Phantasy Star Online Story Discussion (Lore nerds unite!)

[Zipzo]

Had an interesting back and forth in another thread but thought I'd just make a new thread to centralize it.

All the way back to good ol'e PSO we have our precious Pioneer 2, awaiting colonization of Ragol over government issues (and the renegade Arkz). We were able to explore most of the planet and uncover a lot of dirty secrets such as the remains of the lost Pioneer (Ruins) & the parasitic gene which took Flowen and presumably Rico as well (I've heard debate on whether Dark Falz was the actual manifestation of Dark Force keeping Rico contained or if it was just another genetic mutation such as Olga Flow).

I'm just hazarding a guess that we are to presume that the Phantasy Star canon does span across all of the games, even though the stories are all relatively unrelated (save for the presence of Dark Force). In RPG's like the Final Fantasy series...the stories are crafted to be in a different world every time. In Phantasy Star, we have a constantly reoccurring theme here, and I have never believed it to be a coincidence, or that SEGA is too lazy to think up a new bad guy. PSU has touched a bit on the connection to the other games with its virtual reality missions to old PSO areas based on data found on Rykros (the planet that passes through every so many years and causes turmoil in the form of Dark Force). The races have generally shared presence as well.

Before you unlock the ruins you go in to a very brief and small room where you open the door by unlocking a seal after activating all three totems in Forest, Caves, and Mines. This seal is presented in the form of 3 colored circles, green, red, and blue. The seal is also marked if you interact with it with the words "MUTT DITTS POUMN". This is a solid reference to the original 3 planets that make up the areas of the first few Phantasy Star games...the Algo systems planets : Motavia, Dezoris, and Palma. A character in PS4 makes a note that the Algo system serves as a "cell" for the Dark Force (Dark Falz, Profound darkness, whatever)...so this seal thing is almost everything but empirical evidence that an Algo civilization locked him up here, connecting PSO canon to all the previous PS canons.

I believe the Gurhal system to be a further future version of the Algol system. Aside from the names of the planets being quite similar, the presence of Rykros at all is p-much the only evidence we need that he's just doing his normal round through his normal choice of planetary system to harass.

The names of the planets have changed through a long game of telephone essentially, but for the most part are easy to tell the similarities between the games (Palma/Palm/Parma/Parum).

A lot of rares in PSO have a date on them in the form of "AUW *numbers here*". In the earlier phantasy stars the only reference to anything similar you get is the year "AW", and it's explained that this refers to "After War". This is presumably the great divine war between the goddess of light and Dark Falz that led to the creation of the Algol system (PS1) as a vessel for sealing the bad guy up.

I used to have the PSO art book that referred to "AUW" as the same thing. Except the U is sort of lost in translation and it's anyones guess what it stands for, I suppose. I've heard many theories. Some of the weapons like the Sange and Yasha have really old dates, going back as far as AUW1900s. These swords were crafted to be pretty much real world swords, so we must assume that photon weaponry was not created as of yet during these years. There is a small period in the 2nd (3rd?) game where technology is on the low side of publicity, and the AUW3000s (for example, Flowen's true sword was crafted in AUW3084) see much in the way of photon weapon advancement. The crafting dates would place those weapons firmly in the universe of the older PS games. Simple easter eggs? Possibly.

So now we're in PSO2. Gamerx on this site has suggested that the year that constantly flashes on the loading screen with "AP" stands for "After Pioneer". Which would place PSO2 hundreds of years after the events of PSO. He points out that in the concept art for our next possible planet (Ragol) contains the old totems, mossified and old, suggesting that Ragol is indeed our next travel point, and that much time has passed.

So the question is...what's going on in PSO2? Why was Ragol not colonized as planned after Ep3? Was there a cataclysmic event with Pioneer 2 that led to the rebirth of the government/coral army, in which they even started a new calender dating system in order to signify the beginning of a new era (AW > AUW > AP)? How much in the future are we exactly? So many questions! My brain is tingling!

[Sinue_v2]

I believe the Gurhal system to be a further future version of the Algol system. Aside from the names of the planets being quite similar, the presence of Rykros at all is p-much the only evidence we need that he's just doing his normal round through his normal choice of planetary system to harass.

