History WMG / StarOcean

When the concept of the UP3 comes up, the player expects to be held accountable to it, as does Fayt, even though everyone else seems to shrug it off. You aren't held accountable to it because of extenuating circumstances; you worry about it along with Fayt. Fayt's the one who thinks it's a good idea to take whatever Ellicoorian with you that you had him be nicest to; if you, say, tell Albel that you don't hate him, you're going to want him on your team.

* To further drive the point home, a remix of the SO2 battle theme even plays on En II.

This one is simple, who on God's green Earth, nuked as it may be, would name their kid "Edge", or keep the second name Maverick, for that matter? It sounds dumb even in Japanese. This goon proposes that "Edge Maverick" sounds like the sort of dumb-as-a-brick name some idiot kid playing a MMORPG would pick for their character (or, alternatively, something someone would pick if their goal was irony). This in turn makes a few other points make perfect scene, a Lesser Felpool out of nowhere? Oh that's simple, some person is playing as her and is a furry (or a kid who likes cats). Fetherfolk with glasses (So your saying that some 300 years prior to First Departure, Featherfolk had the ability to not only deal with eye problems but even create eye wear such that it looks exactly like our own? And it's not a developed planet? Christ what qualifies as a developed planet?! And whilst we're at it, Expel had just about everything except electronic communications! Christ the UP3 is a bitch!!) someone was at the customization just a tad too hard. Yeah.

I used to loathe the ShockingSwerve in [[VideoGame/StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime the third one]], but I noticed a few clever works around it. The Ten Wise Men could've been early executioners (some of their attacks are copied over, particularly Gabriel's Divine Wave) and as for Welch retconning her way into the remakes... well, the Oracle command has the characters being informed outright that you're playing a remake. Many theories suggest she's a 4D being, so maybe she's playing the remake of the Milky Way galaxy after the executioners eliminated it? Either way, I don't seem to mind the old "[[AllJustADream It was all a dream]] [[UpToEleven turned up to 11]]" twist so much any more when I consider those points, so this would class as a [[FridgeBrilliance fridge]] too.

<<|WildMassGuessing|>>

My reasoning is that her name, Elena, is a reference to one of the Gods in the Star Ocean universe and this convention is only used for 4D beings in the game. Additionally the Sacred Orb is kept there, which is a 4D relic. On top of that, the runelogical weapon she was helping develop was stated to be much too advanced for the planet. Further, Runeology is just Symobology and the only people who are gifted in that in the game are people who have connections to gene editing or connections to the church of Apris, strongly connecting the two. Finally, at the end of the game, there is a spot with Nel where she asks a question that implies a lot of Elena's history might be poorly understood by most people in the church of Apris, after all if Nel wasn't aware of her motivations for helping who would have known about it better? She is a spy for the kingdom, if she couldn't figure it out then why? And if you want even more evidence than that, go to her room, it talks about her applying this power to many things carelessly for the sake of curiosity but also calls her a genius in her field of expertise. This sounds very in line with a character in a game having fun with the mechanics.

[[WMG: Elena is a 4d being that lives on Elicor 2 and works at the Church of Apris. My reasoning is that her name, Elena, is a reference to one of the Gods in the Star Ocean universe and this convention is only used for 4D beings in the game. Additionally the Sacred Orb is kept there, which is a 4D relic. On top of that, the runelogical weapon she was helping develop was stated to be much too advanced for the planet. Further, Runeology is just Symobology and the only people who are gifted in that in the game are people who have connections to gene editing or connections to the church of Apris, strongly connecting the two. Finally, at the end of the game, there is a spot with Nel where she asks a question that implies a lot of Elena's history might be poorly understood by most people in the church of Apris, after all if Nel wasn't aware of her motivations for helping who would have known about it better? She is a spy for the kingdom, if she couldn't figure it out then why? And if you want even more evidence than that, go to her room, it talks about her applying this power to many things carelessly for the sake of curiosity but also calls her a genius in her field of expertise. This sounds very in line with a character in a game having fun with the mechanics.

