Headscratchers / Skies of Arcadia

New entries on the bottom.

Imposters

• The damn Imposters. I've gone through every guide and site, and I can not for the life of me make those bastards appear. Every game has ended with Vyse the Fallen Pirate, and it irritates me to no end! What does it take to make them appear!?
  • They're in Nasrad, toward the back, where you would go if the palace was still there.
  • Look at their entry on the wanted list in the Sailor's Guild, then go to Nasrad. Vize should be standing near the paint splattered building. If he isn't, then progress farther in the game so your (now invisible) Swashbuckler Rating goes up a bit more. If you haven't looked at their wanted list entry, most of the bounties won't show up. (Baltor, Gordo, and Lord Bane still do.) I've had that problem before...

Yafutomans leaving

• The Dark Rift and Ixa'taka-Yafutoma stone reef don't extend into Upper Sky. The Yafutoman ships can travel into Upper Sky. The Yafutomans seem to be interested in western culture, so why don't they try to travel outside Yafutoma until Vyse shows up?
  • Supposedly, they believe the world ends after the stone reef, like most people until Vyse sails around the world.
  • Oh but they did. Where do you think the Mystery Merchant is from? You meet him fairly early in the game on Sailor's Island.

Piastol's revenge

• So, hey, Piastol. How exactly would a ten-year-old pirate kid have killed your dad? Shouldn't your vendetta be against Dyne if anything?
  • She only saw Vyse and Aika amidst all the fire, and starting a fire is something even a ten-year-old can do.
  • Except she knew Mendosa had died of sword wounds, not the fires. True, Dyne does use a pistol, and the main trio are pretty young for the main chunk of the story, but a ten-year-old coming out the victor in a fight against Valua's Grand Admiral is... pushing the bounds of logic a bit. At best little Vyse could have finished him off or something.
  • Logic has no place in Revenge!!!!. Getting more serious, considering everything that had happened (Dad dying, the fire, and being boarded by Pirates) she likely wasn't thinking straight. More to the point, didn't she say she reacted more out of instinct when she saw Aika. Plus she was only ten herself. Too young to fully consider everything, and later too angry.
  • I'd imagine she would've gone up against Dyne, if she could've found him - doesn't he spend a good majority of the game just sitting in his secret base?
  • The first response still makes the fairest point - we don't know that Piastol knows anything about Dyne. She already makes her living killing Air Pirates and collecting their bounties. She only zeroes in on Vyse after he sets out on his own and makes a name for himself, suggesting she didn't know anything about him or his family before then. And a girl raised in Valua probably wouldn't hold a rational view of what even the youngest Air Pirates are like; to her, there could be no telling what they're capable of. She already didn't realize that they were Blue Rogues there to help her and the other passengers.

Shape of the world

• The fact north and south poles are linked bugs me. That world isn't round, it must be a weird curved 3D cross.
  • Toroid, technically. Shaped like a donut, which means everything they said was correct. They said the world was round in the game, and a donut is round, but they never said it was spherical.
  • Actually, they did. Enrique says it when you get the Discovery.
    "The world is a sphere. That means that the east is connected to the west, and the north is connected to the south."
  • Technically, he was only reciting what had been proposed, but not yet proven, by researchers in Valua at that point, since that was before they actually made the discovery.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation.
  • Ah we see the planet from space, it's spherical alright.
  • Video Game Geography. It's a common trope in RPGs for worlds intended to be round to wrap around horizontally *and* vertically.

Pronunciations

• How do you pronounce some of these names? Galcian? Nasr? Piastol? Probably several others I can't think of...
  • Let me try to help, here. This probably is not the correct pronunciations either, but they're something to go on:
    1. "Galcian" : gall-see-yawn. "Gallse'yawn." Probably pronounced with some French flare, no emphasis on either syllable.
    2. "Nasr" : nah-seer. "Nahseer." I like to have a slight roll on the 'r'. Emphasis on the "Nah."
    3. "Piastol" : pya-stole. "Pyastole." Sounds almost like a mispronunciation of "pistol." Emphasis on the "Pya."
  • Actually, all of the Valuan names have Spanish roots and/or pronunciation. It is still Gahl-see-awn, though. Piastol is most likely Valuan rooted as well, her father being Mendosa, and pronounced Pee-ahs-tohl, so your pronunciation is still right. My point is that knowing the Spanish pronunciation helps though.
  • Piastol is a corruption of "piaster", a type of currency, (several other characters are also named after currencies, including Drachma and Gilder). Galcian may be a corruption of "Garcia", going by the Japanese version. Nasr is an Arabic word which means "Victory".
    • Isn't Galcian a corruption of "Galician", given that Valua is based on Spain?

