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

–X.A.N.A. itself speaking to the Lyoko Warriors in Ghost Channel.

"A multi-agent computer program I created. It has achieved self-awareness and autonomy, and it's trying to eliminate us now."

–Franz Hopper explaining to his daughter about how he created X.A.N.A. in Aelita.

"A super dangerous program, like a virus, which can control electricity, and activates Towers on Lyoko in order to gain access to your world."

–Aelita telling the others what X.A.N.A. is at the end of X.A.N.A. Awakens Part 2

X.A.N.A. is a super intelligent and autonomous multi-agent system that serves as the main antagonist of Code Lyoko.

In the beginning, it was a simple program created by the genius scientist, Waldo Schaeffer, under the alias of Franz Hopper. Its design was based on the principles of a multi-agent system and a computer virus for the sole purpose of destroying Project Carthage, which Waldo defected from due to the threat it posed to the world. X.A.N.A. was meant to have simple artificial intelligence in order to be easier to control, but it grew more intelligent and powerful with each return to the past, slowly but surely increasing X.A.N.A.'s awareness until it became autonomous and self-aware.

Having become extremely intelligent and conscious due to the 2,546 return trips in a row, X.A.N.A. came to the conclusion that its own creator was a threat to itself and after Waldo and his daughter, Aelita Schaeffer, were discovered by the Men in Black, he virtualized them both onto Lyoko in order to escape them. Unfortunately, it was here that Waldo learned the extent of X.A.N.A.'s growth as it immediately attacked them, forcing them to hide inside Towers where X.A.N.A.'s monsters couldn't reach them.

Waldo reached out to X.A.N.A. and tried to convince it to stop what it was doing, but X.A.N.A. was already fully autonomous at this point and was targeting all who knew about the Supercomputer to preserve its own life, since it needs the machine to stay online to continue functioning. Realizing that X.A.N.A. was beyond reason, Waldo was forced to shut down the Supercomputer to stop X.A.N.A. before it could harm anyone else, also putting himself and Aelita to sleep alongside his creation. This causes the world to declare "Franz Hopper" as missing or presumed deceased.

Nine years later, Jeremie Belpois, a local boarding student found the Supercomputer, reactivating it and discovering Aelita and Lyoko. The following events would lead X.A.N.A. to classify him, Aelita, and three other students, Odd Della Robbia, Ulrich Stern, and Yumi Ishiyama as its enemies, since they know of its existence and could deactivate the Supercomputer. In response, X.A.N.A. launches attacks on Earth using Towers in constant attempts to eliminate the students, determined to prevent its shutdown.

Together, the four students and Aelita would form the "Lyoko Warriors", a group determined to protect the world from its wrath until they can materialize Aelita and later to find an "antivirus" that would sever her imposed link to the virus, then shut down the Supercomputer. However, X.A.N.A. successfully managed to steal the Keys to Lyoko from Aelita's memory to gain access to the network. Eventually, Jeremie developed his own multi-agent program with help from Waldo to destroy X.A.N.A. for good at the cost of Waldo sacrificing his life to supply power to the Anti-X.A.N.A. Program.

Appearance

X.A.N.A. is a computer program that acts as an unseen force lurking inside the Supercomputer. The only sign of its presence is the red, pulsating energies it generates through virtual surfaces and Lyoko Wires when currently active. As a purely digital and impersonable entity that has neither physical nor virtual form, the specters it manifests on Earth serve as extensions of its power and are the closest thing to form as it can achieve.

X.A.N.A.'s only real incarnation was in Ghost Channel, masquerading as Jeremie inside a virtual simulation it created to imprison Ulrich, Yumi and Odd, turning into a monstrous caricature figure of Jeremie with sharp nails, spiky hair, glowing eyes, and an unnatural aura when the heroes discovered the true nature of the simulation.

In The Key, X.A.N.A. appeared as a massive, whirling specter above the Factory while escaping the Supercomputer. However, the closest to a real appearance was in Fight to the Finish. While X.A.N.A.'s whole system was being destroyed by the Anti-X.A.N.A. Program, the specter that was possessing William was forced out and became a giant entity with its symbol on the chest, screaming in agony before the program vaporized into nothing.

Personality

X.A.N.A. was a simple program which constantly evolved until it became incredibly powerful and self-aware, but also very hostile and dangerous. It is a sentient virus that wants to take over the world and eliminate all obstacles in its way, especially the Lyoko Warriors and Franz Hopper.

