X.A.N.A.

X.A.N.A.
Role	Main Antagonist
First appearance	X.A.N.A. Awakens (chronologically) Teddygozilla (production)
English voice actor(s)	David Gasman
Live-Action actor:	N/A

"HAHAHAHAHA, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE! HAHAHAHA!"

–X.A.N.A., physical form in Ghost Channel

"A super dangerous program, like a virus, which can control electricity. And it activates towers on Lyoko to gain access to your world."

–Aelita about the malevolent artificial intelligence in X.A.N.A. Awakens, Part 2

X.A.N.A. (or simply XANA) is the main antagonist of Code Lyoko. It is an evil computer virus that is a threat to mankind. Its only obstacles are the Lyoko Warriors. It has taken over the Supercomputer that holds Lyoko. By activating Towers, it attacks on Earth, and creates monsters and programs on Lyoko to fight its enemies.

After its supposed destruction, X.A.N.A. managed to miraculously survive through the Cortex, becoming even stronger than before in Code Lyoko Evolution.

Appearance

X.A.N.A.'s true form in Fight to the Finish.

X.A.N.A. is a program that doesn't have a physical form. It lives as pure data inside the system that exists as red, pulsating energies that run through the Lyoko Wires. It can only act through spectres, monsters, or virtual simulations.

The spectres it manifests are black ghostly entities made out of data given physical form, and may as well be X.A.N.A.'s true form on Earth. Even then, they are just extensions that serve as its means of earthly actions, while its core program remains inside the Supercomputer.

XANA's only physical appearance

X.A.N.A.'s only real incarnation was in Ghost Channel, as a fake Jeremie inside a Simulation Bubble. It manifested its presence into a demonic caricature figure of the false Jeremie, with sharp nails, spiky hair, and an unnatural aura. But, the closest thing to a real appearance was in Fight to the Finish. While X.A.N.A. was being destroyed everywhere by Jeremie's multi-agent antivirus, the spectre that was possessing William was forced out and became a giant entity with its eye symbol on the chest, screaming and writhing in agony before it disappears.

Characteristics

X.A.N.A. is a program that works like a virus and gained self-awareness and autonomy, becoming a malevolent entity bent on world domination. As a program, X.A.N.A. does not feel in the human sense. It usually shows the mindset of a hostile force with some intelligence among creatures that share its mind. With spectres, it can be manipulative, ruthless, and arrogant and taunting when having the advantage. Its computing intellect can access vast knowledge, calculate schemes, and even use feelings to take advantage of others, however; it only knows logical patterns and theoretical knowledge, making it capable of mistakes and is easy to predict.

X.A.N.A.'s ambitions evolve as the series progresses. At first, it launches attacks at random, while keeping the Supercomputer on to survive. As its intelligence grows, X.A.N.A. seeks to escape the machine for grander schemes. Upon gaining freedom, it intends to infect other supercomputers to build weapons to conquer the world, while targeting Lyoko to render the team helpless and Franz Hopper, whom it views as its biggest threat.

Despite its chaotic and destructive nature, X.A.N.A. is also logical. It would quickly spare its enemies or team up with them against a bigger threat for the necessity of self-preservation or greater goals, and would not risk destroying essential parts in its plans. X.A.N.A. also takes any chance to gain more power, shown when it made William its weapon after seeing him in action.

Character Relationships

Lyoko Warriors

The Lyoko Warriors are X.A.N.A.'s mortal enemies throughout the series. It considers them obstacles to be destroyed and relentlessly attacks them in the real world any way it can, even using them as tools when it suits its purposes. X.A.N.A. also has different views of each and every one of them:

• Jeremie Belpois: X.A.N.A. targets Jeremie the most with attacks, since he is the only one who can use the lab interface, and it sees him as the source of their leadership. It believes that he is the reason for their high success rate. When X.A.N.A. made a clone of him, it remarked that it "was almost proud to resemble him."
• Aelita Schaeffer: She is the only one who can deactivate Towers, making her very dangerous. But, her abilities make her valuable to X.A.N.A.'s plans. It always uses her as a tool to fulfill greater plans throughout the series.
• Yumi Ishiyama: It sees Yumi as one of the more mature and competent of the group. It uses her the most to accomplish its plans and always tries to devirtualize her the most out of the three core fighters.
• Odd Della Robbia: X.A.N.A. just sees Odd as another annoyance. It even mocked him when its polymorph took his appearance after he suggested that it "turns into a wimp." But, it seems to respect him enough to have monsters listen to his orders when fighting the Marabounta.
• Ulrich Stern: It is aware that Ulrich is the best fighter of the group and usually fights by outnumbering him on Lyoko.
• William Dunbar: X.A.N.A. noticed that William has the most strength and potential out of the Lyoko Warriors. It immediately used the Scyphozoa to possess him on his first trip to Lyoko and used him as its minion throughout the last season. Even after he was freed, X.A.N.A. tried to manipulate him into rejoining its side in Evolution.
• Eva Skinner: In the Chronicles novel series, Eva joined their group of friends, but was really X.A.N.A.'s possessed pawn in order to destroy the group from within. X.A.N.A. barely learned anything about Eva's social life during its time possessing her, as it was instead far more interested in the social structure of humanity itself.

Franz Hopper

X.A.N.A. hates and fears him the most. He is its creator and is the reason the group keeps coming back from their defeats, therefore; Franz is the biggest threat to its existence. X.A.N.A. was originally its multi-agent program, until it became self-aware and betrayed him, keeping him prisoner in the virtual systems. When Lyoko was destroyed, Franz Hopper escaped into the network. Since then, X.A.N.A. desperately tries to lure him out to eliminate him once and for all. His threat is such that it was willing to spare Aelita and the team from certain death because she is vital to drawing him out into the open.

Powers and Abilities

X.A.N.A.'s presence on a screen

X.A.N.A. is a powerful and intelligent program that inhabits the Supercomputer and works like a virus. It was initially bound to the machine, but it escaped into the network after stealing the Keys to Lyoko. They also allow it to create Replikas, small Lyoko copies, within other supercomputers infected with its system. Its capabilities are listed below:

Tower Control

X.A.N.A. activating a tower.

X.A.N.A. activates Towers, known by pulsations, to attack on Earth. They only be stopped by deactivating the Towers. Using them, it manifests physical extensions of itself as network impulses or ghostly spectres. With Lyoko, X.A.N.A. is capable of many dangerous abilities.

With spectres, X.A.N.A.'s virus capabilities can possess networks or material (machines, objects, natural elements, plants, animals, etc.) to manipulate at will. It also control electromagnetic forces, like projecting and manipulating electricity, shattering objects with ultrasound, negating gravity with magnetism, and broadcasting hypnotic sounds. After growing stronger, X.A.N.A. can possess humans and manifest polymorphic spectres to do its bidding on Earth as pixelized vessels with spectral and electrical powers. Only Lyoko Warriors cannot be controlled. They return to normal or disappear when their Towers deactivate and people have no memory of what happened.

With Towers, X.A.N.A. can also materialize or teleport virtual minions to Earth through Scanners or Replikas, control special devices it has built, or show psychic visions through a unique link.

Monsters & Programs

X.A.N.A.'s monsters

On Lyoko, X.A.N.A. creates and virtualizes deadly monsters of many types to fight its enemies and attack virtual targets, usually armed with Lasers. It also uses the Scyphozoa to steal memory or possess warriors on Lyoko. With its Replikas, X.A.N.A. can create the Kolossus, its largest and ultimate monster.

X.A.N.A.'s programming abilities lets it use illusions, alter environments, create virtual prisons, plant bugs and viruses, launch programs through monsters, modify incomplete warriors, and create equipment and vehicles. In the fifth sector, it programs countdown traps and can open portals.

Biography

Origin

X.A.N.A. was created by a scientist named Franz Hopper, formerly Waldo Franz Schaeffer, to destroy Project Carthage. His enemies have discovered his activities and are trying to capture him. To finish the virtual world of Lyoko that would allow him to escape them, he repeatedly launched returns in time of the same day until he completes the virtual world. Consequently, this causes X.A.N.A. to grow more intelligent and self-aware.