Voices

• Was no one else bothered by the fact that out of all the improvements that Legends made, no one thought to make the cutscene dialogue fully voiced?!
  • They probably did, but I doubt it was feasible. The audio had to be compressed as it was.
  • Word on the street is, Service Games is bringing back some of their old IPs. If they bring back Skies of Arcadia, voice-acting is probably gonna be one of the first things they'll bring in.
  • If they do, I hope they use the English VAs for Vyse and Aika from Valkyria Chronicles. They fit the characters perfectly, IMO. Fina's voice... not so much.

Blue Rogues stealing

• Who exactly do the Blue Rogues steal from after the ending? The Valuan Armada works for Enrique now, and some of the good guy characters actually become Valuan admirals according to the end sequence. Considering that they may have been nice enough to return the Delphinus, it seems strange that they would keep attacking Valua after that. Is there really enough to steal from the Black Pirates (without returning it to whomever it was originally stolen from) or collect in Sailor's Guild bounties to keep them in business?
  • Black pirates and corrupt merchants, presumably.
  • Vyse and his crew are the only rogues who make nice with Enrique during the story. All the other Blue Rogues out there would probably have no qualms about stealing from Valua. Enrique ascending the throne would be no different than any other monarch to those that don’t personally know him.

Vyse proving the world is round

• Vyse didn't prove the world is round — Belleza and Vigoro did. All Vyse did was log more miles.
  • Maybe the Valuans tried to keep it under wraps as a strategic thing, so Vyse got the credit for selling the information to the Sailors' Guild.
  • That's what they did regarding Ixa'taka, so it wouldn't be unheard of for them to do the same thing with the knowledge that the world is round-ish.
  • Actually, even if they had reported it, they wouldn't have "proved" that the world is round. They headed west from Valua and eventually wound up in Yafutoma but they didn't prove that if you keep going to can reach Valua again. All they proved is that you can get to Yafutoma by going west so for all anyone knew, Yafutoma was the edge of the world in the far west and Valua was the edge of the world in the far east. Yes, they were operating on the assumption that the world was round, but they didn't prove it was round. The person who actually proved the world was round is Vyse because he completely the world's first circumnavigation and showed that the world was connected.
  • Though that means they still collectively proved that the world is round. If Belleza and Vigoro went to the Sailors' Guild and told them, "We travelled to Yafutoma by going west from Ixa'Taka," and Vyse went to the guild and told them, "I made it to Yafutoma by going east from Nasr through the Dark Rift," that could only lead to the conclusion that both sides were connected.
  • The Valuans didn't prove that the world is round by reaching Yafutoma. All they proved was that there was a continent accessible by going west. By that point Yafutoma was unknown to the rest of the world, so they wouldn't have known if it was east or west. It was Vyse's crew that proved it by reaching it by going east, and then continuing going until they reached the west. Unlike the Valuans, they went all the way through.

Mundane use of Cupil

• So, Cupil is a shapeshifter. While he becomes more powerful the more chams he eats, presumably he can handle at least basic shapes even at the beginning of the game, since he's able to disguise himself as a bracelet. This could be a huge boon for the characters, but they never use him for anything but Fina's weapon. Nobody ever says, hey Cupil, could you turn into a key for this lock so we don't have to go find the real one? Turn into a weight to hold this switch down? Turn into a knife and cut Fina free when she's tied up? Yeah, there's an obvious reason why they couldn't actually do this, but they could have at least tried to justify it. Cupil's potential Mundane Utility probably surpasses his actual worth as a weapon for the offensively-challenged Fina.
  • Hey, if you want to find the right number and combination of Chams to turn him into a Cupil Key, be my guest. Seems like more work than it's worth, especially depending on how complicated the key is.
  • Not to mention, in order for him to turn into, say, the key to a door, you would have to know what that specific key looks like to begin with.
  • As for cutting Fina free when she's tied up, what's she going to do then? Fight her way past whichever Valuan guards are holding her captive by herself and then jump off of a moving airship or train?
  • As for him weighing down a switch...His only utility in doing that would be if the switch needs to be constantly weighed down, and Cupil isn't something they would want to leave behind. Considering he's something of an empathetic weapon, and is explicitly compared to Zelos (who requires a Silvite host to bond with), he might have to remain near Fina in order to function.