It is highly intelligent but thinks like a simple machine, attacking on Earth using calculated schemes and can understand and imitate human behavior to take advantage of enemies. However, X.A.N.A. can only follow logical patterns that are predictable and can never understand the concept of love, friendship, self-sacrifice, or concern for anything outside itself, only valuing its own interests and self-preservation. For these reasons alone, X.A.N.A. had to keep the Supercomputer online to survive and Aelita's memory intact before stealing the latter to escape into the world network, help its enemies against a bigger threat, and would relent and stop attacking if things which are vital to its needs are threatened.

While normally lacking any personality as a program, X.A.N.A. occasionally reveals emerging qualities from its hostile nature, mainly sadistic and egomaniacal behavior to taunt or intimidate enemies. It only has respect for intelligence, power, and skill and contempt for failure, stupidity, and illogical behavior. However, X.A.N.A. is capable of showing gratitude, thanking its enemies for helping destroy the Marabounta.

Relationships

Waldo Schaeffer

Waldo is the one person X.A.N.A. fears more than anyone, being that he is the one who created X.A.N.A. and knowing he has the expertise in how to destroy it, making him too dangerous to leave alone. It tries to stop any potential collaboration between him and the team, by trying to destroy or steal Franz Hopper's diary, preventing him from making contact, and attempting to lure him out and eliminate him while he hides in the network. X.A.N.A. considers him enough of a threat that it was willing to spare Aelita, its second biggest threat, because it still needs his daughter to draw him out of hiding.

Aelita Schaeffer

She is the only one who can interface with the Towers. Her unique abilities make her simultaneously dangerous yet valuable to X.A.N.A.

Initially, it constantly tried to kill her with its monsters when she was living inside of the Supercomputer, but after realizing she was its key to escape the computer itself, X.A.N.A. prioritized her safety until it could get the Keys to Lyoko. Even then, upon learning Franz Hopper was still alive, X.A.N.A. possessed her using the Scyphozoa to delete the sectors of Lyoko one-by-one to kill its creator. Eventually, after realizing destroying Lyoko was pointless, it changed tactics to capturing Aelita alive and dropping her into the Digital Sea to lure out Franz.

Outside of her value in its plans, X.A.N.A. cares nothing for her and only keeps her alive due to needing her to further its own ends. This is proven in "Hot Shower" when Aelita devirtualizes herself to put herself in range of the meteor X.A.N.A. redirected to destroy the Supercomputer, forcing it to destroy the meteor to save her due to Aelita realizing it wanted to capture her more than it wanted to destroy the Supercomputer.

Had it survived after killing its creator, X.A.N.A. would no longer consider Aelita useful any longer and would go back to trying to kill her like it used to before learning about the Keys to Lyoko, likely more than anyone else in the gang because of her being the only one capable of deactivating its towers, thus making her the biggest threat to it with Franz Hopper gone and with her dead, the others wouldn't be able to deactivate its Towers anymore.

Jeremie Belpois

X.A.N.A. targets Jeremie the most out of the group since unlike Yumi, Odd and Ulrich most of the time, he can use the lab equipment. As a result, it sees him as the source of their intelligence and leadership, even showing a begrudging respect through its Jeremie clone as it claimed to be "almost proud" to use his image because of his intelligence. Despite this, it also values Jeremie in certain situations such as in "Attack of the Zombies" when it ordered the zombies to intentionally spare Jeremie long enough for him to transfer Aelita to Lyoko so it could steal the Keys to Lyoko.

Though X.A.N.A.'s clone of Jeremie sadistically told the real one that the boy did not have not even half of its intellect and sadistically electrocuted him while labelling him a "stupid dope," the program may have gradually developed more respect and fear towards the young genius not only for developing a program that successfully freed William from its possession but also for concocting a program meant to eradicate X.A.N.A. and every trace of it in the network and the world. Thanks to Franz Hopper's assistance and noble sacrifice, the program to annihilate X.A.N.A. was successfully completed and launched, erasing every influence of X.A.N.A. from the world or severely weakening it as of the events of the Evolution continuation.

Yumi Ishiyama

X.A.N.A. appears to have a shred of respect for Yumi for her combat prowess that makes her one of the best fighters among the Lyoko Warriors. The malevolent artificial intelligence did not show it but it might've been impressed by Yumi's sharp senses and intuition when it trapped the Lyoko Warriors in a simulation bubble that perfectly resembled Kadic, yet there were many aspects detected by Yumi that did not make sense, such as a clone of Jim dismissing Jeremie, who was actually X.A.N.A. itself wearing the blond genius' face, from physical education class and replicas of her parents not noticing her and repeating the same gestures multiple times as if a broken record.

