Fridge / Arknights

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Fridge Brilliance

• The stage map of Children of Ursus forms the Big Dipper...aka the Ursa Major, the great bear.
• Unlike other gacha games (such as Azur Lane) that primarily feature female characters, the character designs in Arknights are noticeably lacking in Fanservice. There are more Operators who are covered up than those who show skin, and even the principle of Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains is averted. A cursory look would show that, barring additional outfits, most of the cast have/had jobs that require them to actually dress appropriately, with those coming from the same faction usually adhering to some kind of uniform or dress code. Many of them are strictly professional and militaristic in nature, therefore their gear has to reflect these aspects, and a skimpier stylistic choice wouldn't make sense in the grand scope of things.
  • Furthermore, the skins seem to be from fashion lines in-universe, with the operator as model. They are clearly meant to be able to be actually worn in-universe.
  • There is also the rather mundane and straightforward answer as well. Since Oripathy is implied to cause bodily mutation and/or other visible side effects, Operators wear - maybe even prefer - such clothing to coverup signs of infection.
  • And building on the above, Operation Originium Dust has Team Rainbow remark that even civilians engage in what seems like chemical warfare type countermeasures. The clothing can also be used to prevent additional exposure to originium which would only aggravate Oripathy.
• Ptilopsis has an Operator Quote of "101010111101000". Converting that to ASCII gives "'«". But if those ones and zeroes are converted to Unicode, it gives "嗨", which when translated from Chinese to English, means "Hi!". In other words, Ptilopsis just wants to say hi.
  • Her second skill is called 'Enkephalin'. Enkephalin is released during the brain's response to stress, and the skill itself mainly functions like a panic button in order to withstand hard-hitting enemies and/or bosses, fairly in-line with what enkephalin does.
• Although Siege is often seen eating a lolly, she is a lion girl, and lions cannot taste sweet things. That is why her lollies are sour.
• Jesselton pulling blades from his arms by controlling iron is a play on the prison trope of carrying around hidden blades (shivs and shanks).
• Patriot has said that he had taken on multiple Emperor's Blades (those that Pursuer, the boss in A Walk in the Dust is one of), and that he needs more men to fight him. While we never see them together in gameplay, this isn't just simply lore-based. This is also Gameplay and Story Integration if one takes a closer look at it:
  • The Emperor's Blade has an Arts attack known as Collapsing Fear, which Patriot would easily shrug off with his RES of 90 in his Marching Stance.
  • His DEF is rather mediocre, making him susceptible to high physical damage, but his Dominion decreases attack speed as a protection measure. Patriot hits multiple times in one attack and he also throws his spear for massive physical damage in his second form, meaning that a decreased ASPD wouldn't affect him that much.
  • Furthermore, in lore, Patriot is a master tactictian. An important part of dealing with Emperor's Blade is baiting his Dominion, so that core operators are not vulnerable to him, something he would be able to do using his tactical insight.
• The wide variety of character designs (and sometimes utterly Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism) among those of the same race is also given a rather understandable excuse to explain their existence, being that those individuals who stand out actually belong to different subcategories of their racial profile, most notably those designed by KuroBlood (considering that their characters are all from Lungmen, and featuring the bipedal rodent that is the Rat King), just as real humans within the same ethnicity can have very diverse physical attributes due to genetics.
• Kirara hiding in stealth when deployed may reference real-life squids being able to camouflage themselves by changing their colors.
• There is a Dutch idiom that alludes to an emotionless, stoic and callous person who is not thrown off by any kind of stress and does not know pity, and literally translates to "ice bunny" ^note  ijskonijn , hence we have FrostNova.
• Indra is known by fans as an extremely-rare unit: you can only obtain her through recruitment, and the tags corresponding to her are relatively rare in themselves. She's a five-star, and the "Senior Operator" tag (indicating a guaranteed five star) is only slightly less rare than the "Top Operator" tag (indicating a guaranteed six star). This becomes brilliant when you know that Indra's race is based on the white tiger, an incredibly rare mutation only happening in 1 in 10,000 Bengal tigers (a rare species in itself). Indra is just as rare as a white tiger.
• When the Doctor pulls off their hood, the screen goes black... and you see yourself staring into your mirror-like black screen. This detail is a clever nod to the Doctor being the Player Character.
• The Doctor's amnesia itself is also a nod as the player character. The Doctor awakens from slumber (starting the game) and inflicted with unfortunate amnesia (player not understanding what's happening in the world of Arknights). Not to mention before the amnesia, the Doctor is noted to be a ruthless person, a sharp contrast to how they are in present time, as if they're an entirely different person; this is because before amnesia, the Doctor is an independent NPC, but once they woke up, that is...we start the game, they finally became us: the player.