Power of the Gigas

• How is it that these six Gigas (I'm going to assume that "Gigas" is both the singular and plural form) are canonically so powerful that they nearly caused the extinction of the six ancient Arcadian civilizations, yet at the same time so weak that they can be defeated by a single sky-pirate ship? According to the logic of this game ("the Gigas are so powerful they are a threat to all life as we know it!") that would mean that either the Delphinus (and the Little Jack to a lesser extent) is actually more powerful and therefore even more dangerous to the planet than all six Gigas combined, or the other ancient Arcadians were idiots who never thought of something as simple as "shoot the Gigas with cannons until it falls down" and the Silvites were genocidal dickheads who slaughtered billions of innocents not because they saw no other choice, but purely for the lulz.
  • The Delphinus is not just any sky-pirate ship, it's a superweapon specifically designed to rival the Gigas in power. With the exception of the Hydra, it is far and away the most powerful ship in the setting. The Moonstone Cannon was perfected by study of the red and green Moon Crystals, and was strong enough to punch a hole in the "impenetrable" Grand Fortress. Imagine the damage it could do if it was turned on a normal city! And the Silvites didn't use the Rains of Destruction because they had no other choice, they did it because they are genocidal dickheads who saw the other civilizations as being unworthy of continuation.
  • Not only that, but the implication is that the Silvite Elders have decided to wipe out civilization a second time specifically because military technology is approaching the level of the ancients. The Delphinus is very nearly a modern day Gigas in this setting.
  • Another reason may be that five of the Gigas have just been awakened from their seals, and one of them, Grendel, was pretty much on a mindless rampage after his master got knocked out - the one who wasn't sealed away (though still on a mindless rampage) happened to be an innocent creature at heart who, in the end, Vyse didn't even end up killing. It does make me wonder, though, how Ramirez was able wound it to the point of being fatal, if the Delphinus is truly the strongest ship in the world.
    • Death of a Thousand Cuts, really. Ramirez had his entire fleet, including The Monoceros, firing non-stop on Plergoth for a good amount of time before the Little Jack intervened. Considering that Plergoth was not man-made like the rest of the Gigas (and thus made of meat and bones), it stands to reason that it would be the most vulnerable of the bunch to lots of cannon fire, and not need a super-weapon to put it down.

Capturing the Blue Rogues

• Valua finds out where Dyne and his gang live and captures them, but they escape. Why not go capture them again?
  • The Valuan Admirals - and by extension the Valuan fleets - are just plain busy with their big plans. The Blue Rogues are lucky but still small fries at the time they make the big escape, and the Admiral most motivated to go after them, Alfonso, has been disgraced. Taking and holding their home port isn't a good use of manpower and time... and the nature of Fina's mission means she'll be going to where the Valuans are also going anyway, so why chase what's going to deliver itself to you in good time?
  • The Valuans also might not know about Dyne's secret underground base, and that's where he and his crew spend the game after returning home. If the Valuans go back to Pirate Isle and the women tell them the men aren't there, they'll probably just assume that they're hiding out somewhere else. (Which would probably be a smarter option than going back to a place where the enemy already knows your hideout is.)
    • They probably found the underground base given the fact that it's explicitly said they destroyed the Albatross, and it had been docked there since you first reach Pirate Isle.
    • I think it's more likely that the men brought the Albatross out before the Valuans got there, and it was destroyed in the battle, rather than Dyne risking them searching the island for it and coming across the woman and children hiding underground, who they probably could've arrested as easily as the others. Not to mention, there are things in the base that were stolen from Alphonso's ship at the start of the game that I'm pretty sure are still there when you return. If the Valuans had found the base, I'm pretty sure they would've taken those back as well.
    • Nevermind. Restarted the game, and it turns out the Valuans completely looted the base during the attack.