I found a slight hole in your theory...



Also, PS Rykros was a crystaline planet which was always a part of the Algol solar system (though not part of it's dimensional seal) which was hidden by a magical barrier that could only be detected by use of the AeroPrism. It was a signal, when it transited close to Dezolis (and caused the Laconium in the planet to glow during the eclipse it caused), to the protectors of Algol that the time of the dimensional seal's weakening was at hand. PSU's Rykros was a super-massive SEED Hive which nanotranced completely out of another dimension. It had no thousand year highly elliptical orbit, and the previous breech of their dimensional seal occurred like 10,000~12,000 years before PSU's time.

There's also absolutely NO evidence of the Ancients within PSP2/i being in any way descended from Algolians/Motavians/Dezolians. If anything, they seem to be a (very loose) reference to the race of spirit beings which constituted the Great Light - sealing away the darkness and then disappearing without a trace.

Sa-Lews (PSIV)

Spoiler!

Wynarl (PSP2i)

Spoiler!

Not much similarity there. You might be able to make kind of a case for Kumahn, but he's more of a special exception as the "king" (or tyrant) of the Ancients. In a way, he's the "Light Falz", an aggregate of multiple ancients consciousnesses/power to form a central core which seeks to be released from their subspace hiding place/prison once the SEED were gone. Once accomplished, they planned to evict the souls of everyone living in Gurhal and inhabit their bodies to once more have physical from. Humans in PSU were specifically created by the ancients to be vessels for their eventual return. Beasts and Newmans were created by humans later as modifications on themselves. In contrast, the Great Light in the original series created Humans, Motavians, and Dezolians as completely separate species... and tasked them with watching over and defending the seal while it went off and played the dead-beat dad that gods are want to do.

I just don't see there being a connection between PSU or either PSO or PS. Any similarities and fanservice additions are just that... running themes and fanservice. It's no secret that PSU's plot has HEAVY similarities and references to the classic games... but they're random "hey remember a scene like this" moments. PSO and PS can fit nicely together almost perfectly... but trying to round out the three into a cohesive whole just invites too many plot holes and leaps of faith.

Perhaps there's something to be said of Algol and Gurhal being "sister" system within different dimensions, with perhaps their close universal proximity to the dimension Dark Falz/the Profound Darkness being able to explain some of the similarities and crossovers as the same cosmic threads of fate (or whatever) run through them both. Who's to say the Darkness's dimensional prison only has one entrance into one universe? But that destroys any linear or direct plotline directly connecting the events of the games.

[Zipzo]

In the beginning of PSO, like the cut scene, it states that Pioneer was created and that they left because of 'imminent' destruction...we know of this planet as Coral...but it also uses the term "worlds". As in, multiple worlds. It also depicts a planet changing color, I'm assuming that's relating to the planet degrading somehow.

Could that possibly be a hint what happened after mother brain was defeated? That might be a large distance to jump but, I'm just convinced there's a little more than fan service going on here!

What about the idea that the planet was renamed over generations...? And the planet was slowly descending in to rubble without mother brain...this planet was what we eventually came to know as coral...but what was originally known as...Motavia.

[Kirukia]

Phantasy Star has a story?


Anyway, I'd like to believe they are at least SOMEWHAT connected but there are too many loopholes in most theories that I've seen.

In PSZ Mother Trinity was created to heal the ailing environment on Coral after the Pioneers left. She ended up becoming infected by Dark Falz and took her job to the extreme (by naming people as the cause), and creating a Trinity of weapons and ultimately wiping out most of the planet's population and damaging the planet. Her weapons included a virus that infected newmans, a disrupter that shut down CASTs, and a photon eraser which she used to destroy the remnants. She ends up defeated at the end, as does the Dark Falz infecting her. There is nothing that suggests Coral itself dies afterwards. It WAS in a state of decay but it's probably safe to say that Coral is still fine after PSZ, which is long after the Pioneers left. Of course, nobody really has memories of that.