• During a loading screen tip, the game specifically says operators are knocked out rather than killed, most likely because the players are able to summon them again during the same mission and operators are treated as unique entities. However, the true significance of this is only revealed later when the players find out that the Doctor from their time in Babel are a ruthless key figure in the organization operations who could care less whether operators die or not if it means achieving victory. In the present time, operators whose health are depleted are merely knocked out rather than dead, it shows that the present time Doctor are a whole different person than the one seen in Babel. The fact that the Doctor came to care for FrostNova and stays with her as she passes away sells the theory. Gameplay and Story Integration at it's finest.
  • To summarize, when your operators fade away on the battlefield, they're actually taken back to heal or repair. When they've healed, they can return to the stage, with the jacked-up DP cost being understandable as the logistical expenditure of maintaining their gear and getting them back to shape. This is likely why operators who were manually retreated instead of being eliminated give back some of their DP cost, therefore technically costing less DP to deploy again, as the damage done to them will not have been as severe, and maintaining their gear will spend less resources. Most operators have to rest for at minimum a minute, since even with the advanced medical technology of Rhodes Island, combat stress is still a very real issue. The only ones that sidestep this long wait time are Fast-Redeploy Specialists, who are, well, specialized, in rapid insertion and extraction, such as Projekt Red, Gravel, Kafka, or Phantom, who are trained assassins, or Waai Fu, who's mentally-hardened due to the disciplined nature of her kung fu.
  • In addition, despite being pitched into extreme and dangerous battles, very few Rhodes Island operators are ever killed or even suffer serious injuries. The few cases where Rhodes Island operators are killed (i.e. Scout and Ace) are exclusively when they're not under the Doctor's direct command. Indeed, one of the few cases where an operator was seriously injured, Blaze being badly wounded while fighting FrostNova, still technically happened when the Doctor wasn't in control (since it happened during a scripted battle scene). Even when they are knocked out in combat, this is likely a result of the Doctor issuing an emergency withdrawal order when their health condition gets too dangerous rather than that operator actually being seriously hurt. This goes a long way to showing why so many operators are loyal to the Doctor: as long as they are in command, RI operatives are safe. And indeed, after every successful mission, Trust is gained.
  • By extension, said Trust mechanic. Most similar games have a system that is nearly identical to Arknights' trust mechanic, but there it is usually named 'affection', 'friendship' or 'intimacy', or at least, something among those lines. This plays into another aspect: everyone likes the protagonist, which is the Player Character, thus you. Here, such a deep bond is not required, but what you and the operator have to do in order to get to know eachother better and for the operator to preform a little bit better, is trust each other. When you first meet the operator - remember that the Doctor is amnesiac - you do not have insight to deep information, only their most basic info. As you successfully finish a battle with them in tow or interact with them daily in the Base, their Trust is raised and slowly but steadily, more lore is revealed. Later on, they will even tell more about themselves as they gain new voicelines, most of which are more personal and deep.
• Unlike most games with an energy-based mission system, Arknights refer to this unit as "Sanity", as an analogy to the stress one would experience being the tactical commander in a dangerous warzone. The more mission one undertakes, the more taxing it is to continue, and short of medical intervention, such as consuming specialized potions, this stress takes a long time to go away. If going by this analogy, the ten-refill limit imposed at launch can be understood as the absolute breaking point the Doctor's mind can handle, even if the player tries to buy more Sanity by spending Originite Prime.
• The name SilverAsh is just a family name, and the given names of SilverAsh and Cliffheart are Enciodas and Encia, respectively. Probably because the snow leopard's scientific name is Panthera uncia.
• It has been noted that both FrostNova and Santalla/Simone sing their spells when they control ice. This is for a good reason: in ancient times, singing and dancing were deeply linked to the act of performing magic, to the point that in Italian and Greek you don't 'cast' a spell, you 'sing' it. ^note  'Cantare', as in singing, but also as in 'chant' As such, both times these two sing, it is immediately followed by an immense feat of magic.
  • It has been theorized in-universe that music has an influence on Oripathy, and in one of Lava's voice lines it has been confirmed that playing an instrument can heighten one's affinity to Arts and eases the effects of oripathy on the mind. The latter is not without merit; in real life, people with Tourette syndrome may benefit from singing or playing an instrument, as it has positive effects on their syndrome.