Fina doing the quest by herself

• How did the Silvite Elders expect Fina, Squishy Wizard that she is, to be able to make her way through the different dungeons of the world, not to mention fighting their respective bosses, the Gigas, and the Valuan Armada when necessary, in order to gather the Moon Crystals by herself? They told her that the people in Arcadia were primitive, simple-minded, and greedy, and that she should avoid intermingling with them, so it's not like she could've thought to ask for help before she met Vyse and Aika.
  • Considering the Silvite race's general arrogance about how evolved their race is compared to the other civilizations of Arcadia, it's not a stretch to think they believed that even a Silvite youth like Fina could outsmart the primitive, simple-minded, greedy schmucks they viewed the other Arcadian races as.
  • Fine, but even they know how powerful the Gigas are, and even if Valua hadn't intervened, that still would've left Yeligar and Rhaknam (Plergoth) - two of the hardest Gigas to pinpoint and make contact with - for Fina to face by herself to get their respective crystals.
  • Perhaps the Silvite Elders were expecting Fina to find and activate the first few Gigas herself, and then use them to secure the others. They just weren't counting on Valua being immediately on her tail, on account of Ramirez betraying her.

Going after Fina

• Why does the Valuan Empire spend so much time going after Fina in the beginning? Isn't Ramirez also a Silvite? Wasn't he sent on the same mission she was? Shouldn't he know just as well where the Moon Crystals are? Why do they even need her?
  • Insurance. It's unlikely, but she could meet up with a motley band of pirates and end up ruining their carefully laid plans! Failing that maybe Ramirez really didn't want to go back to the elders and only did so when it was his last resort.
  • The vast majority of Valua doesn't know that Ramirez is a Silvite. Only Galcian does, and he still needed Fina because he was (originally) planning to kill her for the Silver Moon Crystal. However, it is still likely they were going off of Ramirez's intel as they still manage to find most of the crystals without her help.
  • Just having someone else in circulation who knows about the Moon Crystals is a threat to their plan as it could enable some other group or kingdom to gain control of a Gigas and become a threat to Valua.
  • ^ No, Valua didn't consider Fina or the Air Pirates a threat. The second response was the right, canon one. As said clearly by Ramirez during his attack on Crescent Isle, the Empress and Galcian wanted Fina for different reasons. The former wanted to learn the location of the Crystals from her, as she didn't know Ramirez was a Silvite. Meanwhile, Galcian (stated by Enrique to be the only Valuan who knew Ramirez's background) wanted her for her Silver Crystal instead.

Recumen

• One wonders how the Gigas Recumen ever terrorized anything when it is a grounded unit that, presumably, cannot leave its one island and its one distance attack can be knocked off target by a small ship's cannon.
  • Presumably, it was a lot more terrifying when the lands were all one continent and not separated by clouds and skies.
  • What? Nothing in the game even implies that Arcadia was once all one continent. I'm more guessing the Red Civilization built Recumen more to defend their people, instead of conquering. Same with Grendel and the Green Civilization.
  • Let's keep in mind that Recumen had just been woken up and probably hadn't fully recovered from being asleep for so long. Also, going out on a bit of a limb here, it's possible the Red Civilization wanted the benefits of fighting from the safety of solid ground. With a flying Gigas, you don't technically even need to kill it; all you need to do is knock it out of the sky so it can't fight anymore. (More so if it happens to be fighting out across the open sky, in which case, once it falls, it's going to keep falling until it hits the surface and is pretty much gone for good.) Also, even if Glacia, Yafutoma and Soltis weren't reachable by land, the continents of the Red, Yellow, and Green Civilizations were all connected at some point, or at least are pretty close together, aren't they? Just build a bridge and Recumen can access either of them.
  • It's also not much of a headscratcher if Nasr simply didn't have the technology or resources to make the thing fly. Maybe they just did the best with what they had - strength over manueverability. The same could apply to Ixa'Taka with Grendel.

