Headscratchers / Xenoblade Chronicles 3

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Only ten years to live

• Why, after becoming Ouroboros and especially after they start destroying Flame Clocks, does the party continue to act as though the ten-year lifespan ending in a Homecoming is a meaningful concept to them? Both they and the players at that point know that people don't just drop dead on their tenth birthday via some sort of biological self-destruct mechanism, they have to manually be killed in the ceremony or previously by a Consul directly. After witnessing the aging process on the faces of their first outsider and Consul K and seeing as they presumably don't intend to just wander into enemy headquarters to be executed, why would Mio care how many months she was supposed to have left? Why wouldn't they all just expect to keep on living unhindered after the date has come and gone?
  • Spoilers if you haven't seen the start of chapter 6, but we see in N and M's flashbacks that the ceremony is not needed, they do indeed "drop dead" (or rather dissolve into motes) automatically upon reaching ten years. Monica also notes much earlier that being disconnected from a Flame Clock does not change the fact that the people of Agnes and Keves have short life spans. Perhaps the only difference between a automatic ten year expiration and the Homecoming ceremony is that the ceremony is needed to remove them from the rebirth cycle, and otherwise they return to it? As for why the Consuls used to manually execute people, perhaps they got more energy out of it than if the person just dissolved.

Why not rush them?

• Once Moebius realizes the true nature of the Ouroboros threat, and especially once Consul K has been killed for his cockiness and showboating, why is it that the remainder of the Consuls seem content just to lay around and present themselves one by one to be killed in turn? They are able to locate the team during several points in the story. Why are our six heroes not being jumped by a dozen or more Consuls at once, all trying to get rid of the only real threat to their immortality?
  • With few exceptions the Moebius do not work well together and are exceedingly individualistic. Most are more concerned with indulging their hedonism than anything else (even when it ends up costing their life), and only take orders from Z or N. Z also seems to consider the various losses the work of fate, and simply accepts them (as he tells X). On the other hand, even for much of the boss battle with him he is unconcerned with it, losing not being seen by him as possible (after all, he's beaten Ouroboros several times in the past). One might say Moebius are too detached from the real world and mentally unhinged to treat threats with the seriousness they deserve.

Ethel's age

• Ethel saved Noah's team before they graduated; she was already famous at this point. In the present day, she's still around, even though Noah's team is on their last term. Shouldn't she have had her Homecoming by now?
  • Ethel and Noah's party are around the same age (Ethel is somewhat older). Ethel is famous specifically for achieving so much as young as her third term.
  • The Keves trio are actually on their ninth term. The fact that Mio is the only tenth-termer of the party is a pretty important plot point.

What does Off-Seeing actually do? What is its purpose?

• The easy answer would be that it somehow enables the recycling of the souls sent into new bodies, but to my knowledge this is never actually stated and there are multiple people we see get reborn that may never have been sent off when they previously died (various incarnations of Mio and Noah for instance, and possibly Eunie), and we see sending work the same way for people who can't be reborn (like Guernica and Moebius K). Further, there is that scene after the first fight with Joran where Noah notes the mud dolls should have no life in them, and yet motes of light came out of them like normal. This seems to make him realize something, but its never followed up on, even in the later game side quest where they retrieve objects from Guernica's group and perform a sending for them. Perhaps the motes are purely emotions (given how they can touch people and the person will feel their emotions), and off-seeing plays off the belief that emotions from people can indwell objects and such and have power of their own, but that still doesn't explain what the purpose is of off-seeing, what the change in color of the motes of light means and where they go to.
  • Off-seeing is a cultural phenomenon; it does not seem to have any tangible purpose besides building a culture around death and allowing the soldiers and survivors some comfort. It's for the benefit of the living, not the dead. If off-seeing did actually affect the rebirthing process, Moebius would likely not allow it to exist. Motes and the fact that people's bodies decompose into them seems to be unique to Aionios, and likely related to Origin and the rebirth process.
  • That said, we know that Off-seeing does have a tangible purpose when it comes to the Homecoming ceremony, as something about it being done at that time enables the soul to escape from being reborn into Aionios (getting "lost from circulation" as we see one Moebius call it in a flashback).
  • Off-seeing is obviously more than cultural, as shown in a Colony 30 sidequsst, where See-Mee-Mee, the Off-Seer in-training, wants to see off a fallen comrade, but is unable to do so if you got to the husk before taking on the quest. As in, literally unable to do the off-seeing. This would not be the case unless off-seeing had some tangible impact.
  • Noah's response to this, however, is that See-Mee-Mee's problem was that he thought he couldn't do it, because his own doubts about his abilities are getting in his way. It seems off-seeing is powered by the emotions of the off-seer (a common theme when describing music).
  • Regarding off-seeing triggering the exit from circulation: That doesn't seem to be the case. Rather, living the full ten years removes someone from the cycle; that's why Moebius used to execute people right before the end, so that they would stay in the cycle. Of course, it's also apparent that "lost from the cycle" isn't quite as permanent as N made it sound, since both N and M stepped up for the final battle, and in the very last scene even Joran is back. Hell, the mere fact that N became Moebius after his life timer ran out, and managed to get M made Moebius even though hers ran out about a year ago, makes that clear. It's not like these people are deleted from Origin or whatever. One fanfic discusses the topic in more length.

