Gaia

Monolite Origin: Summer -
 Earth
 Poison

Monolite Origin: Fall -
 Water
 Ice

Monolite Origin: Winter -
 Wind
 Sage

**Gaia** is the final Main Scenario boss of Harvestella, encountered during the epilogue in the Stella Nursery dungeon. She is also the one responsible for creating Quietus. Her full name is Stella Child: Gaia Type.

## Background

Gaia was built on Lost Gaia as an AI for the Gaia Computer (built by a scientific group called Animus, who are the creators of Project Gaia) programed to create a paradise and draws from humanity's subconscious. The project eventually backfired, resulting in Gaia being bent on destroying all life to keep humanity from destroying anything else due to humanity's wish for their own extinction. Prior to the events of the story, she intended to wipe out all of mankind by conjuring the Red Queen, which rendered Lost Gaia uninhabitable and forced the surviving humans to go into hibernation to await for a new world. Once ReGaia was formed, Gaia tried to repeat her task of wiping out the new species of humans living there by creating Quietus. The Protagonist and their friends eventually discover her sleeping within a machine in Lost Gaia's core. Once her counterpart, ReGaia, explains the history of her creation and motive to them, they briefly engage the defense system protecting her before she awakens and attempts to destroy ReGaia within the planet's core. After they defeat her monstrous form: the Dream of Man's End, the Protagonist is knocked out and finds themselves within their consciousness with Gaia preparing to finish them off (also claiming that others do not have the strong determination as them). This makes the Protagonist almost give up hope, but their friends come to their aid and they return to reality. Once Gaia is defeated again, she is still unwilling to stop, but ReGaia convinces her to give humanity another chance despite all the chaos they caused. Deciding to give up her goal, she then has the Protagonist and their friends promise that they will keep fighting for what's right before dissolving into bits of red energy. Following the end of Gaia's reign of terror, Quietus is officially brought to an end.

## Personality

Gaia, despite her calm tone, is very ruthless and determined to do what is takes to ensure her goal is completed and is willing to eliminate those who stand in her way, and even tries to discourage them. She is also quite persistent as even after losing twice, she refuses to give up. But once ReGaia convinces her, she finally reconsiders and ends her plans for good.

## Appearance

**Gaia** is a young looking woman with long blonde hair, red eyes, and pale skin. She has unusual wing like objects floating above her shoulders, and she herself hovers just above the ground.

## Strategy

This is the final fight, immediately following the defeat of  Dream of Man's End. There is no opportunity to return home for new food or crafting items for this fight. At the beginning of the fight, Gaia explains the origins of Lost Gaia and how she is honoring humanity's truest wish to not exist after all the harm they've caused. Upon the defeat of each of the bosses, she will explain more of the history.

Gaia brings with her the four seasonal Monolites Origins into battle, which must be destroyed in order to defeat her in her final form. This means there is a total of five bosses that must be defeated simultaneously during the final fight. However, you start the battle with your determination healing you, which makes this fight considerably easier than Dream of Man's End. You can still take considerable damage and potentially die, however, if you do not dodge some of the repeated attacks quickly enough for your determination to heal you. Your stamina, likewise, will heal during this fight.

You cannot target Gaia directly, but she will remain in the background and attack your party, along with the Monolites.

You can only target one boss at a time. Once you begin causing damage, the other Monolites will guard themselves from further attack.

Upon the defeat of the Monolites, Gaia will be defeated.

## **Monolite Origin: Spring**

### Attribute Weakness(es)

* Fire
* Lightning

## **Monolite Origin: Summer**

### Attribute Weakness(es)

* Earth
* Poison

## **Monolite Origin: Fall**

### Attribute Weakness(es)

* Water
* Ice

## **Monolite Origin: Winter**

### Attribute Weakness(es)

* Wind
* Sage

## Trivia

* A villain being named after the Greek Titan of the earth is not unusual than it seems. Within Greek mythology, Gaia was not entirely the motherly and divine being as commonly seen with modern thought and popular depictions, breeding Echinda, the mother of all monsters, and reveled in the act of breeding an evil being as revenge against Zeus overstepping his authority and placing the Olympian Gods on the throne.
	+ Within predecessors of *Harvestella*, there exists Dark Gaia within the *Soul Blazer* trilogy, who is considered the embodiment of decline, destruction, and extinction; the cult of The Ring of Gaia in the *Megami Tensei* series, where the goddess Gaia is praised by those inclined towards the excesses of chaos, including survival of the fittest and wanton indulgence; and in the *Harvest Moon* games, there is the Witch Queen, who is the evil counterpart to the Harvest Goddess and tends to be the major antagonist in the games she appears in, and practices black magic rooted in the opposite of the cultivation and breeding aspects of the series.
* The confrontation with Gaia has some similarities with Harbinger Aria.
	+ Harbinger Aria's outfit is a black dress, similar to Gaia's outfit.
	+ The red energy blast that Gaia uses is similar to the one that Harbinger Aria uses. Both blasts knocked out the Protagonist, but fails to kill them completely, instead transporting them into their own consciousness. The only difference is that Harbinger Aria's blast also paved a way for the Protagonist to enter her consciousness.
	+ There was a victim and a rescuer in both confrontations within a character's consciousness and the rescuer is able to successfully help the victim. In the confrontation with Harbinger Aria, the Protagonist is the rescuer and Aria is the victim. In the confrontation with Gaia, the Protagonist is the victim and the other main characters are the rescuers.
		- A "key" was needed to reach the victim. In Aria's consciousness, Aria's diary was the key to get through her insecurities while in the Protagonist's consciousness, Aria herself was the key to get through their depression.

## Speculation

* Although never revealed, Gaia is strongly implied to be the puppet master behind Geist and Harbinger Aria's plots and the Proto-Seaslight's true motive. Since Lorelei, the Dragon, and Kierkegaard were working with Geist in the first place, they too may have been pawns to Gaia as well.
	+ It is revealed that the things found in the Seaslights were summoned by Gaia, which occurred when Geist energized them. Geist refers this event as the Planetary Nightmare.
	+ When Geist learned about Gaia, she influenced him to kidnap Aria to make her become the Harbinger so to destroy ReGaia using Geist's Paradise Project. Once he is defeated, Gaia's control over Geist was broken.
	+ When Aria made the decision to become the Harbinger and save her people, she fell under Gaia's control and intended to have her carry out the project. This failed when the Protagonist manages to free Aria from her self doubts (even though it was thought to be impossible), which also breaks Gaia's control over Aria.
	+ After the Protagonist refused to complete the Paradise Project, Gaia had no choice but to take over and instruct the Proto to land on the Castle of Illusion (which indicates that she was the "invader" in the Omens' collective consciousness) and locks out manual control to prevent it from being stopped. Once again, Gaia's plan failed when the Proto is redirected into landing in the northern sea.
	+ ReGaia may have been aware that Gaia was manipulating Geist, Harbinger Aria, Lorelei, the Dragons, Kierkegaard, and the Proto, but she didn't reveal this in the final chapter. However, she does know about the Planetary Nightmare and the Paradise Project's backfiring.