I did wonder about the VR in PSU/PSP though. In PSP2 they mention that the VR data containing Forest and Caves from PSO was found in Rykros. I know that Rykros is not Ragol, but I still wonder about the connection. I feel like they wouldn't point out that they found data about Ragol on Rykros if it wasn't significant.

I'm also curious as to if they'll do anything about sub-space. Since the Gurhal System now has the technology to travel to different dimensions, I wonder if they'll connect the Gurhal system to the other storylines through subspace.

Jokes on us though, there probably is no connection and they plant these little seeds to troll us.

[Sinue_v2]

In the beginning of PSO, like the cut scene, it states that Pioneer was created and that they left because of 'imminent' destruction...we know of this planet as Coral...but it also uses the term "worlds". As in, multiple worlds. It also depicts a planet changing color, I'm assuming that's relating to the planet degrading somehow.

It might have been that at one time in development, they intended the Coralian home system to have multiple worlds. It tripped me up too, because at first I thought that "Coral" might be a corruption of "Copto" from PS Gaiden, and that "worlds" might suggest Algol + the Copto colony. However, that was officially put to rest with PSZero for the DS which is the official prequel/sequel to the original PSO series. It takes place on Coral 200 years after "The Great Blank" - a period of destructive war against "Mother" which occurred a few years after Pioneer 2/3 launched. Humans were nearly extinguished, casts were deactivated, and Neumans were totally wiped out - and later cloned/recreated by Mother to serve as foot soldiers in case invasion of Coral was necessary. It didn't contain any of the necessary links or hints to Algol that were needed to make the theory work.

It's true that Coral is strikingly similar to Earth, sharing roughly the same sized single moon - as seen in the opening cinematic.



It's may be possible to link Coral to Phantasy Star II, since PSZero's characters refer to their planet as "Earth"... which would make them "Earthlings" - and "Mother Brain" an extension of the "Mother Project". However, they only refer to themselves as "Earthlings" post-Great Blank/post-PSO era. Any ships leaving before the Great Blank would have used the term "Coral" to describe their home planet (like they do in PSO), and would call themselves Coralians. Since Mother was defeated and the environment already well on the recovery, you would basically need to invent a second genesis of the Mother Project, a second global destruction, and a second exodus. It would also require a massive cultural shift, a second genocide of Numans, and a second recreation of Numans as biosoldiers under the auspices of Mother Brain.

It may be possible to just "ignore" that the protagonists of PSII call themselves Earthlings, or brush it off as a convention of language. That would make the "Earthlings" and their ship (and mother brain) from another ship escaping Coral... perhaps the fabled lost Pioneer 3? Probably not, considering the Earthling's ship was named "Noah", and Noah is an obvious reference to our specific cultural stories (Noah's Ark).

At any rate, that theory would be in conflict with one of PSIII's endings in which the Alisa III lands on Earth after being contacted by the "London Communications Center on Earth of the Sol system". That's pretty explicit. While it's true that none of the endings are (technically) canonical, that's been pretty much the standard ending used in explaining how Earthlings got to Algol in the first place. Noah was built from the technologies and data discovered from the Alisa III's wreckage, and the Dark Force aboard the Noah in PSII may be the same Dark Force aboard the Alisa III in PSIII. It's influence would explain the corrupted nature of the Earthlings (greedily and shortsightedly destroying their environment by trying to control it; then turning it on Algol in a clandestine campaign of genocide and conquest. Annihilating their most prospective planet to colonize as a show of force, because it was the seat of power in the system... etc) Their arrival in Algol and the initiation of plans were several hundred years in the making; far too early to be influenced by the releasing of a Dark Force around 1284AW on the millennial cycle.

So far, the least conflicting theory I've been able to come up with is the multiple-ship hypothesis, which suggests that multiple Dark Forces escaped on multiple world-ships at the end of PSII. Most of the world-ships were destroyed, but some survived - and a few of those ended up migrating out of the solar system. They also carried multiple Dark Forces (released from the newly rended tear in the seal Palma's destruction caused). Sean's ending indicated that the people of the Neo Palm (another world ship) knew about Dark Force, and suspected it was behind the Alisa III's troubles. Since Dark Force's presence wasn't widely known except to a select group of high ranking Espers, it's possible they found out about it in their own fight with their own Dark Force.