Ouroboros Stones

• What actually is an Ouroboros stone, and where do they come from?
  • Nia explains this at the beginning of chapter 7. Both queens have a key which allows them to control Origin. Melia's key was used by Z to take full control of Origin and make the world how it is when he captured her. Although most of the power of Origin was kept by Z, Nia's key enabled her to use a small amount of said power to initiate a process of catalysis between the Origin substrate and her Core Crystal, creating the Ouroboros Stones.
  • Future Redeemed reveals that the current Ouroboros Stone, which creates powerful Ouroboro forms but limits the number of users to six, was first developed a thousand years ago by Founder Ortiz and Riku. Presumably, given his much longer lifespan compared to humans, Riku carried on refining the Ouroboros Stone until it reached a satisfactory stage of power and he was then able to leave it in other people's hands.
• Why did the light from the Ouroboros stone only affect the main cast when activated and not Guernica, who was the closest to it?
  • It did effect him. We see the same "out of body" effect on him as on the main party. He just didn't have a partner to fuse with and/or died before anything could develop from the power he might have gained. That said, only six at a time can actually be Ouroboros, so lacking a partner may have made its effect on him a dud, so to speak.

Cammuravi's conversation with Ethel

• There is a cryptic conversation mid-game where Ethel asks Cammuravi why he agreed to take the fall for his colony's loss and be "reborn" as punishment. This explains why he is imprisoned when N recruits him (presumably he was awaiting execution), but what is odd is that Ethel seems to know about the rebirth system, as does Cammuravi. Is this common knowledge for commanders?
  • It's possible the Consuls explained the truth of this to them shortly before they agreed to hunt down Noah's group, as a way to convince them.
  • Apparently in Japanese it's clearer the rebirth Ethel speaks of is metaphorical. Namely asking if Cammuravi agreed to the plan in order to be "reborn" in the sense of getting to fight again and have a Ferronis.

Malevolent Hollow's ability to restrict Interlinking

• Any ideas or possible lore behind this seeming eldritch location that prevents Ouroboros from Interlinking? Seeing the violet orbs everywhere brings to mind X's scepter from Chapter 5 that not only dispelled Interlinking, but also prevented Ouroboros from summoning their blades. And on a somewhat unrelated note, is there something about it that draws in the fiercest Tirkin, Igna, and Gulkin?
  • I believe it is the remains of Spirit Crucible Elpys from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Spirit Crucible Elpys would restrict the party members from reaching their full strength through special ether suppressing particles in the air, similar to the motes of light you can find in the Malevolent Hollow. Also, Spirit Crucible Elpys was found in Letheria in Xenoblade 2, which is one of two locations which make up the Erythia sea where the Malevolent Hollow can be found.

No Consul A?

