Fridge / Phantasy Star Online 2

Unmarked spoilers ahead.

Fridge Brilliance

• While it may seem counter-intuitive that the Nightfallers are weak to darkness, the weakness makes more sense after Chapter 3, Episode 5. Why do they have this weakness? The Nightfallers were not always evil. The Nightfallers you are fighting across Harukotan are actually clones created by Gemini. The Nightfallers were not so different from the Daybreakers prior to Gemini's influence; their leader (another copy made by Gemini) asks Sukunahime to run before Gemini eats him and apologizes for letting that out. And from a practical standpoint, Gemini could use some minions that lack a weakness to Light.
  • Alternatively, Sukunahime's powers suggest that the Nightfallers can be banished. Meanwhile, some of the Dark Techniques (particularly Namegid and Ilmegid) look like occult magic (or products of it.) Therefore, using Dark Techniques against the Nightfallers somehow destabilizes their physical form.
• After Chapter 3, Episode 5, the presence of various types of monsters in Chaotic Tranquility (as opposed to just a Falspawn swarm in Urban Recovery) makes more sense. Inside of Gemini, you can find all kinds of monsters, ranging from Naverius natives to machines. Gemini can clone anything it's devoured, including Dark Falzes, as Luther can attest.
• Official concept art shows that all Dark Falzes have the same three-point pattern on the soles of their shoes, except for Matoi and Apprentice. While the former only stayed a Dark Falz for about one in-story hour, the latter makes sense later on when it's revealed that Apprentice was never a Dark Falz to begin with.
  • Speaking of Euclyta as Apprentice, how did she manage to emulate the mindset, mannerisms and actions of the original insanely accurately through just Brainwashing alone? It's because Gemini did it, a child that can replicate whatever they consumed to such a degree that some of their original consciousness can bleed in despite the Dark Falz's control over them. They had Apprentice's power, memories and very essence of being, and could effectively replicate her into Euclyta's mind- and because it was from such a young age but without Apprentice's vain origins as Margareta, Euclyta effectively became a more Jade-Colored Glasses version of the woman, as evidenced by both of them being not so different in a variety of ways (chief among them as being a Tsundere).
• In a throwaway line in Episode 4, Xiera can sometimes mention that the Player Character files their reports correctly and completely. This makes sense when remembering the Code: ABYSS incident in Episode 2, which was caused by a combination of incomplete and misleading information, some on purpose, but some perhaps not. The Player Character, seeing the effects of bad or missing information, wants to do their part to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen again.
• A bit of fridge brilliance. The Monomate Kouta ate after being given by Aika causes him terrible stomach problems. Aika is using her actual PSO2 Avatar, so effectively gave Kouta one of her real Monomates, which are pretty much medicinal photons, not something that would agree with a normal person's digestive system...
• Luther and Xiao both wonder why Xion, who effectively was a Big Good while she was alive, did seemingly nothing to stop the Profound Darkness as the former attributes it to loneliness. However, with the implications throughout the original story before the Matter Board got scrapped, the factors involved with Ash in the anime, and the big revelations in Episode 6 of Xion personally having made the player character, it becomes blisteringly obvious in hindsight exactly what she was doing the whole time - preparing a direct vessel and inheritor of her responsibility for stopping the Profound Darkness once and for all, and keeping it subtle so not even potential forces beyond Luther could see it coming.
  • The revelation that the Player Character is the origin of the Akashic Records and thus is the reason why Xion creates them to fulfill a Stable Time Loop becomes fridge brilliance when you remember the logic behind it; the protagonist is caught in a Fusion Dance with the Profound Darkness as its host before their Heroic Sacrifice all but purges all life and identity from the both of them. The Profound Darkness was a failed clone of Xion and the protagonist is the last of her creations, so it explains why she can access it as much like with the Mother incident on Xiao's ships, Xion certainly had the capability to study and access a twisted version of herself. Thus, Xion is essentially in a perfect situation to be able to comprehend the Akashic Records unlike anyone else - she's literally looking at herself the whole time for her omniscient power.