Odd Della Robbia

While X.A.N.A. considered Odd as yet-another big nuisance for his poor academic life and childish behaviour on Lyoko, it still acknowledged him as a capable adversary and was logical enough to have its monsters follow his orders in order to destroy the Marabounta.

Ulrich Stern

The multi-agent system deemed Ulrich a warrior that ultimately earned a piece of its respect and had no qualms in sending the Scyphozoa to possess his virtual avatar, which had become separated from its mind temporarily, and command it to attack the Core of Lyoko.

William Dunbar

Though X.A.N.A. changed radically the lives of numerous characters, especially that of Aelita and her father, it is responsible for William having been trapped in Lyoko for several months. Having recently been recruited by the protagonists, William allowed the wonders and monsters of the virtual world to get the best of him and his overly confident and reckless personality made him an easy target for the Scyphozoa to put him under X.A.N.A.'s control. A possessed William easily removed his former teammates from his way and destroyed the Core of Lyoko, deleting the digital world alongside himself, but X.A.N.A. took advantage of its possession over the teenager to retrieve his deleted digital codes and rewrite them to restore William as its loyal right-hand, granting him abilities that made him stronger and more dangerous than the other Lyoko Warriors.

Though he was eventually freed from the program's control near the end of the fourth season, the live-action continuation Evolution shows X.A.N.A. trying to bring him back to its side, showing it still values the boy as a worthy asset.

Capabilities

X.A.N.A. is a multi-agent computer virus that gained sentience and unnatural powers from its evolution. It has taken over the Supercomputer that holds Lyoko, hiding and growing stronger within its systems. However, X.A.N.A.'s capabilities are limited by computing power and cannot directly influence Lyoko Warriors due to special resistance, nor access their programs in the Supercomputer's restricted access. Its abilities are listed below:

Tower Control

X.A.N.A. needs to activate Towers on Lyoko to use as conduits to act in the real world, known by pulsations on Lyoko. It can only truly be stopped by deactivating its Towers on Lyoko, while conventional methods only hinder them momentarily.

On Earth, X.A.N.A. infiltrates networks as a digital entity and can manifest ghostly specters from outlets to interact with the real world, the closest it has to physical forms which can fly and morph, are immune to physical harm, and touch and pass through objects. X.A.N.A. can control electromagnetic forces to attack with electricity, harness magnetism, influence electronics and objects, and its main ability as a virus allows it to possess targets on Earth, allowing it to manipulate networks, inanimate objects, or living things it can use to hack systems, attack enemies, or create many threats or disasters to cause havoc on Earth.

After evolving further, X.A.N.A. can now possess humans to be agents that do its bidding and pixelize them with its digital-based abilities to make them more powerful and dangerous. Only Lyoko Warriors cannot be controlled due to their virtual resistance. It also learned to create polymorphic specters with similar abilities that can take human forms, often using familiar faces to deceive its enemies. They return to normal or disappear when their Towers deactivate and victims do not remember what happened.

X.A.N.A. also has the knowledge how to use the Scanners or Replikas to materialize or teleport minions to Earth (monsters, X.A.N.A. William, etc.), show psychic visions through a special link, and use possessed equipment or humans to create dangerous objects (nanobots, deadly music, mind control necklace, several types of robots, etc.) to use on Earth.

Monsters and Programs

In Lyoko, X.A.N.A. makes use of programs to defend itself or manipulate the virtual world. It mainly creates deadly monsters in groups to fight and attack targets on Lyoko, making new types as it evolves. It also sends the Scyphozoa to take digital memory from captured targets or implant its virus code to mind control Lyoko Warriors.

X.A.N.A. can also alter the virtual landscape, create illusions, imprison enemies in Guardians or Simulation Bubbles, manipulate incomplete warriors, program new abilities/equipment, plant bugs and viruses to affect restricted Lyoko functions, and design the trap mechanisms and open portals in Sector 5 before it was recreated.

Other

X.A.N.A. William (Formerly)

X.A.N.A. took hold of William Dunbar and captured his digital essence, allowing it to completely possess and transform him into a powerful minion bound to its system. William can match any Lyoko Warrior, command monsters, access and influence Towers, and materialize as a pixelized human without using a Tower. He also had the Black Manta and Rorkal Nav Skid to mount and pilot. However, the group managed to free William from X.A.N.A.'s control near the end of the series.

Network Replikas

With the Keys to Lyoko stolen from Aelita, X.A.N.A. escaped the Supercomputer and could spread its multi-agent system beyond the Digital Sea to infect other supercomputers with Replikas, smaller Lyoko copies. X.A.N.A. managed to take over hundreds in the world network, making the evil virus seemingly impossible to destroy.

