Oh boy... Okay, here's my best shot.

1. The trailer showing Raiden vs. Shao Kahn is NOT confirmed to be the fight between them at the conclusion of Armageddon. It could very well be a fight from the past, during the MK2/MK3 era. Concerning the end of Armageddon, we don't know what happened yet. Apparently there was "the prize" at the top of the tower for beating Blaze, and I'm assuming everyone gets killed except for Shao Kahn and Raiden during the final battle.

2. It was implied Onaga was defeated by Shujinko and that Sindel separated Onaga from Reptile and put his soul back into his original body (which is why both co-exist in Armageddon). It never explained how or why some characters were resurrected. Konquest mode has scenes from hell and implies that the unstable battles between the realms allowed the damned souls to escape the Netherrealm and join the fight.

3. Until Deception, Onaga was a spirit without form. He had no body and could only manipulate, deceive, and orchestrate events from the shadow. Shujinko's actions empowered Onaga, and he took residence within Reptile to have a physical form to directly engage others with. In Shujinko's story, Onaga takes over Reptile (you don't see it) towards the end of Shujinko's journey.

Those are my best explanations/guesses.

Garlador's guesses are close, but he got some stuff wrong. Here's what I've compiled based on all the bios released for Armageddon on the internet:


We can't know for sure yet, but the most obvious guess would be that Taven's ending in Armageddon is the one that came true. He beat Blaze and afterward, Blaze's energy passed through his magic armor, which was designed to stop the war by either killing or taking away the powers of all the MK characters.

Instead, it malfunctioned and made them stronger, making the war even worse. At which point, so much power being used in one place at one time would cause reality to start to rip apart and destroy the universe.

Shao Kahn and Raiden may just be happening to fight each other at the time. It was a very cluttered war, lots of little fights were going on between different people.



Deception ended with Shujinko destroying the Kamidogu and beating the crap out of Onaga, but before he could kill him, Nightwolf sucked Onaga's soul into Hell, setting Reptile free.

All the dead characters, Onaga included, came back in Armageddon because Shinnok let them out of Hell. See, Armageddon is really all Shinnok's fault.

He wanted Blaze's power for himself, and the only way to make Blaze and the pyramid appear was to cause the war Blaze was waiting for. So Shinnok formed the villain army and tricked Johnny Cage into forming the hero army on purpose, just to cause the war and make the pyramid rise.



Reptile was possessed. Onaga was a ghost when he was leading Shujinko around, disguised as "Damashi". And a ghost without a body can't touch things or do things on its own. That's why he needed a host.

Ah! Both of you, that helps a lot. I greatly appreciate it!

A wizard did it.

Not a problem. This is kinda what I do in the community. XiahouDun's better at it, but he stopped caring after Deception, making me the resident Armageddon expert.
I'm also much less bitter and pessimistic...

Yeah I have quickly come to notice that...

I would say that many of the fans with a big passion/love for the storyline are a bit bitter though, with the way they have been handling things (specially during MKA). But yeah, not all of us are pessimistic about it.

I love the story and know it from beginning to end, but MKD's stupid "kill and resurrect" the heroes plot, and MKA's immense quantity of idiotic endings and almost no bios really pissed me off.

That really was a big fat disgusting spit on the face to the fans. I'm glad my favorites got amazing bios (Sonya, Johnny, Ashrah, Nitara, Kenshi, etc), but honestly, ALL of them deserved at least a few lines.

I think the storyline was fine until MKA created a big cluster fuck in the time line.

Now they are trying to do a quick fix with this bull shit "Raiden sent a message back into time"

I guess this is their way or trying to retell the tale and do it right without any plot holes. But I hope to god MK10 doesn't try to retell any stories either. So the next question is, what in the HELL could possibly be in MK10 if it's all some big do-over?

They should have just started fresh and said "fuck what you know, we're going back to the beginning" instead of trying to jerk us around with some half-assed excuse about time traveling messages.

GOD DAMN IT. Who the hell is in charge of the story?

I can say this, that I am not looking forward to the story element of MK9 like I was before. The mythology is 50% of why I love MK. I guess that's gone now huh?

They could bring in some new fresh faces and save Shinnok as one of the BIG GIANT threats that Onaga was supposed to be and failed at horribly. Have Shinnok as some fallen Elder God who has all this people and can destroy humans in the blink of an eye, not just a guy you can even fight as that is just as easy as, say, Reiko....

No, I was hanging in there after Armageddon.
MK vs. DC left me very jaded and bitter...and now MK9's finished the job.

Wait till it comes out. The story COULD be the most brilliantly executed mythos in a fighting game ever for all you know. Not saying it will be, but I do think you are being a tad bit... overtly pessimistic.

I'm gonna agree with this...