With the Scanners and virtualization programs ready, Franz Hopper and his daughter virtualized themselves to Lyoko to flee the men in black. Once inside, X.A.N.A. betrays its creator, imprisoning him and Aelita on Lyoko, so they cannot materialize and tries to kill them both. Franz tries to reason with the sentient virus, but sees it has become too powerful. If left unchecked, X.A.N.A. could threaten all of mankind. This leaves him no choice but to shut down the Supercomputer and stays offline for the next ten years.

Awakening

X.A.N.A. taking control of cables.

X.A.N.A. was reawakened when Jeremie turns on the Supercomputer and discovers Aelita and Lyoko. X.A.N.A. sends monsters after Aelita and activates a Tower to attack Jeremie, then sends an electricity spectre after all those involved with Lyoko. Jeremie sends Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi to Lyoko to deactivate the Tower. They decide to let Jeremie keep working on materializing Aelita, knowing they can neutralize X.A.N.A. by deactivating Towers, becoming the Lyoko Warriors.

First Encounters

X.A.N.A. using a spectre to launch an attack.

While Jeremie works on materializing Aelita, X.A.N.A. launches attacks in the real world. By activating Towers, it can hack networks, cause electrical phenomena, and possess objects to attack the group and wreak havoc on Earth, while using monsters and programs on Lyoko to guard its Towers. It can also materialize creatures from the Scanners, like clones for infiltration or real monsters to attack.

When Aelita's materialization program is complete, X.A.N.A. tries to stop them, knowing they will shut down the Supercomputer afterward. It doesn't succeed, but after Aelita was materialized, Jeremie discovers that X.A.N.A. put a virus inside her, which puts her in a lethal coma if the Supercomputer is shut off. Linking Aelita's fate to its own has ensured X.A.N.A.'s safety for now.

Growing Power

X.A.N.A.'s new monster.

X.A.N.A. is getting smarter and more powerful, creating new monsters on Lyoko, displayed by the Tarantulas. It becomes more focused and has bigger plans, no longer attacking at random. It wants to steal the Keys to Lyoko inside Aelita's memory to escape the Supercomputer. It creates the Scyphozoa monster that can steal memory and launches attacks to lure her to Lyoko to capture her for that purpose. However, until X.A.N.A. gets the keys, it has to be careful to keep her alive no matter what.

The group discovers a fifth sector where Lyoko's secrets and X.A.N.A. live, but it guards the place with Creepers and Mantas, and trap mechanisms linked to a countdown procedure. The team regularly venture there to mine data on the virus that ties Aelita to X.A.N.A. with the hope of freeing her.

The Scyphozoa stealing Aelita's memory.

It is revealed that returns in time make X.A.N.A. more powerful when it used a trap inside Sector 5 data to take over time reversions to repeat the same day until it can possess humans, making them pixelized, empowered vessels that follow its orders on Earth. However, it cannot control Lyoko Warriors, shown when it could only possess Jeremie to destroy the newly discovered diary of Franz Hopper, who copied them into the Supercomputer beforehand and got virtualized to prevent future possessions.

X.A.N.A. and the Lyoko Warriors help each other out of necessity on two occasions this season. When Jeremie's Marabounta monster went out of control, it sends monsters to protect Aelita and helps the group destroy it to preserve her memory and the virtual world. The second time was when the Supercomputer's nuclear battery was failing, putting it and Aelita at risk of dying. X.A.N.A. acts by possessing a criminal to steal another and kidnaps Jeremie to make him change the battery, knowing they both have a common interest to keep the machine online. It tries to kill him after the Supercomputer is reactivated and fails.

A polymorphic spectre.

As more proof of its growing power. X.A.N.A. can manifest polymorphic spectres, which are empowered, shapeshifting ghosts that can appear as anyone it wants. This allows X.A.N.A. to deceive the group by using their identities, ambush the team on Lyoko, or impersonate Franz Hopper to gain their trust in an attempt to trap them, albeit unsuccessfully.