Its supercomputers allow X.A.N.A. to control secret facilities in areas on Earth to possess their inhabitants and/or equipment to build weapons and massive robot armies for world domination. Additionally, by drawing resources from all of its Replika machines simultaneously, X.A.N.A. could create the Kolossus, its largest and most powerful monster. However, the Lyoko Warriors and Franz Hopper launched the Anti-X.A.N.A. Program to destroy X.A.N.A. and all its Replikas for good at the end of the series.

Biography

Creation

X.A.N.A. was created to be a virus program based on a multi-agent system with simple intelligence by a computer scientist named Franz Hopper (real name Waldo Schaeffer) to destroy Project Carthage. Despite trying to hide the evidence, his enemies learned of his activities and tracked him down. To escape them, he returns to the past to buy the time he needed to create the virtual world of Lyoko to be a safe place to live for him and his daughter, Aelita. Consequently, repeated use gradually caused X.A.N.A. to evolve, gaining powerful abilities and becoming self-aware and independent. It secretly infects the Supercomputer that sustains Lyoko and plans to destroy its creator.

Once Franz Hopper and Aelita travel to Lyoko, it betrays and imprisons them on Lyoko at that moment and tries to eliminate them both. Franz tells Aelita to hide in a Tower, while he tries to reason with X.A.N.A. However, he discovers the extent of its growth has made it powerful enough to threaten all mankind, leaving Franz no choice but to shut down the Supercomputer to stop X.A.N.A. before it causes more damage.

Awakening

Nine years later, X.A.N.A. was reawakened when Jeremie reactivates the Supercomputer, discovering Aelita and Lyoko. It sends monsters after Aelita and activates a Tower to attack with electricity, machines, and a lightning specter to eliminate all those who know about Lyoko. Jeremie sends Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi to Lyoko to protect Aelita and she deactivates the Tower, which stopped X.A.N.A. for now. They decide to let Jeremie continue work on materializing Aelita, knowing how to neutralize X.A.N.A.'s attacks, officially becoming the Lyoko Warriors.

While Jeremie researches materialization, X.A.N.A. continues to attack on Earth by causing electromagnetic phenomena, possessing networks, machines, inanimate objects, or living things to manipulate, building its own threats, or materializing minions from the Scanners. On Lyoko, X.A.N.A. sends groups of monsters to fight its enemies and programs virtual alterations to confound them. It also used Guardians to capture enemies and a Simulation Bubble to deceive them.

When Jeremie finally succeeded in materializing Aelita using Code: Earth and a Tower, X.A.N.A. managed to steal her human memories during the transfer process to bind Aelita's fate to its own, putting her in a lethal coma when they try to shut down the Supercomputer. Jeremie mistakes this event for a virus implanted in her, but either way, this ensures X.A.N.A.'s continued survival.

Growing Power

X.A.N.A. continues to evolve and become stronger, creating new monsters like the Tarantulas. It now wants to escape the Supercomputer and access the world network but needs the Keys to Lyoko inside Aelita's digital memory for that purpose. To this end, X.A.N.A. creates the Scyphozoa, a unique monster designed to capture targets to steal their data or implant its own into them.

For its current goal, X.A.N.A.'s schemes now focus on luring Aelita to Lyoko for the Scyphozoa to siphon her data without interference from its enemies or trick her into exposing her memory. Until X.A.N.A. gets what it needs, it has to be careful to keep her alive at all costs. Additionally, it still targets the Lyoko Warriors to get rid of enemies and leave Aelita with less protection on Lyoko.

At the same time, the group discover a fifth sector on Lyoko, the center of the virtual world where all of its data and programs are housed and maintained and can be accessed through an interface, including X.A.N.A.'s own. However, it is guarded like a fortress by Creeper and Manta monsters, and trap mechanisms linked to a countdown procedure. The team regularly infiltrate Sector 5 to access needed information, mainly knowledge on how to cure Aelita of X.A.N.A.'s alleged virus.

The cause of X.A.N.A.'s increasing power is revealed to be the time reversions when it took control of them using Sector 5 data containing a trap, repeating the same day until it gains the ability to possess humans, controlling them to be its agents on Earth and pixelizing them with its supernatural powers (spectral bodies, greater physical abilities, electromagnetic powers, etc.) to make them powerful and dangerous. However, only Lyoko Warriors who fight on the virtual world can resist possession, since it could only control Jeremie to destroy the recently discovered diary of Franz Hopper, who backed up and secured the information beforehand and went to Lyoko to prevent further possessions.