  • It is further stated in the "Obsidian Festival" event that there are signs supporting Arts being connected to song, with the country of Leithanien apparently having mastered it while D.D.D. is experimenting with its effects through her own music. Pramanix' holy bell is also linked to Arts, and is so deadly that if anyone wields it except for Pramanix, they will be killed swiftly. Sora's entire shtick is buffing operators passively just by holding a concert, and in the lore, she is stated to work with sound-based Arts. An extreme example is Phantom, whose voice actually works as a Brown Note when used wrongly as a result of his Oripathy. Skadi's alternate form, in which she takes on her seaborn identity, is a songstress and her arrival on the battlefield, as well as her skill activations, go along with an ethereal-sounding choir. Even her 'normal' Guard version has a paper with a song on it as her token. Both Iris (who is linked to the mythical Dreamland Castle) and Shamare (who can curse people with her doll) have lines where they sing when assigned on the homescreen.
  • Though their abilities aren't connected to Arts as anyone currently understands it, Nian, Dusk, and Ling seem to express their powers through some form of art or craftsmanship (painting for Dusk, smithing for Nian, poetry for Ling). Another of Nian's "brothers" is apparently an extremely skilled cook. In fact, many Arts and other forms of magic seem to be either enhanced by or directly connected to some form of art or creativity.
• As explored in this post, the operator tier rarity aptly reflects the in-game lore:
  • The 1-stars are robots, which are only ever deployed in the cases of emergencies, and thus were not built to last (in the case of THERM-EX, not at all). This explains their middling stats and simplistic combat kits. Due to this, their systems will require a lot of work to bring them back up to speed again, hence their long redeployment time. The trade-off to this is that they also don't require nearly as much resources to arm, which translates into a cheap DP cost. If Chiave is brought along with them, he can probably give the ones who maintain them on the battlefield advice and help due to his mechanical knowledge, hence why bringing him along significantly reduces their long redeployment time.
  • The 2-stars, the starters, are noted to be talented and have some experience themselves, but also have traits that hold them back. Yato's skin is sensitive to sunlight, Rangers is an Old Soldier, Durin is a Lazy Bum whose physiology prevents her from unleashing her true talent, etc. They, however, offer some limited utility others do not have, such as 12F's physical dodge buff, and the anti-air of Rangers. But unless you're going to use these specific things, you'll probably want to give them some rest in the base.
  • The 3-stars aptly belong to your Reserve team ops. Some of them are literally just Child Soldiers, but if deployed right, are a Disk One Nuke. They can save your skin in specific challenge maps, but the further you go, they'll likely become a Crutch Character as you will prefer higher starred operators. Sometimes, you'll want to bring them because some of them have specific traits (Melantha just has high stats, Steward focuses on the enemy with the highest def, making him able to take on the heavy defenders) that fill a specific niche.
  • The 4-stars are more of a mixed bag, but the consensus seems to be that they've all got a specific quirk that makes them stand out. Shaw is a firefighter, but has gathered the reputation of being the Crownslayer bully, and Mousse might just have stayed a normal baker's daughter if not were for her mutated hands that can deal Arts damage. Indeed, the most characters who seem to be an Almighty Janitor fall in this category, often without lengthy combat training but still can utilize the things they do know on the field.
  • The 5-stars are usually part of their own squad, and are talented and agile. Texas gives the commands in her own Penguin Logistics group, Warfarin handles the blood bank, and Mayer is a one-woman workshop of Rhine Labs, an organization that's known for their cutting-edge technology. They offer massive utility, while some may be loose cannons (like Lappland), a fair amount of who are considered to be the best units fall under this category. Fittingly enough, all of Team Rainbow barring Ash (a 6-star) all fall into this category since they all hail from an elite counter-terrorism organization while also representing the main special forces factions of their respective countries.
  • The 6-stars may just as well be celebrities on their own, and they tend to be the leader of their affiliation. SilverAsh is an influential businessman with countless enemies who are out for his blood, Exusiai may just be an abnormality amongst Laterano because she's a glass-half-full kind of person, but her marksmanship is unrivaled - she can turn many enemies into grated cheese if leveled up well. Saria is a defender with a medical genius and experience at the aforementioned Rhine Labs under her belt. Others are extremely powerful 'freaks of nature', like Ifrit is ^note  Who is implied to have a supernatural entity inside her, to boot . This is actually lampshaded by Blaze, who is addressed as an elite operator and also calls herself so regularly, and is indeed a powerful six-star on the Game-Breaker page. Ash is the sole 6-star representing Rainbow Six, which is a nod towards her rank as the Acting Leader of Forward Operations for Team Rainbow as a whole, in addition to her more varied military experience.^note While she does currently work for the FBI, Ash originally served for the Israeli Defensive Forces until she was sent to the US as part of an exchange program. Contrast this to her squadmates, who have only ever represented one major counter-terrorism agency prior to Rainbow. To compound this, all Sui siblings are six-stars to show their powerful status as being Pieces of God (compared to five-star Kjera, who is similar in nature but has her power weakened outside of her domain).