  • It also adds another layer to why the Omega dimension works as a parallel universe with so many returning characters; they're distorted dream memories of the people that the protagonist had met, which is also why Omega Luther was able to gain his Oracle memories. The universes cross and interweave because Omega is an unintended creation of the dormant Akashic Records via the Profound Darkness trying to possess it, which is also likely why Shiva is able to awaken once it's sealed up again since the events probably awakened the equivalent soul of Harriette (and a retreating Profound Darkness entering her as its vessel again) within her back in Oracle.
  • Why does Omega even have a legend of the Guardian and Xiera if they have no equivalents (besides Elmir's claim to Persona)? Since the realm is a vague dream of the Akashic Records, this future version of the Guardian effectively wrote themselves into the dream without the present self even realizing it.
• Shiva's ability to nullify photonic armaments seems to be a contrivance to create a villainess with higher threat and tension than all that came before, but there are reasons behind it all. You are introduced after she used the residual energies of the black hole linking the Oracle universe to Omega to emerge from between dimensions; anyone who can handle that raw amount of power could turn aside from other powerful armaments as well. More importantly, however, bear in mind she was an artificial Photoner that was created as a sacrificial vessel for the Profound Darkness; anyone explicitly designed to cage such intense F-factor concentrations would need to be able to handle equally intense photon energy to counteract and shackle its power. Of course, given her omnicidal hatred of ARKS, she doesn't have to waste any power binding the Profound Darkness, unlike Persona the Masked... of course, given Persona the Masked, aka the Guardian, was also an artificial Photoner built along the same lines by Xion, that also explains why the Profound Darkness was trapped in the timestream for as long as it was. The Guardian versus Shiva is basically Discipline versus Harmony... except Discipline is meant to cage omnicidal destruction while Harmony wants to push it along and destroy everything.
• On a more Heartwarming note, Ulku's Big Damn Heroes moment in EPISODE 6, Chapter 1 has her use Code: ABYSS again... but the Absolute Order's usual Mind-Control Eyes never appear. It instead causes a mass recall of ARKS operatives using the same visual effect as when a Campship drops them off. Ulku has effectively inverted Code: ABYSS' function from a forcible "victory or death" order to a means of protecting her operatives' lives.
• Players may wonder why the Omega storyline seems to gloss over the fates of Weyland and Ys Artia's governing structure after The Guardian's intervention. Ys Artia is easy enough to explain, being completely barren would leave a power vacuum that Harriet would fill by instinct and soon cede to Margareta. But Weyland, a country that runs on Asskicking Leads to Leadership? Remember who struck down the previous Emperor? That's right! The Guardian became the Emperor of Weyland, and the citizens had no clue how to contact you.
  • Another possibility is that Weyland simply folded into Cuento smoothly. After all, the Cuentian army DID best them, and from what we gather, Schraeger wasn't a beloved leader to the common folk. They may have simply assimilated into Cuent, continued living their lives, and been much happier without the constant fighting.
    • During the scene where the human race of the Omega Dimension rallies together for the climax battle you could see several Weyland citizens standing side-by-side along with the soldiers of Cuento outside of the barrier, so it's safe to assume they likely did get taken in.
• Luster being a class without a Trainer seems strange, especially seeing as the method to getting its details to come entirely from the counter girl Kofi that usually gives the player their license unlocks. But look at how it works: its visuals and style bring to mind multiple design traits of the Photoners from EPISODE 6, while fusing together elements of various classes into one, even effectively outstripping the Hero class in overall capability and damage output. The class doesn't need a trainer; the Guardian is essentially compiling all of their class experience and battle knowledge together as an ultimate culmination of their work with ARKS, and Kofi's involvement is akin to giving the Guardian permission to go more and more all-out.
  • It might also double as a shout-out to the only noteworthy Gunblade user in the story: Zeno, who was initially the Guardian's mentor figure as a Hunter before his Council of Six position gave him a Gunblade and entirely unique fighting style as a Ranger class. The Guardian likely took pointers from him like he did from them years prior, making use of an underutilized weapon altogether, and with Luster's preference towards Ranged attack stats for boosts, arguably even draws from Zeno's Ranger specialty with the same weapon.