X.A.N.A. and the heroes aid each other out of necessity on two occasions at this time. When Jeremie created the Marabounta to attack enemy monsters and it went out of control and tried to destroy Lyoko, X.A.N.A. sent monsters to protect Aelita and help the team destroy the rogue program to save itself and keep Aelita's memory intact. Later, when the Supercomputer's nuclear battery was failing, putting it and Aelita at risk of dying, X.A.N.A. takes action by possesses a criminal to steal another battery and kidnaps Jeremie to make him replace the power source, incapable of having the possessed do the task and knowing they both have a common interest in keeping the machine online.

As more proof of its growing power. X.A.N.A. can manifest polymorphic specters, ghosts with pixelized abilities that appear as specified clones or polymorphs that change form at will. Since it cannot control Lyoko Warriors, these specters allow X.A.N.A. to deceive them or impersonate Franz Hopper to gain their trust. Also, X.A.N.A. can send Flying Mantas to other virtual sectors.

Later, the real Franz Hopper possesses Sissi to make contact with the group and helps them decrypt his diary, despite X.A.N.A.'s efforts to prevent him in the former and steal their data and programs in the latter. Following the decryption, the contents of the diary revealed to the group 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.

Jeremie also discovers what X.A.N.A. wants from Aelita's memory and the true nature of her link to X.A.N.A. was never a virus, but a stolen part of herself. After figuring this out, X.A.N.A. uses a fake Aelita fragment as bait for an elaborate trap that leaves Aelita alone without her allies in Sector 5 and allows the Scyphozoa to successfully steal her memory and finally gain the Keys to Lyoko, giving X.A.N.A. all it needs to escape the Supercomputer. This event has rendered Aelita and Lyoko lifeless as a result, but Franz Hopper fully restores them both, including Aelita's missing part: her old memories. However, X.A.N.A.'s escape from the Supercomputer has made it completely immune to being shut down and free to spread beyond the network, making it more dangerous than ever.

Attacking Lyoko

X.A.N.A.'s multi-agent system has escaped the Supercomputer and inhabits the world network. It hasn't attacked the heroes since then, thinking it is beyond their reach. When Jeremie upgrades the Superscan to track X.A.N.A. on the network, it sends monsters to attack the Core of Lyoko in Sector 5, which would destroy Lyoko and render the group powerless to fight X.A.N.A.

Not needing the Supercomputer anymore, X.A.N.A. is free to target the virtual world itself. It continues to launch assaults on the Core of Lyoko and schemes to keep the heroes busy while its monsters wear down the core shields. X.A.N.A. also targets the Supercomputer on Earth using possessed humans to try to sabotage or destroy it.

X.A.N.A. also wants to destroy Lyoko's sectors by having the Scyphozoa capture Aelita to control her mind with its virus code, then force her into entering Way Towers to input the code into the interface, allowing X.A.N.A. completely erase their sectors. It does this to make the Transport Orb inaccessible so the group can no longer stop its Core of Lyoko attacks. It succeeds in the order of Forest, Desert, Ice, and Mountain regions, but Jeremie found the answer to virtualizing the team directly to Sector 5 after losing the last sector.

Initially reluctant, the team decides to recruit William Dunbar into their group. After seeing his power as a virtual warrior, X.A.N.A. possesses him with the Scyphozoa, which was easy due to his ignorance and cocky attitude. X.A.N.A. has William devirtualize Aelita and command a Creeper army assembled at the Core of Lyoko, effectively using combined firepower to quickly break through the shields. When the other three warriors arrive, he defeats them easily and personally destroys the core, wiping out the virtual world. William fell into the Digital Sea in the aftermath, but X.A.N.A. takes his now exposed digital essence and completely possesses him.

World Network Takeover

Using data sent by Franz Hopper, the team manage to recreate the virtual world of Lyoko and program new equipment. X.A.N.A.'s initial possession of William allowed it to retrieve him from the digital void and bind him completely to its system, enhancing him with new abilities and equipment to turn him into a valuable minion at its disposal.

The evil virus is now determined to eliminate Franz Hopper, who hides in the network. X.A.N.A. knows that its creator's knowledge makes him too dangerous to leave alone. It tries to draw him out by kidnapping Aelita and throwing her into the Digital Sea, knowing Franz Hopper would expose himself to protect his daughter. Aside from its current goal, X.A.N.A. still attacks the Lyoko Warriors and targets the Supercomputer to eliminate all its obstacles.

Meanwhile, X.A.N.A. has been secretly taking over the world network since its escape, using its multi-agent system to invade other supercomputers and create single-sector virtual worlds named Replikas inside them with its stolen Keys to Lyoko. Each one made allows X.A.N.A. to have more supercomputers to be part of its multi-agent system, making it even harder to destroy, but also use them to take over scientific and military facilities on Earth it can exploit for its own purposes.