Later, the real Franz Hopper contacts the group and helps decrypt his diary, despite X.A.N.A.'s efforts to stop him in the former or steal their data in the latter. Following the decryption, the information reveals that Franz Hopper created X.A.N.A. and Lyoko, but also that Aelita is his daughter and he virtualized her to Lyoko along with himself.

X.A.N.A. frees itself from the Supercomputer in The Key.

Jeremie also finds out from the diary what X.A.N.A. really wants from Aelita and that she doesn't have a virus, but a missing fragment. X.A.N.A. tricks them with a fake, which allows the Scyphozoa to successfully steal her memory and lets X.A.N.A. escape from the Supercomputer at last. Aelita seemed to perish as a result, but Franz Hopper revives Aelita, along with her missing fragment: the memories of her life on Earth. But, shutting down the machine will not stop X.A.N.A. anymore, which is now free and more powerful than ever.

Targeting Lyoko

X.A.N.A.'s monsters attacking the Core of Lyoko.

X.A.N.A. now hides in the network after escaping the Supercomputer. It hasn't attacked since, thinking it's out of reach. When Jeremie upgrades the Superscan to find X.A.N.A, it sends monsters to attack the Core of Lyoko in response, which will destroy Lyoko as a result, but the group stops the assault in the end.

X.A.N.A.'s code being entered

No longer needing the Supercomputer, the evil virus now intends destroy Lyoko to wipe out all its obstacles. X.A.N.A. constantly attacks the Core of Lyoko with monsters or targeting the Supercomputer on Earth. It also destroys the surface sectors to block the Transport Orb, by possessing Aelita with the Scyphozoa to put its virus code in Way Towers. It succeeds in the order of Forest, Desert, Ice, and Mountain, but Jeremie finds a way to virtualize the team directly into Sector 5.

X.A.N.A. transforming William

Initially reluctant, the team decides to recruit William Dunbar. However, during his first virtualization, he gets cocky, allowing X.A.N.A. to use the Scyphozoa to possess him after seeing his power. It has the possessed William lead a Creeper army focused on the Core of Lyoko, quickly destroying its shields with their combined firepower. When the warriors arrive, he defeats them all and successfully destroys the Core of Lyoko, wiping out Lyoko and rendering the team unable to fight X.A.N.A. now. William was left in the void after, but X.A.N.A. retrieves him and turns him into its slave.

Ultimate Plans

X.A.N.A.'s newest warrior.

Through a coded message sent by Franz Hopper, Jeremie recreates Lyoko. Soon after they do, X.A.N.A. sends William to the real world from the Scanners. His mission is to kidnap Aelita to throw her into the Digital Sea. The group manage to save her and defeat William, but shows the group that he is an agent of X.A.N.A. now.

Inside the network, X.A.N.A. infects other supercomputers found in Earth facilities and laboratories for its world domination plans. It creates copies of Lyoko sectors inside them, called Replikas, to take over these places for its own purposes, like experimentation and building weapons. William serves as X.A.N.A.'s general throughout the season. Through X.A.N.A.'s possession, he wields superior abilities, equipment, and vehicles, command over monsters, and Tower control abilities. It uses him to defend its assets, fight its enemies, and carry out its schemes any way it sees fit.

X.A.N.A. still tries to eliminate the Lyoko Warriors and the virtual world, but has concluded that Franz Hopper is the greatest threat. To draw him out of hiding, X.A.N.A. targets Aelita again, luring her to Lyoko and throwing her into the Digital Sea, compelling Franz to expose himself to save her daughter. It knows that if he and the group combined forces, they would become the greatest threat it will face.

When the group create their virtual ship, the Skidbladnir, to find and destroy Replikas on the network, X.A.N.A. starts targeting the ship to stop any further interference. It uses new Kongre and Shark monsters to fight them in the Digital Sea and targets the ship while its linked to Replika Towers. It can even have William deactivate their Towers to end their missions. At separate times, X.A.N.A. schemed to send the Scyphozoa to drain the ship when the group was indisposed or the Kalamar to destroy it while its shields were down, but continues to fail.

The mighty Kolossus.

