Torquemadras posted:

Sure, that explains the Machine's overall motivation, buuuut...

...it doesn't really explain their specific behaviour during the Tower chapter. You could say they always intended to launch an ark, and they wanted to invite someone along as a "spezial price". At the same time, they want to keep evolving by keeping the androids around as adversaries - but at the same time, they fear they may be too much of a threat. So, uuuuuuh... What was the point of that last chapter, and dismantling the resource recovery units beforehand? It's clear the machines are just goading 9S along; are the units their way if kinda "gathering" the machine network from all corners of the world into the ark? (Which might also be why they launched an all-out attack on Pascal's village.) It seems the machines are doing all that to, ultimately, either kill or incorporate as much of YoRHa as possible while preparing for the ark.

That leaves the Tower chapter, then. The Machines clearly continue with their attempts to either win over or kill 9S (the red girls pretty much say that directly). Then what was up with that cannon bit? There's still some of humanity's data on the moon - do they want to destroy it? Reach it and assimilate it? Was it just a fakeout and A2 is plain wrong about this? Huh?!


Basically, it's the last chapter that's the most confusing to me. Everything before that, including the machine's history, kinda makes sense. With some deliberately unexplained parts, I guess (like where the committee presumably setting up YoRHa's successors is, or what the connection between the machines and the watchers is).