How far ahead was Red Ring Rico?

[Malevolight]

So I've been playing a lot of PSO on my GC, and I recently came up with the a question: just how far ahead of you was Red Ring Rico? What made me ask myself this was the pillars you need to activate to enter the Ruins. Assuming you didn't activate any of them, you can't enter the Ruins and Red Ring Rico isn't there, but I believe it can be considered canon for the player character (PC from now on) to have activated all three before reaching the Ruins.

Perhaps immediately after the PC activated the third pillar, Rico began venturing through the Ruins while the PC battled with the Vol Opt. In that short amount of time, RRC traverses through the Ruins and slaughters everything in her path before eventually becoming Dark Falz.

Anyways, that's what I believe could be a possibility. I've done some research and found nothing on the topic, so I felt like coming here would be the best solution. What are your opinions, and is there any evidence proving otherwise?

[HeartBreak301]

She was already possessed by Dark Falz before you got planetside. That big blue explosion you see in the opening cutscene is Dark Falz killing everyone in the central dome and it's surrounding areas.

[pinkace]

HeartBreak is correct. That explosion is the moment Rico contacts and awakens Falz, which takes then takes her body as a host. She did not need to activate the pillars, she left no note about 'activating' them, just that they were peculiar and had the same markings as the gate at the end of the Mines. I think once Falz had a host, it closed the gate and then you (we, us) needed to activate each pillar to get inside again.

[Malevolight]

I guess that makes a lot more sense. I never really put all those pieces together; I had figured that the explosion had happened, and then Rico had begun her journey from the forest to the ruins.

What bothers me then is why did she even attempt to fight Dark Falz? She knew that Falz had no physical body, and she left the message of how it requires a physical host to take over. Was she merely foolish and believed she could defeat the essence of Dark Falz, or was she compelled to try and save the day?

Then there's the possibility that the explosion happened as soon as she awakened Falz, but she hadn't been fully possessed yet, thus leaving the rest of the messages.

EDIT: As I was playing through a new HUnewearl I made due to being bored with my RAmarl, I found an interesting memo left by Rico.


To what explosion is she referring to? I could only imagine it being the one from the beginning of the game, by which point the Pioneer 2 had arrived. If that's true, then my original thought is true, and Rico is ahead of you.

[AlexCraig]

I think Rico may have survived the explosion Dark Falz made and went to investigate. While playing Forest of Sorrow, you learn that Hildebears are gentle creatures from a Pioneer 1 log. However, in Rico's messages, all the monsters are hostile towards you. One would think that the monsters being hostile would be Post-Boom.

On top of that, the aforementioned screenshot. She saw the explosion. This would mean that she did, in fact, survive.

I feel that the door to the Ruins was, in fact, open after Falz exploded, allowing Rico to enter, then sealing up immediately after her, deactivating the pillars. It was only after THIS that the player goes to Ragol to investigate and reactivates the Pillars. So Rico is far ahead of us, just not pre-boom far ahead of us. More like pre-game far ahead of us.

[HeartBreak301]

Kind of strange that she'd be one of the only people left after that explosion wiped out P1's population. I guess she was somewhere else at the time.

[Cranberry]

Falz likely purposely left Rico alive because he wanted to use her as a new host body. She definitely was not absorbed yet at the point where the explosion took place because she specifically sets out to investigate that explosion.

It's not clear how much time passes since the explosion and when Pioneer 2 starts sending down hunters to investigate. It doesn't seem like she could have been more than a few hours ahead of you.

[Freeze]

Here's a write up of the pso timeline.

http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/N...yTimeline.html

[Malevolight]

Here's a write up of the pso timeline.

http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/N...yTimeline.html

I read through that, but it also states that Rico was possessed before the explosion. If she had been possessed before the explosion, she wouldn't have been able to leave the Ruins at that point, so how did she manage to leave her recordings which mention the explosion?

From what it looks like, there might just be a few plot-holes that Sega didn't think of at the time. :c

[gigawuts]

Well, two things could have happened from what I can tell.

1. Falz fully awakened and began searching for a host during the explosion (with the native creatures being influenced just by its presence)
2. Falz possessed Rico for the explosion, but she regained control - possibly none the wiser.