I used to loathe the ShockingSwerve in [[StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime the third one]], but I noticed a few clever works around it. The Ten Wise Men could've been early executioners (some of their attacks are copied over, particularly Gabriel's Divine Wave) and as for Welch retconning her way into the remakes... well, the Oracle command has the characters being informed outright that you're playing a remake. Many theories suggest she's a 4D being, so maybe she's playing the remake of the Milky Way galaxy after the executioners eliminated it? Either way, I don't seem to mind the old "[[AllJustADream It was all a dream]] [[UpToEleven turned up to 11]]" twist so much any more when I consider those points, so this would class as a [[FridgeBrilliance fridge]] too.

[[WMG: Cliff is PrinceOfSpace]]

<<|WildMassGuessing|>>

** Given that some variants of particle physics suggest that there may be as many as 13 dimensions[[hottip:*: most of them curled up in on themselves and invisible]], we're probably farther up the chain than that. The 5D beings are really just programs in the 6D being world, which is a computer in the 7D being world, etc.

The important part about the certain failure of Lucifer's attempt at plane-cide is why the aeons are going to lengths to rescue the imprisoned souls--their spiritual reality. Despite what Ialdabaoth thinks, those humans are ''not'' his creations; that's just their gross physical shells. The actual souls/minds/essences come from beyond. Translating the scheme to SO3, Lucifer was essentially aiming ''at the wrong part''. He destroyed the 4D portion, but the "real", unique-to-ES portion was impervious. (Any deaths his Proclaimers and Convictors ''did'' cause would be everlasting, though, because that was essentially attacking spirit with spirit, rather than trying to attack spirit with matter.) The program was essentially like a metal-casting mould, which the spiritual-substance denizens and objects took the shape of. Lucifer mistook everything for being just the "mould". This would be like Ialdabaoth constantly and stupidly thinking he was succeeding so long as he had acquiescence from the material vectors, not realizing that the spiritual substance was anything but acquiescent (or even ''there''). So, while from 4D it would look like he achieved the destruction, the cast object was pretty much intact, despite what he obliquely made it do to itself with his angel programs/spirits.

By all rights, Nede creating the Wise Men should have brought an even ''more'' ferocious response from Sphere than the SO3 heroes did. And yet...nothing. Not even a peep from 4D. However, the in-game encyclopedia points out that part of Lucifer's genius was allowing ES's players to choose multiple time frames. If all these time frames were still going up until ES was severed from 4D, then it's pretty likely that there were null spaces in between. If both Wise Men events happened in these null areas, then we have an explanation for why 4D didn't take notice; they hadn't happened yet.

* It was probably supposed to be awesome, maybe thought-provoking, but not a TakeThat. If there is a message, it's probably that [[HeroicSociopath Albel will kill anyone who complains.]] [[KillItWithFire Nel will do so with fire.]]

[[WMG: Lymle Lemuri Phi and [[{{Touhou}} Sukia Ibuki]] are somehow related.]]

* In some ways, this game has alot of parallels to Digimon, at what point is virtual reality 'real'? It's also the complete turn around of .hack// in that we know it's a game, but it feels real. I agree with the troper of the first bulletin point, it was ment to be thought provoking, much like MiB's 'Galaxy in the Marble' thing, not an insult to the player's intelligence.

*** Extremely doubtful. Remember, Eternal Sphere has all the internal continuity of an actual universe. Instancing an event would mean they would have several hundred groups claiming to have singlehandedly saved the universe and recieved the same single group of rewards and promotions for it. That works in a lowtech game, where NPCs are primitive enough to not notice the problem, but in Eternal Sphere, the NPCs would notice something like that. Eternal Sphere players and programers can interact with the game all they want, but most of the real-world unrealistic make-the-game-more-convenient workarounds can't really be feasibly implemented without making the NPCs notice a "glitch in the matrix" and risking a TurnedAgainstTheirMasters moment long before the events of 3.

