What is Happening in NIKKE?

Story Recap

The video recounts a grim NIKKE story about Maria, a once-kind researcher whose effort to clear her mother’s name gradually turns her into a ruthless scientist.

At first, Maria treats her clones gently. She checks that they’re comfortable, warns them about the stairs, and encourages them when their research makes even small gains. But the clones are repeatedly sent into deadly combat, each passing their memories and experiences to the next. Maria hopes that enough accumulated battle data will let them approach Lilith’s strength and help reclaim the surface from the Raptures.

The cost is devastating: after 100 clones die, the project has advanced only 2.4%. Maria briefly wants to stop, but clone 102 persuades her that quitting would make all those sacrifices pointless. As the clone count rises, Maria’s empathy erodes. When Maria 235 injures herself falling down the stairs, the original Maria tells her to “love herself”—then shoots her. The narrator calls this the first clear sign that Maria is losing her humanity.

A Descent Into Ruthlessness

Things worsen when Enoch gives Maria a month to reach a target or have the project cancelled. A squad of clones nearly reaches the halfway point, only to be brutally wiped out. Maria becomes focused not on their suffering, but on eliminating their fear of death because it interferes with the mission. When she can’t persuade one clone to overcome that fear, she kills her herself—then briefly seems to recognize the monster she’s becoming.

Eventually, the clones stop receiving individual numbers and are simply called “Maria N.” The project fails, and Maria blames the clones for not meeting her expectations. The narrator jokes that even Mirror recognizes Maria as a rival, and mocks the idea of repeatedly sending clones to die in the same place: “Take the L, Mirror.”

A Rapture-related corruption makes matters worse, and Maria ultimately admits that all 1,187 deaths were meaningless.

The Final Tragedy

The story takes a darker turn when Maria’s clones are deliberately corrupted without being told, as the project shifts toward creating Heretics. By then, Maria no longer seems concerned with the lives she’s sacrificing. She cares only about results and salvaging her mother’s legacy.

In trying to redeem her mother’s connection to the Rapture Queen, Maria’s own actions help set the stage for another one. The narrator calls her descent heartbreaking and jokes that Marian’s suffering may even outdo Dorothy’s.

Standout Jokes and Reactions

The narrator describes the event as “pure CBT” (clarifying that he doesn’t mean a closed beta test), compares the clones’ ordeal to sending Subaru from Re:Zero into a war against Necrons, and sarcastically calls one moment Maria’s “low-tier champion” era.

He repeatedly breaks up the bleak recap with disbelief—especially at the Maria blob—and ends by declaring that Shift Up may hate Marian more than anyone.

Figures Mentioned

The narrator; Maria and her numbered clones, including Maria 2, Maria 3, Maria 4, Maria 55, Maria 102, and Maria 235; Enoch; Mirror; Lilith; Marian; and the Rapture Queen.