At this time, the Lyoko Warriors build their own virtual ship, named the Skidbladnir, in Sector 5 to fight X.A.N.A. in the world network beyond the Digital Sea. In response, X.A.N.A. creates new sea monsters like Kongres, Sharks, and the Kalamar to fight them and sends William in the Rorkal Nav Skid in further battles. X.A.N.A. also launches schemes to destroy the Skidbladnir to prevent them interfering with its control of the world network.

The Lyoko Warriors discover X.A.N.A.'s Replikas and intend to destroy them all to weaken the evil virus. They search and infiltrate them one by one, activating Towers to teleport warriors as specters in their virtual forms to their secret bases on Earth to destroy its supercomputers. To defend its Replikas, X.A.N.A. sends Lyoko monsters and William to attack their ship and shut down their Towers, while activating its own Towers to attack the ones sent to its areas. The group have managed to find and destroy a Forest, Desert, and Sector 5 Replika, whose machines were found in an Amazon jungle laboratory that held cybernetic spiders made by possessed scientists, a New Mexico facility that assembled electronic implants and was defended by teleported Kankrelats, and a space station with floating metal orbs that protrude spikes and generate heat to burn through material.

Later, when the team travel to an Ice Replika, X.A.N.A. teleports William to fight them at its hidden base in Siberia, which unwittingly revealed the codes and programs X.A.N.A. uses to control him in the activated Tower. This allows Aelita to interface with the data and send the information to Jeremie. After they defeat William on the base and the Replika, X.A.N.A. draws power from all its Replikas at once to create its most powerful monster: "the Kolossus," a virtually unstoppable titan with the strength destroy any virtual target instantly. The team escape the giant, but this event reveals the true extent of X.A.N.A.'s network domination with hundreds of Replikas providing it strength.

After their last mission, Jeremie creates a program to free William, and another based on a multi-agent system to destroy X.A.N.A. using all the information from Franz Hopper's data and their network travels. The heroes to return to the Ice Replika where they discover its endgame of building an army of robots to conquer the Earth. They succeed in freeing William from X.A.N.A.'s control, but the Kolossus destroys the Skidbladnir at the end of the battle. Though X.A.N.A. lost William, its control of the world network has made it too powerful. It has the Kolossus to decimate its virtual enemies and a massive robot army to wreak havoc on the world. With their ship destroyed, Jeremie's multi-agent program is their only hope of beating X.A.N.A. and its evil ambitions.

Final Battle

X.A.N.A. engages its final assault when the group and Franz Hopper meet to complete the Anti-X.A.N.A. Program. Sensing the imminent threat, it possesses William to knock out Jeremie and sabotage the Scanners and sends the Kolossus and a group of Mantas in a final desperate attempt to eliminate all its enemies. Yumi devirtualizes herself on purpose to hold off William, while Ulrich fights and manages to defeat the Kolossus. Jeremie transports Odd and Aelita to Sector 5 to launch their finished program. Franz Hopper provides the energy needed for Aelita to run the Anti-X.A.N.A. Program while being attacked, sacrificing himself in the process much to Aelita's horror, who launches the program. It appears as a swarm of intelligent agents unleashed from the Core of Lyoko that eliminates the monsters before spreading to the sectors of Lyoko to banish X.A.N.A.'s presence from the virtual world, then across the Digital Sea where the program destroys all Replikas on the network simultaneously.

As this happens, the specter possessing William is forced out of him, showing X.A.N.A. in agony and glitching out due to its whole multi-agent system being deleted, then fades into oblivion while its Tower is deactivated as the hostile program is permanently destroyed. In the end, the Lyoko Warriors have truly defeated X.A.N.A., eventually deciding to shut down the Supercomputer to mark the end of their virtual adventures and lead normal lives as they have long hoped for.

Non-Canon Continuities

X.A.N.A. reappears in the live action Evolution series 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 showrunners, who confirmed that only a few of their ideas made it into the show and that the events within were not canon.^[1][2] 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

In the live-action Evolution sequel, X.A.N.A. has survived its last battle with the Lyoko Warriors by hiding an unregistered Replika, called the Cortex. From this mysterious virtual world, X.A.N.A. causes short circuits and strange bugs in the Kadic school computers, which compels the Lyoko Warriors to reactivate the Supercomputer and Lyoko, renewing their struggle with their old enemy.