• Simple enough question: Why is there no Consul A? Considering the game went out of its way to have one for every other letter in the alphabet, it certainly stands out that there isn't one for the first.
  • We know from certain sidequests that there are 26 Consuls in total, so unless they reuse initials, there is (or at least was) a Consul A. The writers are probably just saving them for the DLC story. For what it's worth, there are at least two very important (and currently unaccounted for) characters in the series whose names happen to start with "A:" Alvis and Addam.
  • Also Amalthus, if you want to count him. However, this one may be unlikely since "Amalthus" was a Dub Name Change as his name in the Japanese version of the game was "Marbeni." Alvis's name was unchanged from Japanese, while Addam was "Aderu" which still starts with an "A."

Eunie's husk and D's collection

• While exploring the ruins of Colony 18, Eunie finds the husk of one of her past selves, who had apparently been killed by D. Later in the game it's revealed that D keeps the heads of his victims as part of a collection, but in spite of this, Eunie's husk was found completely intact, rather than decapitated like everyone else killed by D.
  • Presumably he doesn't add everyone to his collection (none of the other soldiers in that colony lost their heads either). He'd run out of space given how many people he's killed. Plus killing a Gold rank colony is assigned "work" for a Moebius, not something D went out and decided to do for his collection.
  • It may be that his collection is only for the people who he's killed as a human.
  • Yeah, that's the most straightforward reading of it. D didn't decapitate all his victims. Blackblaze Dirk did.

N, M, Noah and Mio

• If N and M are previous incarnations of Noah and Mio who became Moebius, just where did "our" Noah and Mio come from? If the lives of the people of Aionios are being recycled then how can there be 2 Noahs and 2 Mios?
  • It's repeatedly stated that "our" Noah and Mio formed/split from the originals and were born of the hopes and ideals they left behind when they became Moebius, making their existence that should have been impossible possible. The Moebius N and M meanwhile embodied regret (as they explain before sacrificing themselves) and were basically incomplete shells of their former selves. Basically their souls split apart, enabling two versions to exist (and for them to merge back together as we see happen with both Mio and Noah being revealed in the end to have had M and N inside them). Now as for how these split souls got new bodies and why it took a thousand years to happen, answering that would probably require more knowledge than we have about how the growth modules and essence recycling works. One could presume its mostly an automatic process, and thus those split essences of Noah and Mio, upon gaining sapience or some other necessary point of development, simply were drawn into a growth module which read their data and grew a new body for each of them.

Lucky Seven

• If the Lucky Seven is a one of a kind sword, forged with the help of Melia herself, how does N have one that predates it? Is N's the original and Noah's a replica the Nopon made?
  • That's not entirely clear. The obvious assumption is that N was born with a normal Blade, which Melia and the Nopon modified into the Sword of the End, and this became his new default Blade, so when Noah was born he got the super powerful Blade straight off the bat. But some of the things Noah and Riku say imply that Noah's sword was upgraded in his current incarnation. Which would be fine, except there's no way Melia could have been involved in that process. Maybe Riku found the original plans for N's sword and used it to upgrade Noah's in the same way?
  • The Lucky Seven swords were never modified as far as we know, rather the inborn "normal" Blade N and Noah had simply serves as the sheath for their Lucky Seven sword that they were given later in life. Recall Riku stated that originally there were seven such swords made (Lucky Seven being presumably a name for all of them, since there were seven swords forged from seven types of steel by seven Nopon), so it's not that they're one of a kind. This is further evidenced by Z noting how the sword Noah has is one of various pieces of Origin that got scattered across the world, and indicates that he didn't know this piece still remained (perhaps meaning Z had collected or gotten rid of all the other ones).
    • It's notable that the Lucky Seven sword isn't actually particularly special it's made of origin metal but it's not inherently powerful it gains it's power based off the will of its wielder meaning before the blade found its way into Noah's hand it wasn't noteworthy just like all the other random pieces of origin metal you find in the world.
    • The above is subverted now that we know the souls of people from the previous worlds actually incarnated into the Origin metal as they saw that form as their way to change the world. Lucky Seven is in fact Fiora, and various Origin metal that you find across the world are other characters, though even the developers have not decided on who specifically are in each piece.