None of the endings of PSIII are canonical, but each may hold a grain of truth to a real ending. Crys and Adan's endings are similar, ending with the Alisa III landing on a "green planet" third one out from the sun (Earth). Aron's ending takes place explicitly on Earth in the past (but our future, after passing through a black hole). Sean's ending is the only one that doesn't really "fit" the paradigm, and may indicate a future of the Neo Palm surviving Dark Force and eventually landing on a planet... which may well be Ragol from PSO. Since they would have no more ability to truly "defeat" Dark Force than the Alisa III did... they could well have tried to seal him away (badly), and failed to survive much longer after that. The only special leap that takes is the necessity to have an Esper on board both ships (plausible, since Espers have cryogenic technology and tend to keep a very low profile. Besides, the Alisa III had Nei weapons which the Espers created. Why put them all on one ship, and not others?) - and a blending of PSIII's multiple endings.

Could that possibly be a hint what happened after mother brain was defeated?

It's pretty explicit what happened after Mother Brain was defeated. When PSO/PSZ/PSU talks about a planet being destroyed, they're talking about the environment being wrecked beyond habitation. When I talk about Palma being destoryed in PSII, I'm talking about it's complete and total annihilation.



That asteroid belt you see near the center? That's what's left of Palma by PSIV's time. That's after the debris settled down into a stable orbit, but just after the event it caused enormous chunks of rock to rain down on Dezolis and Motavia causing untold devastation. Over 90% of the system's population died as a result of the double-whammy of having all of their society sustaining technology turn off shortly after (and during) a heavy bombardment of planetary debris. Palma is gone. So it can't be a future Parum.

Edit: Oh, and about the AW/AUW calendars...

A lot of rares in PSO have a date on them in the form of "AUW *numbers here*". In the earlier phantasy stars the only reference to anything similar you get is the year "AW", and it's explained that this refers to "After War". This is presumably the great divine war between the goddess of light and Dark Falz that led to the creation of the Algol system (PS1) as a vessel for sealing the bad guy up. I used to have the PSO art book that referred to "AUW" as the same thing. Except the U is sort of lost in translation and it's anyones guess what it stands for, I suppose.

AW stands for "After Waizz", and marks the successful conquest of all of Palma by Waizz Landale, bringing the entire planet under a single and unified monarchy. The war between the divines occurred several million years before the Landale conquests and, depending on the localization, was a single god-head which split into two parts (light and dark) and fought each other or was a cosmic civil war among a spiritual race in which there were no good or bad dichotomies. It was simply the defeated who were sealed away, and it was their eons upon eons of imprisonment that eventually drove them mad and filled them with hatred and a lust for revenge - twisting them into the Profound Darkness.

AUW stands for "After Unification War", but I don't know what the details are for what the "Unification War" event is referring to. Obviously Coral did not stay unified, as it was their constant warring over resources which helped to destroy their planet's environment. They eventually had to convene a 10 nation alliance council in order to come up with solutions, of which the Pioneer Project was born. At any rate, since Coral does not draw it's heritage or civilization from Algol, it can't be referring to the Waizz campaign.

[Zorafim]

I've seen a large number of fan theories trying to put together the PS series. Frankly, the only thing it does is make Falz standing there make even less sense. As far as I can tell, the atmosphere of the game is created first, and the story afterwards. Newmans aren't there because genetic manipulation was necessary. They're there because they're famous Phantasy Star staples. Same with many other connections.

Sorry to be a negative nancy, but if I can find anything to tie the series, it's very loose and doesn't really add anything. Easy game takes place with a different civilization, and each game's Falz has a different set of rules.

[sugarFO]

I know people lol about PSO's story, but I really liked the subtlety of how they presented little tidbits of information. Following Red Ring Rico through her journey on Ragol had a sort of creepy feel about it the second time when you already know she was mutated into Dark Falz. Like, who built these facilities, and why? I liked the whole idea that there's some bad apples in the governing bodies of us hunters/Arks.

[Squall179]

Not to throw a wrench at all of this discussion, but something I observed.

THe PSO hostiles related to Dark Falz, all had the same basic visual effect and appearance....as the SEED.