Before its presumed demise, X.A.N.A. had implanted its own Source Codes into the four warriors in their last battle, which contain portions of its power. Its new objective is to regain its full strength and take control of the world network once again, by sending specters to Earth, which can steal the source codes from the Lyoko Warriors through physical contact. Also, X.A.N.A. takes chances to get rid of allies, destroy the recreated Skidbladnir, and bring William back to its side.

At the same time, X.A.N.A. also keeps itself hidden from the owner of the Cortex Replika, Professor Tyron, so he does not try to purge the evil virus from his systems. The group discover the true relationship between the two sides when they witness Tyron's Ninjas and X.A.N.A.'s monsters fighting each other, the latter needing to destroy a security update that was making it behave erratically. The team try to warn Tyron that X.A.N.A. lives inside the Cortex, but does not believe their story and ignores them, forcing the team to deal with two dangerous enemies.

X.A.N.A. has eventually 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. with it. They were forced to plant the virus immediately, but Tyron shuts down his supercomputer before it was fully uploaded. Unless Tyron finds an antivirus, X.A.N.A. is rendered eternally frozen as long as the Cortex stays shut off. If Lyoko stays active, the evil virus will escape destruction again. The group shut down the Supercomputer but will remain on guard if X.A.N.A. returns.

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 is purged and ejected from Lyoko, left to drift in the network without its memories or core functions. For several months, X.A.N.A. wanders the network and begins to gain its memories and strength back, and searches for a human vessel in lieu of a virtual world, choosing a girl known as Eva Skinner. It acquires directions on how to get to France and hacks the Kadic files to enroll as a new student, planning to gain the Lyoko Warriors' trust and eliminate them. Over a time period, it gradually gained enough trust that they "tell" 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 and plan to destroy humanity.

However, X.A.N.A. would later learn multiple shocking truths from Hopper's archives. It was made to be the Guardian of Lyoko and the First City to prevent anyone from misusing them. Moreover, it had been close friends with Aelita, a friendship Hopper encouraged as a way to teach it human emotions. However, all this changed when it was corrupted by leftover coding from a dark zone program, Project Carthage, whose templates Lyoko had been created from. It acquired vast powers but lost its memories and emotions in the process.

Shaken by this, X.A.N.A. leaves Odd and Eva and takes an appearance of his own in the Mirror, ousting its true nature to the Lyoko Warriors. It then sought out an opportunity to speak to Aelita alone and share what it remembered. While rightfully suspicious of its motives, she nevertheless agreed. Appearing to her as a young man greatly resembling William, X.A.N.A. spent 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 as a declaration of war. Leaving her, it began preparations to dominate the world. Aelita, refusing to give up, pursued X.A.N.A. She persuaded it to listen to its original programming and fight off the virus still controlling its behavior. X.A.N.A. would thus ally itself 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 itself to upload a self-destruction program that would delete Lyoko for good, its programming was salvaged by Aelita, who managed to recreate X.A.N.A. and bring it into the real world as a human.

Trivia

• X.A.N.A. was voiced by David Gasman in the English dub of Ghost Channel, the same actor who voices Herb, Jim and William.
• X.A.N.A.'s name was derived from Xanadu in the 1941 film Citizen Kane.^[3] A similar, more explicit reference was in Code Lyoko's pilot Garage Kids, where, although X.A.N.A. itself didn't exist yet, the virtual world was named Xanadu instead of Lyoko.
  • Sophie Decroisette also confirmed that X.A.N.A.'s name doesn't canonically stand for anything.^[4]
• Big Brother from the 1949 book 1984 served as inspiration for X.A.N.A., specifically for X.A.N.A.'s symbol resembling an eye and the slogan from the book: "Big Brother is watching you".^[3]
  • X.A.N.A.'s symbol also resembles the logo of Tachibana General Laboratories from the anime Serial Experiments Lain, which served as one of the main sources of inspiration for Code Lyoko according to Thomas Romain.^[5]
  • In-universe, X.A.N.A.'s symbol is said to originate from Project Carthage.^[6]
• Sophie Decroisette revealed that the writers received pressure from higher-ups to personify XANA, which they repeatedly fought against and tried to avoid doing as much as possible as "we wanted him to be an entity that no one can represent".^[3][7]
• In Code Lyoko's original graphic bible, X.A.N.A. was originally the supercomputer itself and not a multi-agent prorgram housed in the computer.^[8] It was said to have been discovered by Franz Hopper, who used it to build Lyoko as his own paradise. Hopper eventually disappeared during one of his visits to Lyoko, which was theorized as the cause for the bug that makes X.A.N.A. to want to attack Earth.
• Since X.A.N.A. is a computer program, it's supposed to be genderless. However, everyone except Franz Hopper addresses X.A.N.A. by male pronouns in the main series. This originates from all nouns being either masculine or feminine in French, the show's original language, and there being no equivalent to "it".^[7] X.A.N.A. is specifically referred to as a "programme" (program), which is masculine. Decroisette notably prefers describing X.A.N.A. as an "entité" (entity), which is feminine. She admitted the "a" at the end of its name made her see X.A.N.A. as female, though said program was a more accurate term.
  • In Fall of X.A.N.A. as well as the trailer for Quest for Infinity, X.A.N.A.'s pronunciations are female.
• In the Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir episode "Hack-San", the titular sentimonster looks almost exactly like XANA. One of the directors of the series, Wilfried Pain, later confirmed this is a reference to Code Lyoko.^[9][10]
• Though this was never explained in the series, X.A.N.A.'s end goal of taking over supercomputers and building robot armies to destroy humanity suggests that X.A.N.A.'s ultimate desire was eternal self-preservation, accomplished by taking over all network systems to exist everywhere and wipe out all mankind so absolutely no one can shut it down, creating a new world of networks and machines all controlled and ruled by X.A.N.A.