• DP Cost also reflects the equipment operators carry with them, and/or the time they need for preparation:
  • Vanguards have naturally low DP, since their job is to hold off early pressure. Since they typically do not receive the brunt of the damage, they only carry the most necessary stuff (usually only their weapon, they are not nearly as armed as the higher-cost classes are) in order to make the process of being dropped and being retreated easier. Some even give their full DP back due to this.
  • Snipers' cost usually doesn't go below 8, but most of them do not have high DP Cost either. The firearms they carry usually do take more care in using, translating in a slightly higher DP cost. Since they are ranged operators, they are not made for taking damage either (so they are not typically heavily armored). AoE Snipers carry significantly heavier weapons with them that take much longer time preparing.
  • Guards normally form the middle ground. Their purpose is to deal most of the melee damage and most of their preparation is going into weapons as well. Due to forming the main DPS, they are prepared for taking damage as well. Similarly to Snipers, AoE Guards carry heavy chainsaws and Dualstrike Guards normally carry 2 swords (with the exception of Bibeak), which translates into a higher DP Cost as well.
  • Defenders have slightly higher DP Cost than Guards do, and they are trained for taking all damage and being a Stone Wall in general, so they bring heavy shields and armor to the field.
  • Medics have middling cost, and they have to be able to heal an operator whenever they lose health. Most of their DP Cost is likely their medical equipment, though they aren't shielded/armed themselves so their DP Cost can remain average.
  • Casters sport some of the highest DP Costs in the game, despite lacking armor. The answer likely lies in the complexity of their Arts, as mishaps must be prevented by all costs, knowing how Arts works in Terra. They take time to prepare - Arts bypasses armor and AoE Casters (who have almost the highest DP Cost) need to be careful when raining devastation on enemies.
  • Supporters do not have high DP Cost, as their job is highly specific. They aren't prepared/trained/armored for a lot else.
  • Specialists, in particularly Fast-Redeployers, are built to be deployed and then retreated again, so they usually just carry their weapons and not a lot else. Most of their weapons are short daggers in contrast to the halberds/spears most Vanguards carry. Shift Specialists are usually of a similar cost as Guards, and their equipment is strong enough to shift the position of enemies, but as a trade-off, they normally can be deployed on both ranged and melee grids.
    • To top things off, when operators are promoted for the first time, their DP Cost increases as well. This is explained by their newly learned skills taking more expenditure to use on the field.
• Likewise, why are many of operator's first skills generic Attack Up, Defense Up, or Charge skills? Remember, these are the skills an operator has access to as soon as you recruit them. Because this state reflects the state they're in when they first meet you. At first, they will only know some basic skills, nothing flashy, until you spend time training them. And after their first promotion (that always needs the operator gaining EXP), they can bring out some more of the things they have learned meanwhile. As a nod to this, the promotion previews always read 'A new skill will be learned.' This is lampshaded in Angelina's case, who is accurately described as being able to become more powerful the further she is trained.
  • And why are these skills learned after promotion? Because often, these skills are more potent than their earlier ones, and they may need access to specific things that they can only get when promoted. Amiya is a good example, as her skills get more destructive (in her case, it goes both ways) the further she is promoted. This explains why most operator's strongest skill is their second or their third one and their later skills often tend to be more burst-focused over sustain.
    • Another trend is that with 6-stars, who are already powerful right off the bat (i.e Ifrit, Blaze) have their most powerful skill locked after promotion. This can represent them being new and the full extent of their powers not being fully understood until the Doctor actually puts in the effort to give them attention by promoting them. From then on, the operator knows that the Doctor is really intending to see their powers in their full glory on the field, thus allowing them to use these more powerful skills in battle.
• Siracusa's the homeland of most Lupo. Italy is one of the only countries where the wolf has never been fully extinct.
  • Also, wolves live in packs, that always consist of a father and a mother - the two alphas. Not unlike the mafia, that's also usually based around the head honchos being the oldest in the family.
• As this Reddit user explains, the "Code of Brawl" event's intro has similarities to the real-life Capaci bombing incident.
• Why do Magallan and Mayer deal Arts damage by themselves, despite their attack animation very obviously showing them using technology to fire beams? In Terra, technology and Originium go hand-in-hand, as most if not all machines run on energy derived from Originium. Arts stems from Originium, and it would make sense that Terra's technology is capable of firing Arts beams.
  • The inverse is why Rosmontis is classified mechanically as a Sniper even though she is considered a Caster in the lore: all of her attacks are with huge physical swords, and she doesn't fight at all with energy-based weaponry or energy attacks like most Casters or Supporters. In fact, it is implied that the last thing people want is for Rosmontis to attack with her raw Arts.
