YMMV / Crystallic's Starbound Trilogy

• Complete Monster:
  • The Black Nebula: Desert Tumbler is a dissociative, sadistic novakid outlaw, who treats life as a game to kill as many people as possible. Over the years, Desert has killed thousands of people with no signs of stopping, even collecting some of the corpses to dump out of a ship to show off. When first encountered, Desert attacked a village twice, the second time hiring outlaws to join in on the killing, and detonated a bomb full of hostages inside in front of Katsu Umino, all while taunting him for not saving them. Desert later reveals that he was Ethyl Countrisyde's partner in crime, where he manipulated him into a life of crime, before betraying him for refusing to kill people without reason, being the reason why Ethyl is who he is today. Mika Aikawa would later free Desert from prison if he would help her out with committing genocide on florans, which he accepts so that he could kill more people. During the climax, Desert tries to stop the heroes from de-activating the weapons, willing to let an entire star system be destroyed in the process for the sake of a "new high score" on his kill count, not minding if they were just assists due to the opportunity for that many deaths, all while shooting FEO agents due to being bored of Mika ordering him around.
  • Rise of the Stargazers: Xochtal Reklaw is a Stargazer Prophet, feigning loyalty to Kluex so he can gain wings in the afterlife. In the past, Xochtal has sacrificed thousands of grounded avians. One night, Xochtal had a dream which he thought was a message from Kluex to sacrifice his offspring, so he attempted to sacrifice Robin when she was only 3, only for his son and daughter-in-law to offer to be sacrificed instead, which he accepted, sending Robin away to be adopted. In the story proper, Xochtal pretends to be a remorseful former priest, tricking his granddaughter and her friends into letting him join, while having Ezalco serve as a threat to focus on. Xochtal reveals his true colours when he gets the staff and tries to kill the Black Nebula, even crashing their ship. While they are down, he is revealed to be harvesting stardust from novakids by forcefully and painfully sucking it out, turning them into lifeless husks. Xochtal then begins his plan to wipe out all grounded avians to please Kluex, killing over 2 million of them. In the climax, Xochtal tortures Ethyl, Robin, and Lexie with hallucinations simply because he could, and upon defeat, attempts to murder the heroes one last time out of sheer spite.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Ethyl Countrisyde is an outlaw dedicated to ending discrimination, shooting anyone who discriminates. Joining a crew to stop his former partner Desert, Ethyl arrests his rival and becomes the captain of their group, the Black Nebula. Stopping a genocide and freeing a captive teammate, Ethyl decimates his enemies and later returns to force his enemy Moonquill into releasing his crew by threatening to kill her own cherished followers. Tricked by Xochtal, Ethyl still saves his own crew and pulls one over on Xochtal himself, faking his own death and fooling Xochtal into engineering its own demise. In the final story, Ethyl leads the new protectorate against Stormlance successfully for over a month, keeping his forces hidden until they can gather and grow their legions, returning in the thousands. Fighting Stormlance alongside the rest of his crew, Ethyl pulls off one final trick in having Stormlance open up the Backup Plan, then enters and shuts himself inside, destroying Stormlance's ship by crashing it into a star, heroically giving his life in the process.
  • Moonquill is the princess of the glitch empire and the adopted daughter of King Stormlance. Gaining self-awareness, Moonquill becomes one of her father's most effective minions, repeatedly posing as a rebel to catch dissidents. Pursuing the Black Nebula, Moonquill only relents to save her beloved crew, returning again to plant trackers on the Black Nebula's replacement parts and eventually capturing the crew. Retaining her wits even after her personality is muddled with her influencing chip destroyed, Moonquill shows her brilliance again by tricking her allies into splitting up, allowing her to sneak off to a star system her father wished to invade. Taking a liking to the system, when Moonquill learns her father is committing murders behind her back she releases the heroes from prison, leaving the glitch empire with them. Joining the new protectorate, Moonquill uses her knowledge of the empire to combat it, defeating her father himself and becoming the new Glitch Queen, ready to lead her people to a brighter future.
  • King Stormlance is the ruler of the Glitch Empire and a formidable conqueror. After seeing the chaos across the universe and losing his kingdom to an anarchistic rebellion, Stormlance vows to bring peace and order no matter the means. He revives and reprograms a random glitch guard into Ironwall, his right-hand, and the two usurp a glitch kingdom by rewriting the citizens' memories and killing the royal family. Stormlance forms the empire and takes over dozens of star systems and planets, including Solunar Nexus, rewriting their memories and personalities entirely to fit in his peaceful reality. One day, he meets an abandoned baby Moonquill, who he adopts and lovingly raises, training her into a formidable ally, while chipping her and hiding his worst actions from her to ensure her loyalty. Stormlance controls his territories with ease, covering up awakenings by executing rebels and dismissing it as a plague to his citizens. As a last resort, he tries to destroy every star system he has yet to control. In his final moments, he realises the wrongs in his ways, accepts his defeat and commends the heroes, before ordering Moonquill to execute him for his crimes and succeed him as the queen of the glitch to right all his wrongs.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Mika crosses the line when she kills one of her agents for not killing a floran toddler, then proceeds to drown the toddler herself.
  • Desert was the one who was responsible for Ethyl becoming an outlaw in the first place, but he truly crosses the line when he betrays him for not killing innocent civilians by shooting his leg and leaving him to be arrested.
  • Xochtal is revealed to be the one who tried to sacrifice Robin as a child, then sacrificed her parents, aka his son and daughter-in-law, in exchange when they offered. He showed no remorse for this and didn’t even offer Robin shelter, showing how truly heartless Xochtal was.
  • Ezalco crossed it when he spitefully tries to kill himself and take Azima down with him to avoid punishment. There was no reason to try and drag Azima down, but he did, all because as Katsu put it, his capacity for malice was frightening.
  • Kleriya tortured her own son Kong to death for rebelling, all while making her daughter Tatasia watch. Just for added bonus points, she sawed Tatasia’s arm off and then abandoned her on another planet.