The "Endless Now" Can't Last Forever

• What was Z's plan if a wide-scale Annihilation Event hit Aionios and caused too much damage to keep the entire system sustainable, or, even worse, hit Origin itself and either partly or totally destroyed it? All it takes is a bad roll of the dice and the current state of the world collapses, because even though the people can be cloned over and over and over again, entropy is still happening, and eventually, there's going to be a catastrophe that will break the Endless Now.
  • As far as we know Annihilation Events have never touched Origin, presumably it is "beyond" Aionios just like the metal fragments from it are. As for the rest of the world, Mio mentions when infiltrating Origin that Z is quite willing to simply start over with a new world if it comes down to that.
  • It was mentioned at Keves castle that Annihilation Events never hit the castle despite all the black fog there and Ouroboros assumes they must have some form of technology that protects the castle from them and presumably it's the same for Origin

Nopon in Xenoblade Chronicles 3

• Riku and Manana admit that they do not know where babies come from. Do Nopon not reproduce in the same ways as humans?
  • The Nopon of 3 also never question the Flame Clock or 10 year life span- so more than likely, they simply assume thats just how humans are, and never thought any more about it. Seeing that there IS another option is just as new to them as anyone else.
  • It's possible they wanted to know where human babies come from, as they didn't perceive children as being younger humans. For that matter has the series ever actually called baby Nopon babies? Or shown baby Nopon at all? It may well be that something about their reproduction is different from humans.
  • Riki from 1 is a proud father of eleven, so there's at least that (though they are all well past being what we would call "babies", leading to how they start out in life still a mystery.
  • Xenoblade 3 really brings home the headscratcher of how we never find out how Nopon are born. Typical reproduction? Eggs? Mitosis?? Do they leave polyps in the wild for another Nopon to come along and fertilise, forming a bud that multiple baby Nopon emerge from like jellyfish???
  • Nopon in Xenoblade 3 are not bound to the same cycle as soldiers, yet apparently can be associated with either faction of Keves or Agnus, as seen in the ending when Riku and Manana are still forced to remain in the worlds of their nations as the separation happens. Since Nopon don't follow the same life cycle as the humans, would that mean any Nopon conceived after the fusion of the worlds just straight up disappear when the worlds separated again?
  • From what we see in the ending, one could presume that it depends on what world a particular's Nopon's body matches more. If their body is more an Alrest Nopon then they go back to Alrest. Or perhaps the important part is psychological, with the individual Nopon going with whatever world they feel more connected to.
  • It's probably more accurate to say that Riku and Manana were curious about how human babies are formed since up to this point, they have never seen one, and have just known humans as coming from cradles like bee workers to a single Queen or something similar. (And also they were likely just caught up in the moment of adorable cuteness.) As for the Nopon reproduction thing, Nopon call their children "littlepon" and while we don't see anything like babies as such, we do see Nopon younger than ten working at Colonies; maybe they just mature more quickly? Also, the City Nopon might have a better understanding of how human reproduction works and whether it's similar to their own since they see babies and children all the time but it's hardly a topic that's going to come up much for polite discussion because of its very nature. They do seem to have partnerships in the same manner as humans (in the form of "hubbypon" and "wifeypon" respectively) as well as pretty much the same familial relationships including generational ones as shown in previous games so children are almost certainly conceived in a similar manner (and looking Tora and his family in XC 2, apparently the same horny drive). Whether it results in live young or an egg or something is currently a mystery though.
    • Future Redeemed and the Aionios Moments artbook have since made it clear that any instances of Riku (and quite likely Manana) indicating they don't know about the truth of the world, reproduction, etc. is simply them lying. Nopon all exist outside the cycle, and are ageless in Aionios.

Nopon life force

• Do Nopon contain the same Life force that the soldiers use? Can they be sent off?
  • Given animals can also be drained of life, it seems likely Nopon could as well. But if sending would function the same way is another matter.