Fridge Horror

• Once Code: ABYSS is initiated in EPISODE 2, pretty much every ARKS operative will be gunning after you, even a few of your closest allies. However, pay attention to most of the quest with this code; You'll see the task "[Your Name] Suppression 0/1" on your UI, but the enemies are part of ARKS. This mean that, until Quna and Xiao can convince the people to stand down, the task won't be "completed" until you're dead.
• The general idea behind the timelines where Matoi dies. While the threat of the Profound Darkness is temporarily abated thanks to her death, the Protagonist, in their despair over Matoi's fate, transforms into Persona and decides to abandon ARKS as a whole as they time travel back to save the former. This poses the question of how ARKS would handle future problems such as Mother Corps, the Black Hole incident, and potentially Shiva without the Protagonist and Matoi to help lead the charge. Considering that these later incidents were only solved as well as they did precisely because of their involvement, the implications of a Downer Ending are all too clear.
• Omega as a dimension remains even after the end of EPISODE 5 after the Guardian and ARKS helped save them from their troubles - but Schreger and Florent are both dead with the majority of Ys Artia having been genocided while Weyland was left deep in a dysfunctional mess to recover from, Epyk is still a desert wasteland that isn't getting any better with only the faith in the land's god keeping people around, and only Cuento remains in any stability. Stability that will likely be threatened by masses of refugees now that the borders are clear, not to mention Harriette's departure to aid Risa for a period of time while the next best thing in Varuna was actually a traitor the entire time. Margareta's got a lot of work to do filling Harriette's shoes...
  • Even worse? This is the best-case scenario. Without the Guardian's intervention, Shiva outright points out that Omega was doomed either due to Harriet's fall or Elmir's plans going unopposed. With said intervention, it instead becomes a repeat of the Photoner civilization being wiped out - and ARKS being the only thing left standing in its wake. Thank god Margareta's actually a good person instead of Luther being left in charge again.
• While some of the wackier or more out-there missions are arguably not canon, the plot still very much expects the Player Character and surrounding cast to constantly be doing their standard ARKS missions off-screen. If the various contents of these missions are also in-universe, the Guardian in particular has effectively slain entire ecosystem's worth of enemies and those corrupted by Falspawn, and fought copies of the Dark Falz on potentially every other world. Before the canonical story end, the entire known system would have to be utterly infested with more and more Falspawn to an absurd degree, and this isn't even touching on the raw destruction of potentially immeasurable solar systems by the Omega blackhole or Shiva's forces attacking planets all around. The defeat of the Profound Darkness was tantamount to preventing everything from being corrupted and wiped out soon enough.
  • If this was not enough, the fact that the PSO2 Universe has multiple Stable Time Loop meant that in many outcomes in the event any of the PSO2 villains manage to win, especially the Falspawn, Dark Falz, and the Profound Darkness, everything will either fall into the darkness and be absorbed into the Profound Darkness itself to make it more powerful before being sealed away in the Akashic Record by a different party, or they will find a different dimension or a different universe and infest everything in it, making the threat of the Profound Darkness even scarier and it's defeat absolutely necessary to prevent its spread into other universes. But with the Stable Time Loop going on, it might not be possible anymore with the Profound Darkness's constant return from destruction in the UQ quests...
  • The very final scene of the ending? The Guardian jumping into the transporter pool yet again. It could be nay other mission — or the Falspawn never truly stopped, they just no longer had a leader to keep them around.
• An encounter with regular ARKS troops being obliterated by Shiva effortlessly brings to mind the very first episode of Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode Oracle, where even basic Dagan Falspawn were able to wipe out an entire rookie ARKS squad, because of an abnormal Zerg Rush. The only characters that seriously stick around fighting on outside worlds are usually Class Trainers, or major recurring characters. Combine this with the casual destruction of at least one ARKS Ship by Elder, which was also expanded in the anime to be much more drastic a large scale battle and excess of casualties, and it becomes very obvious that the Guardian and recurring cast combatants really are the best of the best.. because most other ARKS members are often either dying or having to be rescued, as they are not prepared for even a fraction of the shit that the Falspawn and other major threats throw around.
  • If you take other player ARKS members into account, who are often there in the major canon Urgent Quests that the Story Quests don't fill in for, and the sheer lack of any generics that aren't some sort of quest giver on your ship combined with how the anime treats it, ARKS are likely worked through at a rapid rate with incredibly high casualties as a matter-of-fact. Canonically a lot of people straight up get pushed into service because their Photon aptitude is good enough for it, while folks like Ulku were expected to live out as civilians or support jobs — and she pointedly gets murdered by Luther shortly after joining ARKS in a city raid implied to cause a lot of damages. The ARKS are a necessity to fight off the threat of the Falspawn, but no one is safe, and death is terrifyingly common when you look between the lines.