• As pointed out by xenodile and cerastes on Tumblr, Tomimi and Eunectes fight in the same ways as their tribesmen seen in their debut event Gavial: The Great Chief Returns, with the former playing like a Tiacauh Ritualist, and the latter a Tiacauh Brave. Ritualists are enemy Casters who, once in melee range, will switch to using brutally powerful physical attacks, mirroring the effects of Tomimi's talent Arts of the Wild, where whenever she activates a skill, she'll recieve a huge ATK boost and switch to using close-range physical attacks for the duration of it. Meanwhile, both the Braves and Eunectes are specialised for one-on-one duels; the former with their high DEF that only drops when being blocked and the ability to shrug off all outside damage while engaged with an operator, the latter thanks to her Block limit of one and shockingly high ATK for a Defender.
  • In general, operators released with an event, especially the welfare and the featured 6-star on a seperate banner are meant to be used during the event:
    • Obsidian Festival featured the Snipers with the stun arrows and Ceylon, whose niche is halving status ailment durations.
    • Code of Brawl featured Bullies, who could only be stopped by someone with 3 block, and thus granted a Defender. It also introduced Greytails, whose shield could only be broken by Arts damage, whereafter they got an ASPD increase, and handily featured Mostima on a banner, who deals Arts damage and has knockback (to stall). May functions similarly, being capable of rapid crowd-control to stall enemies like Greytails and bullies.
    • Twilight of Wolumonde had Suzuran introduced. A Slow Supporter is ideal for dealing with Colossi and with the enemies that exploded upon death, hacking the nearest Gramophone in the process. Folinic, being able to both heal and deal damage, is meant to fulfill exactly that role as she only needs to be on one tile to do both. Click can stunlock enemies with her second skill, which gives others time to bust down the aforementioned enemies.
    • Darknights Memoir went along with a Fast-Redeploy operator (Phantom) on rate-up, while having enemies that needed to be awoken separately without the operator who does this dying (thus creating a niche where he fits). Baiting the Sarkaz Lancers that this event introduces as well is one of the jobs of a Fast-Redeploy operator. Shamare was featured next to him, whose talent and doll can easily deal with hard-hitting enemies like Worldcursers considering that she also grants a rare ATK debuff. Cutter, as a Dualstrike Guard, performed the role of mob clearer, whereas the welfare, Sideroca, was meant to one-on-one deal with the occasional Demolitionists.
    • Mansfield Break features lots of enemies who need to be crowd-controlled and stalled, and Robin and Kafka are both good at stalling them. Furthermore, Mountain's pushing in his third skill can intercept enemy attack animations.
    • A Walk in the Dust had Heavyrain, whose invisibility provided a temporary counter against Emperor's Blade's Dominion attack. It also keeps them safe for the drones that lock on operators to attack them.
    • Under Tides has Gladiia as a welfare, and not only does she have a talent that raises the damage against seaborn enemies (which the event is rife with), her pulling can also kill enemies before they get the chance to attack and thus apply sanity damage. Kal'tsit's summon can hold up to three enemies to prevent them dealing nerval damage to your frontline and also posesses burst damage to quickly get rid of them. Skadi the Corrupting Heart can give allies buffs in order to sustain the nerval damage, as well as true damage that is applied in her range, loose from any ASPD. Finally, Akafuyu has a higher rate of being drawn during the event, and her ability as an Enmity Guard makes her very useful for holding a lane on her own well away from a supporting Medic. This can be extremely useful for weakening or killing certain enemies who would stun and deal True damage to operators in a radius around them.
    • Dossoles Holiday featured both Mizuki and Tequila, who have certain phases in which they do not block (with Mizuki not blocking at all), which makes them less vulnerable to the Dockworkers that stun. Furthermore, La Pluma functions as a crowd-clearer and Ch'en alter is a ranged operator, being able to be placed when melee operators cannot be placed.
    • Invitation to Wine's enemies are hard-countered by three of the new Operators: Kroos the Keen Glint, Ling, and Blacknight. Kroos' skills focus on rapid-fire shots, with her second skill's attack speed and shots fired increasing as the skill progresses. Ling's summons, particularly in her second skill, can lay down rapid fire on many enemies and can immobilize them. Blacknight's summon can put enemies to sleep around it and it can attack all enemies in adjacent tiles. These crowd-control and rapid-fire abilities are perfect for taking down the talismans left behind by the waregeists. Meanwhile, Lee can continuously push enemies back in order to deal with their unblockability.
    • Dorothy's Vision has Power Armor and enemies that can be easily intercepted by Dorothy's own traps, and both Greyy the Lightningbearer and Astgenne's focus on a Herd-Hitting Attack can help attacking both the engineers and the many failed experiments at once.