Do Riku and the Kevesi Queen know each other?

• The real Kevesi Queen that is, Melia Antiqua. At the end of the game, after rescuing Melia, she and Riku share a glance at each other, suggesting some sort of history. She doesn't do this with anyone else. Is there anything else in the game that hints at anything regarding this?
  • Riku is the one who forged the Sword of the End for Noah, and Melia was the one who made that happen. When that happened is anyone's guess.
  • Future Redeemed directly addresses this with Riku not only being older than Aionios itself and involved with events since the beginning, but if you take the time to speak with Riku back in his workshop after the event which shows he has the Sword of the End in his possession, he refers to Melia (or 'Melly' as his masterpon and that his dadapon was one of her travelling companions which is how he knows her and presumably has the right to use that nickname.

Mondo Sensory Powers

• That the Mondo are able to detect if someone has been possessed by M is treated as a major thing, but is it ever detailed just how this works? To my knowledge the Mondo are both before and after this presented as being heavily reliant on Taion in order to do stuff (in particular one camp conversation having Taion clarify that there are limits to the distance he can control them, how many he can use, and so on). We also know from the second battle with D that Taion can sense the presence of his Mondo at a distance, but this doesn't say anything about what the Mondo are able to sense. Is there some lore reason or basis from their real life inspirations (i.e. their presumably supernatural basis) that explain how they are able to point out M's presence? They don't seem to be able to even sense M specifically (since the possessions during the battle are actually being done by Mio), so presumably they instead detect if more than one mind is present in a body, but we seem to be told precious little about what they are actually sensing.
  • This might be going into Fan Wank or Wild Mass Guessing Territory but my understanding based on how the Tactician class works and the ether intensive Agnian culture is that the Mondo detect and resonate on Ether paths that Taion (Or really his gauntlet) produce, this explains why Taion can sense and detonate them as they are extensions of his ether and his ether can only go so far explaining his range. Considering that all life is also born and made up of Ether down to their very souls as was explained in previous games then that also means that there could be an Ether connection between M and her victims (as she is forcing her soul into her targets’ body) , an Ether connection that the Mondo and Taion can exploit

Knowledge of Animal Reproduction

• Why does no one know what sex is if animals exist?
  • There seems to have been some kind of perception filter involved for those bound by Flame Clocks. Note the scene where Noah and Mio watch that Ardun family and Noah notes he never noticed before that the animals change and grow so differently from the humans, with Z implying keeping such knowledge from them is part of maintaining the "stasis". Presumably if someone did see animals mating they would not have perceived it as notable nor understood what they were seeing.

Tirkin Sapience

• Considering Tirkin can speak, form communities and forge alliances with humans, is it really right to casually kill them like any other monster if unprompted?
  • Given how you repeatedly fought Tirkin in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 without killing them, one can say the same could apply in this game as well where warranted (whether you actually kill an opponent or not tends to be determined by the cutscene afterwards too).
  • Most of the cutscenes imply that the Ouroboros are doing a reasonably good job of not killing humans. Note that with Ashera's colony, it's explicitly called out that they are killing them.

Kevesi and Agnian Consuls

• If two Consuls exist at the same time that share the same forename initial, and this is definitely a case considering how there's more colonies than letters in the alphabet, how would they be referred to as to distinguish both of them?
  • Since we don't meet every colony, it's more likely that colonies might double up their consuls sometimes (and either know about it and are basically always next door neighbors, or are kept in the dark and kept far apart as much as possible).
  • In Fiona's Ascension Quest, it's explicitly stated that I doubled as a Kevesi and Agnian Consul. The same is presumably true of the others.
  • Remember this is part of how the Ouroboros realized that the Consuls were Playing Both Sides.

