The Post-Stia mini chapters reveal that Dark Falz has been gathering data on ARKS Defenders' battle strategies. This explains DOLLS such as Bujin, Kelkundo, and Reyln, who fight similar to Katana Bravers, Jet Boots Bouncers, and Wakers respectively: Dark Falz is gathering data on ARKS Defenders and using it to create new DOLLS to fight them using their own strategies against them.
The revelation of the Resurgent ARKS also puts all of Halpha and the reused monsters and assets from the base game into a new perspective; all of Halpha was effectively one gigantic pastiche of the adventures of the Guardians in PSO2, including cultivated recreations of various fauna and wildlife. Leciel itself even plays more like a classic PSO2 dungeon linking these various biomes and generated life together.
No wonder the Player Character Meteorn resembles your original Guardian from the base game; the diagnostics for the cloning pods on Leciel are all using the original Ash's outline, which implies that they were used in some way as the intended basis and pinnacle of what all the new-generational ARKS should be. It just so turns out that 909 is the perfection of the cloning procedure to accurately and finally recreate them.
The difference of photonic capability between second-gen and third-gen ARKS is subtly demonstrated over the course of the story. While the best of the second-gen can keep up the good fight against regular DOLLS encounters, Manon and the Meteorn tore into them like a hot knife through butter. But Aina's own growth isn't the only second-gen ARKS adapting; Nadereh is, by freak happenstance, a completely new variable that is able to affect DOLLS directly rather boost other ARKS, which is something that took Manon's intervention to discover and help bolster their forces. And the Kvaris siblings readily demonstrate both power and strategy that is likely what won the second-generation their part of the experiment even if they didn't gain extra photonic resonance; through the main trio's aid, they're able to really put themselves to the test. Zephetto's plans were starting to bear fruits even retroactively, they just needed the Meteorn and Manon to bring them to harvest.
The title of New Genesis was meant to be an out-of-universe way to indicate the game was dissociated in some capacity from PSO2 Classic, that much was understood up front. However, it makes sense in-universe as well, given how ARKS suffered catastrophic losses by the Starless attacks and a new, Resurgent ARKS had to begin the experiments to build an elevated defense force that could stand up to them. Thus, "New Genesis" refers to the rebirth and redevelopment of ARKS in preparation for this new threat.
On a similar thread, the first Starless encountered, as seen in Resol Forest, have some similarities to the DOLLS presented before - two of them are based on the humanoid Pettas line, while the leader of the group resembles a Nogleth. Given how Halpha was essentially an artificially engineered planet meant to train a new generation of ARKS in preparation, it stands to reason that Zephetto based the DOLLS units' AI patterns on what little intel was secured regarding the Starless. It would only make sense to use a 'lesser' version of the target to train in preparation for actually fighting that target.
Being a thousand years from the original game, it would make sense what was once the Infinity +1 Sword then would end up being no different from your usual Vialto or Evolcoat weapon or Qual De unit. While it's still usable, a millennium of technological research and development would eventually antiquate them, and they are incompatible with any of the upgrade systems New Genesis has.
When Aina asks you for help in making a memorial for Garoa, she mentions she was unable to contact Manon assuming that Crawford just has her busy with other things. Manon was likely reporting to Zephetto on Leciel during that time.
With the April 2023 update and its subsequent Wham Episode as the end of the first portion of the NGS story, it has this effect for those who played the base game. Everything the Guardians and ARKS did to stop the Primordial Darkness allowed for a period of peace for hundreds of years — until entire ARKS fleets were wiped out by the Starless, all because the ARKS had atrophied from the lack of battle.Hundreds of billions died from this, and at least fifty separate star systems in a very short span of time. And then the Starless disappeared for the next 300 years. Which means something as strong as the Dark Falz, if not stronger, was just out there in the cosmos that makes everything short of the Omega dimension's black hole look like child's play.
Zephetto states that there's three generations of new ARKS. The first failed the experiment which he doesn't elaborate on further. Aina is part of the second generation, and Manon and the modern Meteorn are third-gen. Given the implications, that means the vast amount of the death toll in the current stages of the DOLLS war were near-entirely second-generation ARKS, effectively being wiped from the board because they couldn't keep up with the experiment's ferocity that only the third-gen was really starting to fit for. It took the ARKS Defender to shape up Aina to be as powerful as third-gen. This means that someone like Garoa was not Too Cool to Live by being the best badass around being killed by Dark Falz; he was part of the second-gen that only managed to temporarily fight it off, and was outright too weak to live in the face of the peak of the experiments fighting him more seriously the second go around, never getting the growth Aina managed to find thanks to complacency in his way of life.
Speaking of the first Dark Falz attack, given it fired and obliterated Aelio Town soon after 909's arrival, one has to wonder how 'in control' of it Zephetto even was. Had it not been somewhat restrained, Manon not had orders to get 909 out of there (with Aina an unexpected bonus), and/or the ARKS of Aelio Town not valiant enough to fight to the death for this one evacuation, his entire experiment with 909 would have failed before it even started.
The way Zephetto voices his displeasure of how the second-gens didn't get strong enough for his plans, and how he only emphasizes the Power Trio before him as ready, it paints a nasty implication that he really just does not care about any of the second-gen whatsoever since they were little better than failures. He clearly wouldn't lift a finger or ease up on the major threats in each region, no matter how bad things got, and Dark Falz directly threatens the populace of Aelio twice over. It subtly implies a case of Fantastic Racism that he would likely sacrifice all of Halpha's second-gen population if the third-gens and his planned fourth-gen could get the fight against the Starless done. And the fact that Aina managed to grow to be on-par with third-gens notably impresses him, indicating that he clearly didn't even consider it possible for them to grow further and is quite satisfied with the unexpected outcome.