WordOfGod has said that all Lucifer succeeded in doing was destroying the link between 4D and ES. This may look like a cop-out, since nothing is concretely said to anything like this effect in-game, but once you realize the parallels to Gnosticism, it becomes pretty clear. Lucifer is the stand-in for Ialdabaoth, a proud, sadistic creator who is utterly ignorant of the original, spiritual realm of the aeons (Ialdabaoth himself is a sort of mutant offspring of the aeon Sophia's ill-advised attempt at creating something all by herself), and thus fails to realize that he's ''not'' the infinitely highest entity in existence. He creates his own heavens and earth to have something to rule over (and thus something that will forever fluff up his ego), but doesn't realize that the souls he created are actually hapless spirits from the aeons' realm that somehow got stuck with him. So when the aeons send messengers (e.g. the Serpent of Eden, Jesus) to help enlighten humanity and give it the potential to escape this decaying-from-imperfection (inevitable from Ialdabaoth's own imperfect soul), grossly matter-bound world, he reacts...[[{{Understatement}} violently]]. He has his "angels", the archons (usually just as nasty as, or in forms of Gnosticism where Ialdabaoth is not sadistic, just a WellIntentionedExtremist, ''worse'' than him), throw everything they've got in ''keeping'' his creations in their "proper"-from-and-to-all-eternity place and driving off these [[EvilCannotComprehendGood alien usurpers]]. If you've fought Lucifer, a good deal of why he has the archons do what they do should sound familiar.

*** Extremely doubtful. Remember, Eternal Sphere has all the internal continuity of an actual universe. Instancing an event would mean they would have several hundred groups claiming to have singlehandedly saved the universe and recieved the same single group of rewards and promotions for it. That works in a lowtech game, where NPCs are primitive enough to not notice the problem, but in Eternal Sphere, the NPCs would notice something like that.

[[WMG: So... is the ''entire series'' taking place in a computer simulation, or just the one game?]]
well?...

His initial attempts to "fix" the "problem" are perceived in-game by the NPCs as brutal, ridiculously overpowered monsters and warships that do not seem to be bound by in-game physics. When that doesn't work, Luther takes more drastic measures. During Star Ocean 3's final battle with Luther's in-game avatar, he gets desperate enough to delete the entire Eternal Sphere program.

* Also, if it was an in-game event, a ''lot'' more [=PCs=] (any by [=PCs=], I mean 4-D beings playing on the Eternal Sphere, who would show up as NPCs in our Star Ocean game) would have made it [[strike: through the shooting level boss]] [[strike: cinematic thinggy]] into the final dungeon- its unlikely such a major boss would have been restricted to players from the ENII server plus hero units. The fact that so few went in implies a lack of higher design.

* There are several problems with this. First, if it is an event part of an in-game expansion, why is Welch (the only one who is a Player for certain) so baffled by it? Second, why is access to the final dungeon so limited? The only people to get in are the party, and NPCs/players from the ENII server. If it were a dungeon, wouldn't access to it be open to any and all adventuring parties from multiple servers?

* Also, if it was an in-game event, a ''lot'' more PCs (any by PCs, I mean 4-D beings playing on the Eternal Sphere, who would show up as NPCs in our Star Ocean game) would have made it [[strike: through the shooting level boss]] [[strike: cinematic thinggy]] into the final dungeon- its unlikely such a major boss would have been restricted to players from the ENII server plus hero units. The fact that so few went in implies a lack of higher design.

But, wait. Didn't you already know that? Of course they aren't real; they're characters in a video game, you know, the one that you've been playing all along. YouShouldKnowThisAlready! Come to think about it, if you had it in your mind that these were fictional characters all along, then you wouldn't have been so affected.