Triton's Fate

• What is Triton's ultimate fate after the ending? Everyone who was part of the flame clock system will likely just be reborn to where they were when time resumes based on the final cutscene, while the newborns from the City are set to be born down the line again in their family line. But Triton is Moebius, so was he just doomed to die by joining you? If so, it puts his sadness at being doomed to outlive all his friends in a very different light...
  • Since Joran appears in the ending despite not only becoming Moebius but also dying as one (which is supposed to take you out of the cycle completely), there's hope that Triton might also have been reborn as a normal person (well, as "normal" as Triton could ever be).

Definition of "Human"?

• Why is everyone lumped as a "human" despite many of the characters having features of the races from other games in the series? Was it just another thing done by the Consul to ensure the two countries didn't fight amongst eachother and focus on the "us vs them" mentality?
  • It's noted a few times that the Flame Clocks apparently kept people from noticing how different the various "humans" are. As for why this was instituted at all, perhaps it comes down to Z's own perspective on things. He was born of a concept that came from all the humanoid races of both worlds, a concept that is identified as part of being human, and thus he sees all such races as "human" or at least close enough to count. Blades, machina, high entia, they're "human" in spirit (unlike, say, Nopon who apparently differ from the humanoid races in some fundamental inner or spiritual ways). Of course, there is indeed also the useful purpose of Z wanting the only differences the people cared about being if someone was Agnian or Kevesi.

Why Allow Levnises At All?

• It's established that people's flames can only be harvested if they're killed by a Blade, so why would Moebius allow Levnises to be used in battle?
  • The intended use of them is stated to be to weaken large numbers of soldiers and then finish them off with Blades. Perhaps the end result is a larger harvest of energy than might happen from just soldier vs. soldier?
  • The very opening cutscene references this, with a Kevesi officer calling out the bombardier for being too good of a shot.

Colony names

• Keves colonies go up to 30 although there are less than 30 currently active. Presumably the consuls are keeping the numbers of colonies about the same, suggesting around 23-26 keves colonies at the same time. That suggests they only recycle numbers when it's safe to, and nobody alive would remember the previous colony assignment, because otherwise whenever a colony number opens a vacancy a new colony would take that vacancy - and the colonies wouldn't ever need to go up to 30. That's fine.
  Agnes, however, not only has no room for gaps, but they don't even have enough slots for the colonies they do have.
  From a late game cutscene, they mention that there are 23 known Agnian colonies and that they go up to "phi" which is the 21st letter in the Greek alphabet. At that point we also know that "chi" existed (which is the next letter), and we just found out about "Omega". That's a total of 25 colonies with different letters of the Greek alphabet but there are only 24 letters in the Greek alphabet.
  The only way it can work is that Eunie is considering Agnus Castle and Lost Colony:
  23 known agnian colonies up to 'phi' - 21 plus agnus castle and the lost colony
  + chi = 22
  + psi ? = 23
  + omega = 24
  Her wording "there are 23 colonies, they go up to phi" suggests that those 23 are the ones that go up to phi, and Agnus and Lost are considered outside of the count, however. And it still doesn't leave any room for avoiding re-using colony designations within 10 years.

The switch

• When exactly did M and Mio switch bodies? "Mio" is very clearly distraught about Sena and Lanz's attempted Heroic Sacrifice to try and take down N, but the battle theme against "M" just beforehand incorporated Mio's off-seer flute into it.
  • From very early on, judging by the flashback to Mio and M talking and the way Mio reacts to that initial wave of energy M sends out (this is apparently when M entered her mind and told Mio her plan). Since M is part of Mio's soul and in her body has access to her memories, she was able to act as her pretty much perfectly, including the concern for Sena. In other words the party never fought M, she was their Mio the entire fight, using M's memories to make perfect use of her powers.

N's confidence

• "Do you really think you can defeat us?" says N. Um, buddy, by this point in the story Ouroboros are standing atop a small mountain of dead Moebius, especially if they've been taking the time to liberate every possible colony along the way. What would possibly make you think they can't?
  • The fact that N had made it all the way to challenge Z in past lives and been defeated soundly? He has every reason to think that killing a bunch of lower ranked Moebius doesn't mean much in terms of actually winning, much as Z doesn't even regard defeat as a possibility until the party forces him into his true form.