Meanwhile, these hostiles being encountered of the Darker variety in PSO2, ESPECIALLY those found in the TUndra, bear to me, a striking resemblance to those found infesting Arca in PSZ, which in turn, appear akin to up-armored versions of PS1 Dark Falz/PS4 Prophallus

WHat if there IS a key tie in, but it isn't so much a matter of the different civilizations coming into contact with one another or one becoming one of the others, but instead....like someone said, the Profound Darkness didn't have to just have ONE exit from its dimentional prison, other holes could exist. And think about this too....Rykros, PSU variety, had...Ragol Data that was extensively analyzed in the storyline and used for Max Attack G.

What is the SEED were not so muchjust say...PSU's version of Dark Falz with a more specific name or anything, than perhaps what was left of SOmething ELse that was Altered by it, or...a particularly Adaptable species, that began to evolve in a twisted manner once it was exposed to Dark Falz?

What if the DImeniens you fight.....were what the Ancients fought in PSU's past, banished, what if that COnfincement System mentioned just SHoved them somewhere else and Ragol happened to be the hole in the wall they ended up, a Shadow Moses Nuclear Weapons Storage Facility of the ancient space civilization. Afterall...the SEED forms were mutated bioforms in Gurhal, what if that same species simply became a host form for one of the versions of Dark Falz?

And so that DF banished by the Ancients ended up seething on Ragol, and then Seedified Rico, FLowen...so on and so forth?

Maybe THAT is the connection between those two, OTHERWISE UNRELATED timelines, connected by the Ancient's lack of caution or frantic urgency, and meanwhile the Darkers are basically just, the same things lurking in the Arca Plant, variations of a standard Dark Falz, and the body you fight in PSZ.....quadripedal, what if that were a small scale Form of Ragne? Maybe each of those, IS A Dark Falz Quadripedal type? DARK RAGNE, afterall.....some form of Main Assault Unit Falz could be fielding based off of one of its own body configurations mm?

Maybe that...is what the tie in is, maybe it all connects via the fact that there really are just different holes in space/time that the Profound Darkness has been, or IS exploring as a way to either pass the time out of boredom, or as a way of probing the defences of its prison in a bid to escape.

THat is my take on all of that.

And in the case of Gurhal...what if TEEECHNICALLY it is just an alt timeline of Algol, and the whole time it isn't so much the MASS of Parma that helped to sustain the seal but the living bioenergy of everything on the planet perhaps, and with it being...well, the way Parum is, the seal was weak enough in that case perhaps it was able to push through what defences the Ancients DID have in place, with a sort of PMC it already had set up in advance in the form of the SEED.

Divergent Paths in space/time, allowing for similar universes following the same general set of rules but....otherwise seperate, each with a plauge that in each one seems to have its own way of working, due to it finding Different Methods of obtaining what it is seeking.

[GoldenFalcon]

The Casts kinda built Parum, didn't they?

[Zipzo]

First I'd like to say thank you Sinue, you demonstrate an awesome knowledge of Phantasy Star so it's great to have you for this discussion.

AUW stands for "After Unification War", but I don't know what the details are for what the "Unification War" event is referring to.

Well, do you not seemingly answer your own question with...

AW stands for "After Waizz", and marks the successful conquest of all of Palma by Waizz Landale, bringing the entire planet under a single and unified monarchy.

Perhaps it's a direct reference to Palma within PSO's timeline, with the calender format changed as a simple token/sign of time passed.

I have also considered, Squall, the alternate space & time evolutions of the algol system being the answer here, especially concerning PSU, you may not be too far off the mark.

My main question here is the date and happenstance of PSO. A part of me wants there to be a gloriously webbed back story to everything that happens in PSO. I'm also still infinitely curious about the failure to colonize Ragol, and also the life span of the Pioneer 1.

The Casts kinda built Parum, didn't they?

If by built you mean they constructed the entire planet, well that'd be quite a hole filled, but it seems unlikely. It's probably referring to just the active civilization of Parum (cities and colonization).

Also...I am not filled in on PSP2i's story and how it relates to PSO. Can someone fill me? I have not played it.