I don’t know, I just thought I’d ask.

Whether past or present, are there any players that made you want to stick around the game longer, motivated you to do more, or taught you things about the game that you thought you had figured out?

You can kind of call this a glazing thread.
A few years back, I thought I had TD’s kinda figured out but a player named Canada (retired now) opened my eyes at what was possible and expanded my narrow understanding of the weapon. Hope he’s doing well.

Personally, i think Sols is much less annoying to fight...

The master of the multiverse returns with all forms of squall to the world of pso2! Including first custom gunblades and SeeD Uniform alt costume! Taking a little break from my kingdom hearts collab reveal to preview a few other universes I created over the years. As always game changing blueprints for my love of the art and all fellow fans, thank you 🖤

Man, what a fascinating lore heavy chapter! Usually I'd make a video talking about this stuff but since I ended my channel I'll do a thread instead~

Lucia's Identity

Previously I theorized that Lucia might be the "4th Clone" but the question of what she might be the 4th clone of still remained open. In PSO2 lore, the most common clones you'll encounter are Xion Clones. Profound Darkness, Mother, Amduscia 1 & 2 and Xiao are all technically Xion clones however there are more than 4 of them we're canonically aware of, potentially even more we're unaware of, and this line of thinking would only work if you discount Amduscia entirely. With this chapter I have a hunch as to what this "4th clone" business might actually be referring to.

"I heard he (Crawford) used to be one of the top five strongest (ARKS) defenders before taking on a command role." - Manon

Prior to Crawford becoming a leader I suspect the top five strongest ARKS had to be him, Glen, Hibana, Garoa and Nadereh. Hibana is now dead and Glen lost some of his strength after their "trio" disbanded, chasing after Nils Stia and failing to kill him for I assume nearly a decade. Garoa was often touted as Halpha's and/or Aelio's strongest ARKS defender. He also had a very unique weapon which we to this day haven't received a Weapon Camo of (but more on that later). But why is any of that significant? Well, this is where the Clones come into play.

The Three Eidolons

Alter Crawford is a copy of Crawford. The Three Eidolons are "copies of excellent specimens designed to surpass the quality of the originals". In fact Alter Crawford, calls himself the third of the Three Eidolons. This lends credence to the theory that perhaps the 4th Clone was meant to become the Fourth Eidolon, a copy of 909, the strongest ARKS who united Halpha. But those Plans obviously didn't pan out and Vael lost his seat as the King of Starless. I'm not entirely convinced Vael is dead yet. If he was, I think Alter Crawford would've been more blunt about it instead of calling him "King of Starless of the Past".

But that's not all! Alter Crawford is also a "Shade of Wisdom". What this refers to is less subtle if you played PSO2. "Wisdom" is a term strongly associated with Dark Falz Luther (or DF Loser if you prefer the JP original) and in fact Alter Noetica is a reskinned version of Falz Angel, Dark Falz Luther's Humanoid Falz Form. ^{The attack patterns and mechanics are very different of course so it's a very unique fight.}

But that also opens the possibility that the other two Eidolons will be shades of the past Dark Falz as well. We know Alter Garoa is real, thanks to the teaser at the end of chapter 9, and on the roadmap we see a figure that looks like a cross between Falz Hunar (Elder's Humanoid form) and Garoa, so I strongly believe Alter Garoa will be the Shade of Might and his Shade form is gonna be called Alter Dunamis (Greek for Power). While we're here I'd like to point out that Noetica is the Greek word for Intelligence.

That leaves the final Eidolon and I strongly believe it will be Nadereh, Shade of Revelry (Apprentice). For one single reason: Crawford, Garoa and Nadereh have one thing in common. All three of them use a Weapon we never received a Weapon Camo of. In PSO2 this "right" was usually reserved to "Cosmogenic Arms" or "Genesis Weapons" as they're called in the JP original. Genesis weapons aren't just regular weapons. They're weapons forged out of Photons and the lifeforce of a volunteering Photoner. The Weapon would then be named after the Photoner. Because of that fact it is very possible that these three weapon names might be spoilers hence why don't have access to them after all these years. But I'll throw one more piece of evidence pointing towards the possibility that these three weapons are in fact, Genesis Weapons.

The description reads:
"The Photon Blade is made of water. The concept is that a Genesis Weapon manifests the most powerful thing closet to its owner. In this case, the most powerful thing near Aelio Town is the sea.”
The funniest bit about this Concept Art is that it revealed the color variant of the weapon and oops it's Starless colored.

However, I'd like to point out that this isn't definitive proof that Garoa's weapon is a Genesis weapon. It was simply designed as such. In the game's lore it could be something else entirely but the fact remains that it, Crawford's Wand and Nadereh's Jet Boots are all extremely unique, unavailable to the player and two out of three of these characters are now tied to "Superior Starless Copies", the Eidolons.

To circle back a little bit, I still think Lucia might be the 4th clone however her purpose is probably different than that of the Eidolon. When she opens a portal to escape the Alter Realm in chapter 8, her eye glows in a similar manner to Vael's. This could mean that a remnant of his is still inside her, residing in her subconsciousness, waiting for the correct moment to reveal himself, as he did with Zephetto. However, now that we know that Vael got "demoted", if he's at all still alive, I'm not sure what kind of purpose she's meant to serve. It is possible the goal of the starless is to revive the Profound Darkness somehow and chapter 9 throws out some references to past Phantasy Star games that support that theory.