Origin of the City

• Where did the City come from, and where did it go following the ending? It's established that the Lost Numbers are descendants of the original Ouroboros, of which Shulk and Rex are implied to be two of their progenitors. However, after the ending, Keves and Agnus are transformed back into the World of the Titans and Alrest respectively. Despite this, the Lost Numbers are explicitly stated to not be Kevesi or Agnian, as they don't have a Mote system like they do, yet the original Ouroboros originated from both the World of the Titans and Alrest. Adding to this is how there only seems to exist one species of humans among the Lost Numbers, with no High Entia, Machina, Gormotti, or Blades in sight outside of refugees from Keves and Agnus.
  • Regarding where the City came from, perhaps Nia had something to do with it as she did play some role with them over a thousand years ago. As for the second question, the most the game tells us is that the people who have been born in the City over the centuries will all eventually somehow be born again. Ghondor alludes to this when she remarks she hopes to end up with a different name, and earlier we see the people of the City when Melia refers to "future lives."

Melia's anniversary celebration

• If Melia knew that the convergence was happening, and when it was happening, why did they schedule her anniversary celebration for exactly that moment?
  • Perhaps they didn't know the precise moment it would happen that day, and perhaps the public at large may not have known even the day it would happen (Noah and his group certainly didn't seem aware that anything except the celebration was happening that day), and Melia thought maintaining normal life, celebrations, etc. would help ease people's worries?
  • The intention with Origin was that when the universes collided it would recreate the two worlds as they were, leaving no impact. We see that this happened in the ending, leaving no trace of the univere collision. Noah disappearing into thin air probably caused some kind of ruckus, but there's no way Melia could've forseen that.

Number of colonies

• If there's 23 Agnus colonies (not counting the Lost Colony and the technically unaffiliated Omega) and both sides are supposed to be perfectly matched, how come there's a Colony 30?
  • Most likely all numbers aren't sequentially active at the exact same time, seeing as Colonies 5 and 13 were eliminated relatively recently.
  • Possible in-universe Competitive Balance? It is stated that Agnians are stronger and have more powerful/efficient levnises. Z, wanting a perpetual war, could have balanced things by giving Keves more colonies.

Machina machinery

• Lanz is surprised to see that the fake queen is a machine. Lanz. Buddy. Dude. Have you not noticed that you're also a machine. Have you not seen your metal panelling in the mirror.
  • Machina were mechanical lifeforms rather than simply "machines" to begin with, and by the time of this game can eat, bleed and sleep like a regular organic being,and so are even less machines than before. That said, the game makes repeated note that due to the mental influence of the Flame Clocks nobody in Keves or Agnus took any special note of their physical differences. One quest outright draws attention to how Lanz's bodily tissues seem to be made of something different from Noah or Eunie, much to everyone's confusion.

Garvel and co

• Garvel, Hoope, and Layla are Killed Offscreen and reborn through the cycle. The problem is, they are reborn within the lifetimes of people who actually knew them and could recognize them. Wouldn't it make more sense for the rebirth of any Kevesi or Agnians to be delayed until after anyone who knew them would have died (either in battle or through finishing their tenth term)? For that matter, the Nopon work closely with the two sides and have much longer lives—couldn't they recognize reborn humans?
  • First off, the Nopon have some weird undefined neutrality; it's entirely possible that they were all well aware of the cycle of reincarnation the entire time, but just never allowed to talk about it. As for the rebirth, that's less clear. This particular cycle is weird in a lot of ways (because Noah and Mio reincarnated even though they were removed from the cycle as Moebius), so maybe a Consul decided to reincarnate some of their dead friends early just to see what would happen. Or maybe it's normal for people to be reborn almost immediately, and Mobius just makes some cursory effort to keep them away from their former Colonies without caring too much if they run into people they knew.
  • Also, the flame clocks have a blanket weirdness censor on everyone that's under it. Old friends being reborn is probably one of the things that it prevents people from noticing. Alternatively, they can notice, but no one lives long enough to notice or make practical use of the information.
  • The simplest way for the reincarnation to work is for everyone to be on a running ten year timer; they are always reborn on day X of the ten year cycle, and it doesn't matter if that was nine years after they died or nine days. This would explain why Mio is always older than Noah, and why Noah, Eunie, Lanz, and Joran still match up their ages at the end. Everyone is always the same age relative to each other. In which case the only explanation for Garvel and co is that they were reincarnated early. Remember they were in a colony with a weird Flame Clock, and Moebius Y is the one who does the experiments. Maybe they were part of the experiment.