    • Lonetrail has Muelsyse, who can quickly charge the orbs with her duplicating clones, and Silence the Paradigmatic can shield the party from the explosion Kristen causes when she detonates all the orbs.
• Surtr's third skill is called Twilight- and the expression 'being in the twilight of one's life' means that someone does not have much time left living. Her third skill continuously drains HP, at a rate that slowly increases until it eventually becomes faster than any healing could offset, thus once you activate her third skill it becomes only a matter of time before she has to retreat.
  • There's also another play on words in comparison to the skill's original CN name, which was "Ragnarok" (which can also be translated as "twilight of the gods"). In myth, Ragnarok signaled the end of times. Twilight signals the end of a day.
• Muelsyse being able to create fully functional clones of herself may come as a surprise, until you realize that Muelsyse has such a fine control over water that she can influence the molecules in the air. A human body is 60% water.
• Arts can be wielded without being infected, yet being infected can possibly enhance your ability to wield Arts. Regarding this, isn't it coincidental that two of the operators who are among the ones with the highest infection rate, Eyjafjalla and Ifrit, are both regarded as top-tier Casters in gameplay? Even Amiya, who is much maligned nowadays, has a very destructive third skill which notably was one of the earliest examples of True damage, and Ceobe who is known for her versatility and high Arts damage is so far into her infection that she's in No One Could Survive That! territory.
• The rise of Sankta-style Originium Arts guns quickly drove the usage of any kind of primitive black powder firearm out of popularity, due to their superior reliability. The dominion of Sankta guns also meant that traditional propellent-based firearms were not developed further, leading to Team Rainbow needing to turn to Sesa to modify their guns and develop compatible ammo for them.
• Kazimierz is known for being the home of the Kuranta, who are based off horses. It is also the home of numerous organizations of knights. The big distinction of knights historically was that they were mounted cavalry who rode horses. So it's only appropriate that the country whose population is mainly humans with horse-like features would also feature so many knights, considering how the two were so tightly connected in medieval Europe.
• Platinum's voiced lines about how she's nervous about Nearl charging her with a warhammer (as a Healing Defender) make more sense if you consider that both side-stories of Maria Nearl and Near Light take place before she joined Rhodes Island - she's been charged at by Radiant Nearl (as a Guard) with her signature spear/sword and still fears her prowess in battle, having already tasted direct combat with her.
  • An interesting detail from the Near Light animated trailer is that Platinum only ever hit Flametail with a single arrow, in her upper arm, right before the building collapses (Flametail can be seen pulling the arrow out of her upper arm guard). She really did attempt to disable rather than kill Flametail.
  • Nearl's previous seemingly illogical activation of her S2 in the Holy Night Light OVA suddenly makes more sense with Near Light in context - she wasn't using her healing Arts there, she was unleashing a fraction of her true Radiant Knight Arts on those poor Siracusan mobsters!
• Amiya's race is Cautus/Chimera meaning that she's based on a rabbit and on something else. She's also the Lord of Fiends, and linked to the horned Sarkaz. Amiya is based on a jackalope.
  • The myth of the jackalope stems from sightings of hares who have a specific illness that causes hard 'tumors' to grow on their skin. Sound familiar?
• VI-6 of Vigilo is strongly indicated to be a guilt-ridden nightmare of the Doctor after failing to save Frostnova at the end of Chapter 6, as per the flavor text.
  She fell asleep yesterday. You know she will never again open her eyes.
• In hindsight, Passenger requiring his modules and upgraded modules to bring out his effectiveness as a combat operator makes sense when you account for his lore, that he engineers his own weapons and Arts Units. The modules and their upgrades represent the optimizations he makes to his combat equipment as he becomes used to being a part of Rhodes Island and starts to enjoy being a part of it.
• The difficulty when treating Oripathy comes not just from the disease itself. Every individual race on Terra has their own biological quirks. Their differences aren't just in whether they have horns or animal ears or tails, but also extend to things like diet, metabolism, and behavior. Even before the mutating impact of Oripathy comes into play, the myriad biological differences would make being a doctor on Terra a serious challenge since they would need to know about the health issues of a wide range of distinct races. Oripathy just makes things even worse because the symptoms and effects of it can be completely different from one patient to another. Every individual Infected patient at Rhodes Island needs a highly customized treatment plan because of how differently their biology and their disease impacts them. Rhodes Island is less like a human hospital and more like a vet clinic with the broad expanse of medical knowledge they need to possess.