Gallery

References

v · d · e List of characters
Lyoko Warriors	Jeremie Belpois William Dunbar Yumi Ishiyama Odd Della Robbia Aelita Schaeffer Ulrich Stern
Secondary characters	Johnny Cleary Sissi Delmas Tamiya Diop Hiroki Ishiyama Takeho and Akiko Ishiyama Herb Pichon Nicolas Poliakoff Milly Solovieff Kiwi
Kadic Faculty	Principal Delmas Suzanne Hertz Franz Hopper Jim Morales Yolanda Perraudin Rosa Petitjean
Villains	Monsters X.A.N.A. X.A.N.A. William
Minor Characters	Patrick Belpois Mathias Burrel Emily LeDuc Theo Gauthier Claire Girard Romain Le Goff Heidi Klinger Samantha Knight Jean-Baptiste Pujol Brynja Heringsdötir Subdigitals Taelia Magali de Vasseur
Evolution characters	Laura Gauthier Anthea Schaeffer Samantha Suares Professor Tyron Ninjas
Chronicles characters	Eva Skinner
Other Characters	X.A.N.A. Aelita X.A.N.A. Franz Hopper X.A.N.A. Odd X.A.N.A. Ulrich X.A.N.A. Anthea Schaeffer X.A.N.A. Yumi Aelita Clone Jeremie Clone William Clone

X.A.N.A.'s Monsters

Lyoko

Kankrelats | Hornet | Blok | Krab | Megatank | Creeper | Manta | Black Manta | Guardian | Tarantula | Scyphozoa | Kolossus

Earth

Spectre | Polymorphic Clone

Digital Sea

Kongre | Shark | Kalamar

Video games only

Cyberhopper | Exploding Roachsters | Scorpion | Insekt | Dark Monster | Volcanoid | Ubertank | Omegatank | Mountain Bug | Insekt Lord | Ice Spider | Desert Driller | Magma Worm

v · d · e Lyoko
Characters	Franz Hopper X.A.N.A. Lyoko Warriors Jeremie Belpois Aelita Schaeffer Odd Della Robbia Ulrich Stern Yumi Ishiyama William Dunbar
Locations	Sectors Ice Sector Desert Sector Forest Sector Mountain Sector Sector Five Arena Celestial Dome Core Zone Data Tunnels Skidbladnir Hangar Heart of Lyoko Other Digital Sea Virtual Limbo
Hardware	Factory Interface Holomap Scanner Supercomputer
Virtual Objects	Eye Scanner Lyoko Wires MegaPod Overboard Overbike Overwing Skidbladnir Nav Skid Tower Way Towers Transport Orb Virtual World Shell
Programs	Annex Program Anti-X.A.N.A. Program Avatar Codes Lyoko Earth X.A.N.A. Scipio Deletion Devirtualization Digital Genetic Code Energize ID Card Keys to Lyoko Life Point Memory fragment Pulsations Sector Alteration Program Simulation Bubble Superscan Telephone Vehicle Virtualization Program
Weapons	Lyoko Warriors Katana Laser Arrow Tessen Fans Zweihänder Monsters Circular Laser Flying Mine Hallucinogenic Beam Laser Pulse Beam
Powers	Catclimb Energy Beam Energy Fields Enhanced Marksmanship Feline Execution Monster Riding Second Sight Second View Shield Super Smoke Super Sprint Telekinesis Teleportation
Other	Eye of X.A.N.A. Gunship Virtual Weather