Z's motives regarding the first City

• The main game had Z sic Noah, who became Moebius N, onto the first City in exchange for bringing Mio to life as Moebius with the reason being the Citizens' lives are needed for fuel. However, Future Redeemed revealed what had exactly transpired when N attacked the first City, in which his great-granddaughter Na'el became Alpha's host and his son, Ghondor, interfered and sacrificed his life to save her, in which case, the first City was devastated anyway. It appears that motives have changed or became muddled, but what would best explain Z's motives in wiping out the first City? The way Z initially worded, it was for N to have M on his side, but then things seemed to have changed with Alpha planning to wipe out Aionios with Na'el and the Citizens on tow.
  • The City's people are enemies of Moebius, that alone may have been reason enough for Z, a bonus benefit to dealing with Alpha. Notably the base game hints that Z claiming life from the people of the City was needed was a lie all along, given in another scene Moebius Y remarks that they cannot harvest life from City people in the first place.
  • N also explains that the lives of the City people now serve as fuel for Alpha in some way, and that killing them off would weaken him.

Nopon exempt from the Cycle

• Unlike humans, Nopon are not made to fight in a Forever War and retain their full lifespan instead of a measly ten years and Nopon have a tendency to live long anyway, even disregarding special cases like Riku who has lived for multiple centuries. They are not referred to as ever being part of the Cycle and there is no Nopon Moebius and probably never has been. All that is asked is that they maintain a sort of neutrality and do not interfere with the workings of the world, something that Riku is called out for at one point during Eunie's Hero Quest. The question is why are Nopon exempt from all this? Is there some sort of trait that Nopon possess that protects them from this kind of thing compared to humans? Why are they so mysterious? And were they ever a part of the original world before the experiment that caused the split?
  • While we can't answer a lot of this, it is indicated Nopon weren't present in the original world. Klaus states the life the Titans birthed came to take the shapes of what once lived in his world, but the tree of life we see does not include any origin for Nopon. Related, in the first game Melia notes that Nopon are not native to the Wildwood but came from elsewhere, though it is never said from where.
  • In Xenoblade Chronicles X, the Nopon were the only species actually native to Mira. Since Future Redeemed namedropped the White Whale, that might still be involved somehow. Mira has tons of weird properties, so who knows how that would affect everything.
  • Why specifically this is has yet to be explained to my knowledge, but the Aionios Moments artbook has confirmed that the Nopon are indeed all exempt from the cycle, and are ageless when incarnated within Aionios.

What if Chapter 5 ended with Mio never switching and actually died and M was still M

• As we find out in Chapter 6, M and Mio ended up pulling off a "Freaky Friday" Flip and Consul M ended up being the one who ended up dying at the end of Chapter 5. But, what if that never happened and Mio actually died? After Noah gets beheaded, would he never become a separate existence from Consul N (his original self who became a Moebius) due to his despair, even if he never reached the 10th year? Also, since in this scenario, since Mio in M's body would never have been able to warn Ghondor and Monica about Shania selling out The City's location to Moebius, and thus The City getting hit with the Ahnilator Cannon, would there be no one left to stand up against Moebius, since the Ouroboros stuff was from The Lost Numbers?
  • This isn’t really a headscratcher. This is more a what if scenario that should be answered in fan fiction. But to answer your questions, one, he already is a separate being him dying then and thus he would have presumably been sent back to the cycle of death and rebirth if he wasn’t saved. Two, yes, everyone in the city would have been killed in that scenario. Essentially, the game would have ended on s real downer ending.

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