• Similar to the above, there's little to no sexism on Terra. Men and women serve equally in the military, and women are just as physically fit as men, if not moreso. This actually makes sense when one considers the biological features of most Terran people and their animal features. On Earth, the sexual dimorphism where human women tend to be smaller and lighter than men is an abnormality, and in most animal species there's either no dimorphism or females tend to be larger and stronger than males (if not straight up being More Deadly Than the Male). We also know that on Terra the animal features of most Ancients are more than just external features like ears or tails - for example, Kuranta have far more stamina than anyone else, Aegir are able to easily swim, and Forte are superhumanly strong. That almost certainly carries over to gender dimorphism, with Terran women being equally strong or even stronger in some cases than men.
• The Sankta taboo against using all six chambers in a revolver cylinder might originate in a historical gun safety rule - In early revolvers, loading all six chambers opened you up to a risk of accidental discharge should you put undue stress on the hammer, which would likely be resting on the cap of a loaded chamber. A common habit amongst early revolver users was to "load five, leave one" so the hammer would be resting on an empty chamber, which would greatly reduce the risk of accidents.
  • This is also why, at most, there are only 5 chambers filled in Exusiai's skill icons.
  • This may also explain why all of the Laterano firearms we've seen are single shot, semi-automatic, or burst fire: grenade launchers, pistols, revolvers, shotguns, bolt-action rifles, assault rifles, and submachineguns. So far we haven't seen any Laterano-engineered machineguns, because those fire in long, difficult-to-control bursts that tend to be greater than five rounds. Also, machineguns run the risk of "going cyclical" if fired too quickly, causing the weapon's automatic action to keep loading and shooting rounds even after the trigger is released. No Sankta would risk using a weapon that could break the five rounds taboo by accident.
• Gravel's default uniform/armor makes sense - she wears minimal plate under a padded jacket fitted with armor inserts. When she tanks damage, she uses the armored jacket to weather attacks, and ditches it when she retreats, grabbing a new armored jacket and returning to the fray in less than a minute.
• With players associating Red the Redblade (and the generic Hateful Avengers) with the Operation Blade lobby theme, there is an element of appropriate lyrical resonance going on with the climax of A Light Spark in Darkness, where Red saves Susie from Bishmer's goons. The lyrics state that "I'm the one, I'm here, infiltrated," which links up to Red using the underground tunnels in Caladon and sneaking up on Bishmer's goons, and yes, he does indeed "downgrade" them with violence; by taking their attention off Susie, he's "already won" by letting her escape their clutches and keeping "(their) eyes on him"; he tries to get them to back down, recommending them to keep their distance, and warns them not to underestimate him, as his skill makes him untouchable by them; finally, he lights (his skill) on fire, igniting his blade with a burning desire to right their wrongs.
• Ash adapting the worst on Terra actually makes sense if you consider that she is from the United States of America (technically an Israeli but she moved there as part of an exchange program between the FBI and the IDF), a country where a person or group is given a right to have a voice, in addition to speaking out being a core tenant of the American philosophy. In addition, foreign interventionism in the US is not seen in as a negative light as other countries due to believing that everyone else in the world deserves to have the same rights mentioned before. The rest of Team Rainbow are able to adjust on Terra's political climate relatively well, because these operatives come from countries where foreign interventionism is considered detrimental (or, on Tachanka's case, being from an authoritarian regime that has never been kind to dissenters, albeit one that is tame compared to Ursus' policy) — they even warn Ash to not intervene in Terra's political affairs, precisely, because it will create more problems in the long run.
• Most of the Extreme Mode stages follow a pattern of Greek Religious and Mythological Theme Naming, and many of them serve as a slight nod to the respective chapter's name or theme.
  • Episode 6/Partial Necrosis: The chapter primarily revolves around FrostNova and her Yeti Squadron, specialists in the use of ice Arts. Its Extreme stages are named after Cocytus, after the underworld river of Greek myth, which is often depicted as being freezing cold, most prominently in Dante's Inferno. It being a river of the underworld may also be a nod to how by the end of the chapter, FrostNova is dead and her Yeti Squad has been wiped out.
  • Episode 9/Stormwatch: The chapter has two different sets of Extreme stages named Anemoi and Hyades, respectively. The Anemoi were Greek gods of the wind, while the Hyades were instead nymphs of the rain.
  • Episode 10/Shatterpoint: The original Chinese name for the chapter more closely translates to "broken corona" (as in the corona of a star). Fittingly, the Extreme stages of the chapter are named after Helios, Greek god of the sun.
  • Episode 11/Return to Mist: In addition to being named Return to Mist, the chapter's main gimmick are the decaying Corruption clouds used by the Nachzehrers. The stages are named after Achlys, which is both the literal Greek term for mist, and a term often used as a metaphor for death (ie. the mist that clouds one's eyes upon death), befitting of the Nachzehrers being entities of rot and decay who spread necrotic fog wherever they go.