Near the end of the series, X.A.N.A. draws energy from all its Replikas to create the most powerful monster: "the Kolossus." It is a fiery titan that can instantly devirtualize enemies with a single blow. The group managed to get away from the monster and gather data on how X.A.N.A. controls William. Later, they use a program based on the data to successfully free him, but the Kolossus destroys the Skidbladnir in the battle.

Inside the last Replika, the group discover large robots lined up like an army, revealing X.A.N.A.'s grand plan to build an army of robots to destroy and take over the world. X.A.N.A. has achieved true power with its network of Replikas, having made an indestructible monster and built a massive army of machines. Without the Skidbladnir, Jeremie's multi-agent program is their only hope of saving the world from X.A.N.A.'s evil ambitions.

Final Battle

X.A.N.A. being destroyed.

X.A.N.A. has its last battle when the group and Franz Hopper meet to launch their program. It possesses William to deal with Jeremie and unplug the Scanners, and sends the Kolossus and Mantas to destroy everyone on Lyoko. Yumi fights William, while Odd, Aelita, and Franz work to launch the program. While Ulrich defeats the Kolossus, Franz Hopper sacrifices himself to provide the energy to launch the program. It destroys all monsters, then spreads everywhere to the sectors and all the Replikas. Its spectre is forced out of William, displaying X.A.N.A. in pain as every part of itself in the network dies, then disappears. X.A.N.A. has been destroyed for good and will never threaten the Earth again.

Other Continuities

X.A.N.A. reappears in the live-action Evolution sequel and the alternate continuity of the Chronicles novel series. It should be noted that neither of the two continuities are completely canon, as Evolution was disowned by the original show-runners, who confirmed that only a few of their ideas made it into the show and that the events within were not canon. Similarly, while the novels were written with the original documents in hand, not all of their events are noted to be canon either.

Code Lyoko: Evolution

A Tower activated, signifying the rebirth of X.A.N.A..

In the live-action Evolution sequel, X.A.N.A. has survived its demise in the previous series by hiding in the supercomputer that generates an unknown Replika, called the Cortex. X.A.N.A. causes strange bugs in the Kadic school's computers and short circuits, which compels the group to reactivate the Supercomputer and restore Lyoko, renewing their struggle with their old enemy.

Furthermore, X.A.N.A. had injected its own Source Codes into the warriors in their last battle, which contain fragments of its power. It now acts to generate spectres on Earth to focus on stealing back its source codes from the teenagers, and gradually recover its full strength. At the same time, X.A.N.A. also keeps itself hidden from the owner of the Cortex, Professor Tyron, so he does not do anything rash to purge it from his systems.

The disintegration of the Cortex, where X.A.N.A. now lives.

Throughout this series near the end, X.A.N.A. has gradually recovered 95% of its full power from the Lyoko Warriors, but the group have also diligently worked on a virus that would wipe out the Cortex and X.A.N.A. too. They were forced to implant the virus immediately, but Tyron shuts down his supercomputer to avoid losing all his work while the virus was uploaded.

Unless Tyron finds an antivirus, X.A.N.A. will be rendered eternally frozen as long as the Cortex stays turned off. If Lyoko stays active, it will escape destruction again, so the group shuts down the Supercomputer, but will remain on guard if X.A.N.A. survives.

Code Lyoko: Chronicles

In this alternate continuity, the events of the first four seasons are severely streamlined as the first book indicates. While the events of the prequel and the first season are followed relatively the same as before, the climax of the rest of the series is compressed into one event. Franz Hopper reveals himself to the group before any equivalent of The Key occurs. He informs the group how to destroy X.A.N.A., by launching the multi-agent program into the Core of Lyoko. Hopper sacrifices himself to provide the energy needed, while at the same time restoring Aelita's memories and informing the group about her mother.

As for X.A.N.A., the entity's core is destroyed. It is purged and ejected from Lyoko, left to drift in the network without its memories or core functions. Over the course of several months, however, X.A.N.A. begins to gain strength back, and searches for a human vessel in lieu of a virtual world. Ultimately, it looks for a vessel that it can use to infiltrate Kadic without suspicion, so as to kill the Lyoko Warriors.