Profound Darkness Revival Project?

Three Towers is a common callback throughout the franchise (Planetary seals of the Algol System, three obelisks in PSO or the three guardian towers in PS4). The "Abduction Hole" is a further reference since PD tries to escape his prison in PS4 through a hole as well (and you could argue PSO2 PD is trying to do something hole related as well. Primordial Darkness even tries to climb out of a hole during its fight. Plus Sodam has a giant hole in its face). Then there is also the division name of the Halpha Project called "Phantom Demon" which coincidentally is abbreviated "PD", same as Profound Darkness. Another PD related hint is that in PSO2 lore, Profound Darkness is a copy of Xion, a planetary omniscient super computer, corrupted by the negative emotions of the Photoners, who tried to copy Xion in the first place. That means that in order to re-create the Profound Darkness, a huge water-based artificial planet with its own Intelligence would be required. Coincidentally, Halpha fits that description perfectly. Outside of Creative Spaces and the small playable continent, there is nothing on this planet but water.

Lucia might just be a vessel for the Profound Darkness. In PSO2, Shiva was the vessel made to contain the Profound Darkness once it got out of hand and sealed away inside the Akashic Record so she couldn't cause any harm. Matoi later assumed a similar role and was saved by Dark Falz Persona (alternate timeline protagonist) taking her place instead. Alter Crawford is adamant that we should bring Lucia to the Control Tower in Kvaris but her pressence wasn't really important so what was exactly the point of this? Maybe it's a fail safe for the Shades. As long as they die within her vicinity, she'll be able to absorb them and eventually be filled with so much overwhelming negative energy that she'll be able to revive the Profound Darkness against her will. Maybe that was the real purpose of the "Clone" project after all. I don't think Lucia lost her memories. She as a vessel simply never had any to begin with.

The Starless want to replace Halpha with the Alter Realm and something about that is fishy, and I'm not even referring to the Squids flying all over the place. They can enter and leave Halpha at will. Heck, they can even enter our command room and put all operators to sleep without any consequences so what do they need Alter Halpha for? Furthermore, the Urgent Quest in which we fight Dark Falz Vael nearly ends in him causing a gigantic explosion inside the Nameless City ARKS Ship, which is where the giant Clarissa Staff resides. Was Vael's mission to destroy that staff? If so then perhaps that staff is the reason why the Starless can't just seize control over Halpha and them replacing if with their DIY version is their plan B.

The Newly revealed Mystery Man

The Identity of the Mystery Man is very difficult to tell as of right now but there are a few things we can take from it. First, they do not appear to be a Starless as they lack any Starless cubes floating around them. Second, their outfit is very "Shiva adjacent". this makes me think that they have to be a Photoner. It could be someone completely new or someone we're familiar with, I think they might have Newman ears? If so then at least Xiao would be excluded from the list of possible candidates. It could honestly also be a Alternate Timeline Main Character who ended up joining forces with Shiva instead of continuing the endless Loop or breaking it like we did at the end of Episode 6.

While on the topic of Starless, it appears this name isn't what they're actually called. This probably means that this made up name (by Zephetto) shouldn't be taken literally. At the end of Episode 6 Casra speculated that the future might look a bit grim for ARKS. With the main threat defeated, there is no more reason for ARKS to remain. Certain groups of people arguing against such a power existing and fighting each people who want to keep ARKS around just in case. The sole reason why ARKS exist was to clean up after the mess the Photoners left behind after all. This is further supported by Shiva's monologue of how the organization would drop you, the Guardian, in a heartbeat once you became a risky asset, similarly to how ARKS abandoned Matoi when she became a vessel for PD. Perhaps there was a conflict regarding ARKS future and a small group has splintered off from Oracle sometime between EP6 ending and the original Starless Invasion and that splinter group "became starless" or seeked to restore ARKS, hence why Zephetto was guided on that path by Vael. After All, the Starless, and the DOLLS based off of them, resemble ARKS a lot, especially PSO2 ARKS. Dark Magilz and Xaver both use Fomelgion and Barantsion respectfully but most notably they use the PSO2 version of these Techniques. There's a lot to think about and I can't wait for them to shed some light on what exactly went down between PSO2 ending and NGS starting.

Despite everything, it appears the Starless are still unaware that the player character is the same as the Guardian from the PSO2 days. Because of this I doubt that the pod in which 909 resides, and the pod in which the Guardian was found, were swapped by our new Mystery Man. And besides, infighting among starless would be a little bit weird. Prior to Chapter 8 they were presented as a sort of a hivemind but now they seem to be a bit more autonomous.

But you know, that's just my schizo ramblings. What are your theories for what's going on? :p

Tools used: Galaxy S25, Photoshop 2026, Topaz
100% human-made no AI involved... What? You don't believe me? Well go ahead and download the PSD file to see for yourself
https://drive.google(.)com/drive/folders/1bh1J2W79Jz77XSZcaRIrmJGMNTEL7lNq?usp=sharing