  • Episode 12/All Quiet Under the Thunder: The stages are named after Astrape, a Greek goddess of lightning (and its namesake in the language) who is often portrayed with her sister Bronte, a goddess of thunder.
  • Episode 13/The Whirlpool that is Passion: The stages are named after Charybdis, the mythological sea monster best known for creating whirlpools.
• All five of the characters that form the 'Pioneer' team in Ambience Synesthesia 2024 represent a fundamental part of Terra:
  • Chongyue: The Feranmut and their influence on Terra
  • Typhon: The Collapsals and demons in the north
  • Kal'tsit: The ongoing influences of Originium on Terra
  • Skadi the Corrupting Heart: The threat of the Seaborn
  • SilverAsh: International trade and corruption among figures of power
• Once again, the fourth trailer uses Starset's song "Telescope". If you line up the trailer with the corresponding timestamp of the song starting around 1:20, Priestess's monologue occurs when the song enters into a interval of low rhythm with a distant murmur that gradually getting louder: "I will find you." This refers to the promise Priestess made with Doctor(or Oracle) on their reunion.
• Doctor's Celibate Hero behavior with other operators is normal for variety of reasons. From Terra's perspective, most of the operators on Rhode Island are either infected or at the risk of becoming one. Given the short life expectancy for anyone who has oripathy, none of them would want to risk making a lifetime commitment knowing that they won't keep that promise for too long. From Doctor's perspective, Precursor Civilization had evolved to the point that they no longer requires emotional support from other people, and prefers solitary lifestyle. Even if they do need other people for companion, Doctor already had one—Priestess, and their bond had etched so deep that not even amnesia would stop Doctor from recalling her name.

Fridge Logic:

• One of the always-available Furniture item in shop is 'Small Recreational Structure', which is a cat tower. But its flavor text is "Even Operators can have fun here!"... Are they telling the Feline Operators to make use of the tower...?
  • Feline operator Mousse actively begs in one of her talk lines for someone to install a scratching post in the dorms, and the Golden Game Room dorm deco set for young operators has a set of fixtures that doubles as a scratching post.

Fridge Horror

• Operation Originium Dust starts off with Team Rainbow raiding a lab of a mad scientist on Earth. They remark on the black crystals found in the lab. In other words, Originium is now on Earth and with it, the horrors of Oripathy. And that's not even getting into what a Tom Clancy like world would do with a material with all the properties of Originum. Occphen's line about Earth not having Oripathy have become ironic as a result.
• Manfield Prison is mixed-gender, with male and female prisoners mixing in the general population within each sector, and the prison staffed both male and female guards. The obvious issues aren't discussed in game, but there is a scene where Jesselton, disguised as a guard, confronts Robin alone in her cell, and it's easy to see how simple it would be for guards or prisoners to abuse each other. This is especially apparent since it is shown in the Mansfield Daily Life extra missions that violence and rioting is commonplace within the prison.
• While off to the side story-wise, the ambitions of the Columbian Union in general could count. They seem intent to stop at nothing to become the top nation in Terra, going so far as to conduct unethical experiments and research Originium-based weapons of mass destruction, as can be seen with what was done to Rosmontis and possibly Ifrit. It's implied in in-game lore that they want to surpass the great powers, which includes Ursus and Laterano.
• During the animated fight scene in the Last of Me music video, there's a flashing red alarm light in the background. Only Frostnova is illuminated by the alarm light as she charges up her Ice Arts. As a reflection of gameplay visual effects, where operators only flash red when they take damage, Frostnova is symbolically burning the last embers of her life to make her last stand.
• Tachanka's module sees him comforting Istina concerning her dream of returning to Ursus one day to enact change, but it also brings with it a portent of future strife. Istina can be seen reading a book written by Lenin or Marx in her portrait artwork. Given the troubles and strife in part caused by the Old Blood nobility of Ursus and the shadow civil war between the Old and New Blood nobles, there is a genuine concern that Istina's desires might end up sowing the seeds for Ursus to undergo a parallel of the Russian Revolution.
• Ever wondered why Skadi the Corrupting Heart and Specter the Unchained override all sounds with their special effects? In Skadi's case, her awakened Seaborn blood is flexing with that ancient power that invokes the Profound Silence. In Specter's case, her Seaborn-hybrid Abyssal Hunter blood is harnessing the same power.
• The Precursor Civilization are absurdly powerful comparing to Terran Civilization, to the point that the reason a civilizations is so advanced or an individual is powerful can be traced back to the Precursor technologies. That being said, Terran are lucky that as the last survivors of Precursor Civilization, both Doctor and Friston are friendly individual with little Fantastic Racism, and wish the new Terran Civilization to carry their torches. Should they become less benign, The Shard in Londonium is the least they can do.