Meteorn pods seem to be often targeted by DOLLS. When the Meteorn arrives near Aelio Town, they're near-immediately ambushed before they've even fully oriented themselves, and Pharia's arrival on Halpha suddenly has a mass of DOLLS attack her pod area in Retem. Either Zephetto is intentionally making DOLLS attention apparent so people will come to recover them rather than them being left out in the wild — or the DOLLS are specifically programmed to target these third-gen Meteorn more than anyone else, and will wholesale murder the hell out of them should they not be recovered fast enough.
909 may be part of the character's codename, but they're also designated in the prologue as Pod 909. As in, of their current third-gen status, at least 909 Meteorn were likely deposited across Halpha. There isn't even 100 people in all of Halpha between the citizens and normal defenders we see, nor enough space to accommodate much more in the towns and camps, and even with other players taken into account, that's still a lot of pods to send out that aren't accounted for given the story implications.
Leciel is last seen at the end of Chapter 5 being bombarded by whatever made it past Zephetto's Heroic Sacrifice. There were not only tons of still-filled cloning tubes, but all of the staff working there who seemed to be so emotionally-reserved that they may not even comprehend an evacuation order — if there was even one in place for those whose lives were literally committed entirely to their work. Either Halpha is going to be filled with a new influx of Meteorn refugees, or all of the Resurgent ARKS just got slaughtered.
Before Zephetto's Motive Rant, he notably calls out for a "fourth clone" project to initiate even despite his experiment being over. We have no idea of knowing if they would even be able to survive in the raid on Leciel, but it raises a lot of questions of just what he wanted to prepare in spite of the successes before him.
Zephetto himself is an unusual CAST, because everything in the series so far implies that someone being converted into a CAST effectively turns them into programming inside a robot body, digitizing their mind and soul. Then Zephetto opens up his helmet faceplate and reveals his own damn skull inside of it, implying that at least 300 years of living required him to turn his actual physical body into a sort of enhanced CAST to even hope to see the project through to the end, and he opted to leave pieces of it in there...
Slight correction. The only fully robotic CASTs in the series are Xiera and Ludmilla, and both of them are dubbed as Hi-CASTs. Regular CASTs on the other are proper cyborgs as the process of turning a person into a CAST also involves stuffing their organic parts into a robotic shell hence why they can still eat and drink and worry about old age like Regius and Maria did. Zephetto's appearance might under his armor could be very well be considered normal which paints a grisly picture nonetheless.
Throughout progression from Aelio all the way to Stia, ARKS are curious about the strangely artificial nature of Halpha and things like the Trainia and Cocoon/Tower stations, yes, but a recurring factor all the way up to Chapter 5 is that they take it all in stride. Even when a scientist is incredibly curious about something and starts to propose theories, they cut themselves short and figure not to think too much about it. When Trainias are investigated, it's always seen as nothing more than a pure, convenient benefit for ARKS Defenders to utilize. Among the only people that even question any of this to any significant degree are the regional leaders like Ilma or Nadereh, individuals who are highly capable and unusual for second-gen ARKS, and only Glen significantly and emotionally questions Pharia's revelations about what the war against the DOLLS really was. Combine this with the strange way everyone else takes The Reveal in stride, and it makes it feel like the Halpha ARKS were mentally conditioned to not question these things, so as to not compromise the experiments.
When Zephetto recounts the history of the Starless attack, he points out that ARKS research ships were attacked, followed by countless ARKS fleets and star systems. The implication is that ARKS, having the capability to finally start colonizing worlds now that the Falspawn were dealt with, did manage to finally put down their nomadic life style and settle down. Which means just when it seemed like war was finally done and over with and the ARKS could get their rest to the point that they presumably demilitarized from a lack of necessary need for preparation, they got wiped out.
Zephetto also specifically describes mankind being put on the brink of extinction. ARKS found other alien life from the Lilipan to the Daybreakers, so maybe he's just biased towards the losses of his own kind, but it paints a very nasty image that the Starless aren't just some blindly destructive species lashing out at all life: they targeted the ARKS and the systems they inhabited. Given their attack on Halpha starts with what is classified as spearhead units trying to specifically attack Leciel and only Leciel so far, they seem to very specifically want to wipe man out, or at least send them back to the dark ages when they get too vast. Which just raises so many questions of what they want.
The central foe leading all of the DOLLS is a Dark Falz — a manufactured Dark Falz, essentially being little more than a giant robot that can still wipe cities off the map in seconds. Resurgent ARKS needed a high level threat to be able to get the Third-Gen Meteorn up to snuff, so they outright peeled out designs and powers from the worst enemies they'd ever fought prior to the Starless. Lord only knows how this sort of dangerous technology was used prior to the mass extinction, given the ARKS were complacent after 500 years of mass colonization; if they could design machines as powerful and horrifying as the DOLLS, they didn't need to fight.
The first major raid boss of the Starless was introduced in September 2023, and what was it called? Dark Falz Solus. Either the Starless are inherently emulating the Falspawn from a thousand years ago, or the Falspawn never truly died out.
