Episode 4 Story Discussion

[Altiea]

Their appearance in the game directly retraces their progression in the anime. It's probably not canon.

[Zeroem]

Even if they did a background check to determine who is and who isn't an Unregistered ARKS, it would probably be difficult to determine which among them specifically is affiliated with Mother Cluster. Best method would have to be to round up every Unregistered ARKS they can find and kick them out, assuming ARKS has a means of blocking them from accessing PSO2 afterwards similar to that code Olympia thing by Hagito that forced Hitsugi and Aru out of PSO2.

Now that I think about it, how were Itsuki and Rina blocked from directly entering PSO2 at the end of the anime?... probably doesn't matter anyway since they've both regained direct entry again (as in, no longer just playing PSO2 from a screen).

Story Board 43-C is where Hitsugi confirmed that the 4 Unregistered ARKS she was hiding from were members of her student council and each student council member is a Mother Cluster member. ARKS should probably start with them... or give an anonymous tip to Lisa.

I don't think rounding up all unregistered ARKS and banish them would work, since the only thing ARKS would banish are the avatars. As long as Mother exist, she can easily provide another avatar for the 'banned' players via 'free character slot' and 'real-money shop items'.

As for Rina and Itsuki's case........well, just a hypothesis, but it's possible that Mother banned their access via off-screen Code Olympia, and the one we met for limited time is both of them without any Level priviledges. After all, Itsuki and Rina managed to reach Level 2 without being a member of Mother Cluster. Just like Enga and Earth Guide members (though we might question whether the Earth Guide members can jump to Oracle or not).

Hitsugi is a different case, since she used to be a member of Mother Cluster organization, yet reached Level 2 thanks to her interaction with us back in 4-1.

[Tymek]

I like how one of the honorifics you could choose during the Honorifics Story Board cutscene was "King".
Were those datamined Story Board icons all that was found? Or was not everything posted?

[Altiea]

Itsuki and Rina are in a weird spot because they summoned their avatar forms on Earth, using photons, presumably, as opposed to using Ether or Ether constructs. Ether wasn't even a plot point in the anime; they only brought it up to tell you about the Ethernet.

[Poyonche]

Were those datamined Story Board icons all that was found? Or was not everything posted?

All that was found.

[loafhero]

Credits to Kazanboshi, who has now translated some of the cutscenes of the current Story update, a better understanding of the current cutscenes themselves;

- While most of us already have a good idea about the scene of Enga's introduction at the Bridge area, Enga has one short line of him hitting on Xierra. This gives the impression that besides being a bit of a troll, he's also a bit of a womanizer.

- Katori was attempting to promote the Bouncer class to Hitsugi (who can't change classes) while offering an easy to use pair of Dual Blades. Katori resorts to bullshitting about how Playa-chan is a founder of the Bouncer class but Saga quickly dismisses it as a lie. A dialogue option of three choices arrives where you can a) Help Katori by supporting her bullshit, b) Tell the truth that Katori and Saga are the only founders, c) Troll Katori by saying only Playa-chan and Saga are the only founders. Regardless of choice, Hitsugi sees through Katori's exaggeration anyway.

- In the Quna cutscene, upon arrival, she jokingly brags about her popularity because Playa-chan came to see her personally. The dialogue choices are basically agreeing with her or dismissing the meeting as a coincidence. Funny enough, responding with the "That's exactly right" option is apparently a sarcastic response as Quna notes how annoyingly calm and half-hearted the response was. After changing to Zelsius mode, Quna talks about her position as Vice Commander of the Intelligence Unit. As it turns out, Quna's work as VC has been mostly paperwork with almost no field work at all. This could possibly be Casra's way of reducing Quna's use of her Mai Blades which are a danger to her health. Quna then goes on to say that when she first heard that Playa-chan was coming back, she was scared that Playa-chan would not remember her (her Mai Blades apparently have a side effect of making people forget about her) but feels relief because Playa-chan has not forgotten her. At the end, Quna says she's fine with her current status as she loves being an Idol more than anything... I can't help but feel that this might be raising death flags for Quna.

- In the Lisa cutscene, while Enga being weirded out by Lisa is obvious, the scene shows that Lisa is surprisingly good at making deductions. With only just shaking Enga's hands did Lisa correctly guess that Enga is a Sniper user based on how he tried to gain his distance from her and how the lack of movement of his hands suggested that he conjures weapons into his hands rather than keeping it holstered in plain sight. This is due to Lisa's naturally honed perception as a Ranger. At the end, Enga asks Playa-chan if weirdos in ARKS like Lisa are stronger.

[mickbis]

So according to Kazanboshi translation
Mother true goal is "revenge"
so that mean the theory how [Mother] is the failed Xion imitation create by Photoner is most likely to be true

edit : Now that I think about it Mother want Aru which is heavy imply to have connection with Darkness....

[Icis]

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That's pretty much all they gave us. I've thought it was weird from the moment I saw it. Part of me hopes that doesn't mean we won't get to see Itsuki in Ep4's story...maybe since a large part of it is on Earth, we will? But then again, we're outside of Japan now.

As for Rina and Itsuki's case........well, just a hypothesis, but it's possible that Mother banned their access via off-screen Code Olympia, and the one we met for limited time is both of them without any Level priviledges. After all, Itsuki and Rina managed to reach Level 2 without being a member of Mother Cluster. Just like Enga and Earth Guide members (though we might question whether the Earth Guide members can jump to Oracle or not).

That's a really interesting idea, and I guess the anime would omit that since Aether/Mother Cluster had nothing to do with the anime, but were Itsuki and Rina really Lv.2? They had nothing to do with Aether, just Photons, which is honestly really weird now that I think about it.

[Zeroem]

That's a really interesting idea, and I guess the anime would omit that since Aether/Mother Cluster had nothing to do with the anime, but were Itsuki and Rina really Lv.2? They had nothing to do with Aether, just Photons, which is honestly really weird now that I think about it.

Well, everyone who played PSO2 will have contact with Ether/Aether. If I read that picture from Earth Guide leader correctly, everyone on Earth have contact with Ether/Aether; especially since Earthlings already discover Ether/Aether 10+ years before anime timeline kicked in.

A classification of Level 2 (from Ardem) is that.....
- They already 'merged' with their avatars (in a sense) from PSO2
- They can 'jump' directly into Oracle
- They can materialize weapons with Ether/Aether.

With that classification; Itsuki and Rina are, indeed, Level 2. Or at least used to.

[Meteor Weapon]

Well....they did kinda excalbured the hell out of apprentice(oh god i still hate that scene)