liang interacted. If anything I doubt that guy like Kuai Liang, who has big sense of honor and right and wrong, would go so far to honor complete bastard, you presumed his brother was. If anything their relationship would be strained and from the way how Kuai Liang spoke about his brother in MK9, it doesn't seem to be the case.


Well, Quan Chi and Shinnok are much more powerfull beings then Elemental Gods it seems. Quan Chi is one of the most powerful sorceres in MK'verse and Shinnok is fallen Elder God.

Sure it could happen, but they don't need to make every single duo to fall apart either just by killing each other or some random event.

And please don't mention wars around me... at least for the remainder of the week. Had a tough Vietnam final I took today, I kinda don't want to hear anything about war for a while... At least I got a solid A on my paper. But still, no war mentionings

You have misquoted me, sir. Human Sub 4-ever said that one.

That said, however...Shinnok is supposed to be weaker than a god without his amulet. A Fallen Elder God is not the same thing as an Elder God, the key word there is "fallen". It means what power he had was stripped from him.

And even before that, he had already drained himself of most of his power and put that power inside the amulet. If he gets the damn thing back, yeah, he'll get back a lot of his power but even then he's not quite full strength, he can't be that much higher over an element-god since Raiden was able to survive being at war with him for quite some time when he tried to conquer Earthrealm.

I guess holding the throne of Hell grants some power that has made Shinnok more formidable, but he still doesn't seem to be on the same level as, say, Shao Kahn. His only real advantage is that his realm has way more soldiers in it and he has the power to resurrect anyone in it that he likes, whereas Kahn can't bring people back from the dead.

As for the rest of your post, about not knowing how much Quan Chi may have tampered with Bi-Han's personality when he turned him into Noob...it is a fair point, Bi-Han COULD very well be magically corrupted or under some mind control...but clearly it's not very good mind control since Noob is always planning to become the ruler of the Netherealm himself. So I'm inclined to believe that when the game says things like "He had to earn his place in the Netherrealm. He actually desired to remain there." and "It suits my purpose" [serving Quan Chi], they actually mean it and even if Bi-Han were restored to life as a Sub-Zero, he'd probably resent losing his awesome shadow powers and go on acting as the same compassion-devoid agent of evil that he is now because being a merciless killer was already his true nature, and what reason would he have to change his ways and resist what comes natural to him when he's already learned that going to Hell is actually rewarding for him?
I mean, okay, the original timeline version of Bi-Han was hired to kill Shang, which would have been a good deed, despite the fact that he was only doing it to get paid, because it would've saved Earthrealm. And he MAY have planned to retire from the clan after the tournament like in his non-canon MK1 ending and start taking Raiden's words about changing his ways to heart. But look at what the MK9 version of Bi-Han is doing at the tournament: He's working FOR Shang Tsung, he's killing his own realm's defenders for a paycheck. He's not just ignoring Raiden's advice about changing his ways, he's doing the exact fucking opposite.
So this timeline's Bi-Han is actually MORE evil even before he dies and becomes Noob than the original was and it would make even less sense for him to become a good guy if he came back to life and wasn't Noob anymore, wouldn't it?

Unless Raiden had met Smoke before, which is entirely possible. He managed to protect Stryker and Kabal, who were brand new folks at the time. I don't see why ol' lightning-long johns could do that for people he'd never met before, but not Smoke. We're assuming he too cast some spell of protection applicable to those worthy enough, right, and perhaps came upon Kabal and Stryker that way? I don't know if he'd need to do that for warriors who'd fought for him previously. I believe it's a given those would already be under his protection, possibly granted status as Earthrealm's defenders.

I'm not disputing the fact that Smoke started neutral; I'm just extremely sure he came out of the ordeal awakened and on the side of good before capture. Strictly speaking, nothing really conflicts with how his and Sub-Zero's endings gel together, minus the Kahn-killings of course.

The thing is that this is irrelevant.

In this context, "Chosen One" means that what you were chosen for is to be part of the group that had a big blanket-spell of protection cast on them during and ONLY during the events of MK3. The purpose of this spell is that it makes you immune to soul stealing. The gods weren't making chosen ones during MK1 or 2 and they haven't made any since the Earth/Outworld invasion ended. Being a defender of Earthrealm or a friend of Raiden does not make you automatically immune to having your soul stolen, otherwise Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn would have basically been defanged of their greatest power during MK1 and 2, which they obviously weren't. The heroes clearly had to worry about being the victim of a soul drain if they lost the tournaments. And Liu gets his soul stolen when he dies in DA so being a Chosen One was clearly finite, it ended at the end of MK3.

Raiden (or the Elder Gods themselves, we don't actually know that it was Raiden who did the choosing in the first place) didn't pick Chosen Ones the moment he met them, he/they picked them when Kahn tore open the sky over New York City and started draining souls from Earth all at once. And at that time, Smoke was ALREADY a cyborg, his soul was not with him. At that time, it was completely undetectable by and immune to sorcerer, emperor, and god alike.

Thus, he couldn't be made a chosen one at the time Raiden or the Elder Gods were making chosen ones, y'see what I'm saying here?
Now, maybe he could've been granted the protection belatedly, after Subbie helped him get his free will back, if he did get his free will back...but we don't know that he did. And the idea that they were still handing out soul-protection spells in the middle of battle seems somewhat unlikely to me anyway as Smoke's freedom probably would've taken place towards the end of the game, at which point having their souls stolen may no longer have been a concern because Kahn wasn't stealing souls anymore, he was concentrating on fighting off the survivors.

Well I don't want to see too much déj�a vus either. It gets repetitive. Fine.