Choosing a girl known as Eva Skinner, X.A.N.A. began to settle into its new circumstances, and learned of the Lyoko Warriors researching the history of the Supercomputer. Seeing a chance to gain its strength back, X.A.N.A. befriended the group, but planned on destroying them from the inside out. Over a time period, it gradually gained enough trust that they "informed" Eva about the supercomputer, Franz Hopper, and their search for Anthea Hopper. Seducing Odd, X.A.N.A. managed to brainwash the boy, laying the groundwork for its return.

X.A.N.A. however, would later learn from Hopper's archives multiple shocking truths: that he had been made with altruistic purposes in mind, to be the Guardian of Lyoko and the First City. Moreover, he had been close friends with Aelita, a friendship Hopper encouraged as a way to teach him human emotions. However, all this had been clouded when he was corrupted by leftover coding from a dark zone program, Project Carthage, whose templates Lyoko had been created from.

Shaken by this, as well as by the emotions that had gradually crept up on him the longer he stayed in the Lyoko Warriors' company, X.A.N.A sought out an opportunity to speak to Aelita alone and share what he remembered. While rightfully wary of the AI, whose identity had by now been ousted, she nevertheless agreed. Appearing to her as a young man greatly resembling William, X.A.N.A spent many hours talking with her. But though they rekindled their former friendship, the discussion ended in conflict when X.A.N.A. mistook her reluctance to help him as a declaration of war. Leaving her, he began preparations to dominate the world.

Aelita, not giving up, pursued him. She persuaded him to listen to his original programming and fight off the virus still infecting him. X.A.N.A. would thus ally himself permanently with humanity, helping the Lyoko Warriors to defeat a terrorist group that was hoping to use Lyoko as a substitute for Carthage. While X.A.N.A. seemingly sacrificed himself to upload a self-destruction program that would delete Lyoko for good, his programming was salvaged by Aelita, who managed to recreate X.A.N.A. and bring him into the real world as a human.

Trivia

• X.A.N.A. was voiced by David Gasman in Ghost Channel, in the American version of Code Lyoko, the same actor who also voices Herb, Jim, and William.
• According to YTV's Vortex block's host Paula (Code Lyoko was a show on this block and during commercial breaks Paula would often share bits of trivia), X.A.N.A. was once a good computer program until an evil virus corrupted it. Interestingly, she said this piece of information in the middle of season one, before season two even aired. No evidence was stated to prove this fact, as it implies that it was Franz Hopper's abuse of the return in time program that made X.A.N.A. evil, not a virus. However, the novel series states that it really was a virus that corrupted it in the end.
• X.A.N.A.'s name was derived from Xanadu, the virtual world in Garage Kids.
• Since X.A.N.A. is basically a computer program, it is supposed to be genderless as neither male or female. However, everyone except Franz Hopper constantly addresses X.A.N.A. by male pronouns in the main series. This may be due to all nouns having genders in French, the show's original language. In Code Lyoko Evolution, X.A.N.A. is rightfully called an "it" as genderless in the series.
  • X.A.N.A.'s name is used with male pronouns in Code Lyoko; whereas in Evolution, his name was genderless.
• In Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir (more specifically episode "Hack-San"), the titular sentimonster looks exactly like this virus. One of the directors of the series, Wilfried Pain, later confirmed that this is a reference to Code Lyoko.

Gallery

Appearing on a computer screen just before launching an attack.

Watching Milly and Tamiya through computer screen in Teddygozilla.

Seen taking control over the bus.

Appearing on multiple screens at once.

The nano-viruses created by XANA attacking memory cells.

XANA's spectre on Earth.

XANA taking possession of Jean Pierre Delmas.

XANA taking possession of a flock of crows.

XANA's Spectre about to possess Sissi.

Seeing through a monster or robot when attacking the real world.

XANA taking possession of Aelita and making her attack Ulrich.

XANA-William.

The symbol in an eye of someone.

Eye of XANA.

A wild boar possessed by X.A.N.A.

A rat possessed by X.A.N.A.

Principal Delmas possess by XANA kidnapping Aelita