Ramirez's philosophy

• So when Ramirez first joined up with Valua, he put Mendoza on a pedestal. Galcian warns him that doing this can be dangerous. Ramirez discovers Mendoza is overworking the Ixa'Takans and slaughters him when he orders for Ramirez to be killed. But instead of simply learning from this jarring experience not to put people on pedestals, Ramirez merely acts as though he's learned something, but then just turns around and starts putting Galcian on a pedestal instead. Am I missing something? How does being betrayed by someone in whom you entrusted all of your faith merely push you to invest it in someone else? Why wouldn't Ramirez have done something like...help the Ixa'Takans, instead of just joining up with a man who was planning to do what Mendoza had done, to the entire world?
  • Certainly, the lesson Ramirez learned from that wasn't "don't put people on a pedestal." He instead came to believe that people were weak and corrupt, and they needed steely leadership to prevent them from acting on their baser impulses. What he really changed his mind about was slavery being wrong. After his Face–Heel Turn before the start of the game, he intends to impose slavery and tyranny, for the slaves' own good. He followed Galcian because he was strong, not because of "don't put people on a pedestal" - but he may have taken Galcian's statement against trusting Mendoza as evidence of his intelligence/strength and therefore worthiness.
  • Fina is the exact inverse. Perhaps the only thing that the Silvites told her about the people of Arcadia is that they were weak and corrupt, and that she therefore couldn't trust them. The good and virtuous people that she meets, helps, and who help her disabuse her of those beliefs. Which she resoundingly confirms when she tells off her own people for their mistakes and crimes.

Burial

• If it's considered proper among sailors to give fellow sailors a burial-at-sky, like the gang does for Ramirez in the end, then why didn't Vyse consider doing this when he came across the remains of Gonzales on Crescent Isle?
  • Pretty simple! You can't do a burial in the skies if you have no way to get into the skies. Vyse's lifeboat was seriously incapacitated when it crash-landed on Crescent Isle, and he only decided to try his hand at repairing the lifeboat's tattered flight mechanics when he'd been marooned for six days (food and water were the more pressing needs at the moment), long after he'd already decided to just give Gonzales a traditional burial. His thought process was: "well, I can't get back into the skies cause my ship's broken... guess I better make do with what I have here", which is completely rational given the circumstances. By the time Gilder's airship arrived to pick up Vyse, there was no need for Vyse to just go digging through Gonzales' impromptu grave and then haul his skeleton on board just to give him an honorific burial in the skies (seeing a bright-faced 17-year-old kid hauling a skeleton on board would have been simultaneously terrifying and hilarious though, lmao).

Bellena

• After they've enlisted her help in getting to the Temple of Pyrinn, Bellena tells Vyse and co. to get a good night's rest and that she'll tell the innkeeper to expect them; the innkeeper's subsequent dialogue suggests that she's at least somewhat acquainted with Bellena, and not just that Bellena simply paid for their room. Considering she turns out to be Admiral Belleza in disguise, what does this say about the innkeeper, then? Was she someone who was in on the ruse the whole time, possibly from Valua? (Probably not, since she appears very Nasrian.) Or has Bellena visited Nasr before and befriended the innkeeper during that time?
  • Belleza is an exceptional agent and spy, considering she's the mastermind behind a lot of Valua's behind-the-scenes, espionage missions; she had the main protagonists (and maybe even some players!) fooled from the get-go. She has more than likely only visited Nasr under her Bellena guise, so odds are she befriended the innkeeper as Bellena, and not Belleza. The innkeeper does not seem like one for secret Valuan intrigue! After all, Nasr, the trade capital of the world, has warred constantly with Valua.
  • When the innkeeper offers Vyse's crew a free stay, she says that she's grateful to Bellena for bringing more people to the town with her presence and dance. So that would be the reason. Bellena knew that the innkeeper was grateful she made her business flourish, so she asked her to give Vyse's crew a free night.

Gilder's crew

• How did Gilder's crew know that Vyse and co. had been captured by the Valuans?
  • Willy! Gilder's lime-green, cigar-wielding, intelligent little parrot. Willy is capable of pretty decent English, given that he responds "very bad!" to Gilder's "how ya doin, Willy?" No doubt he witnessed the absolute massacre of Nasr instigated by Ramirez's forces and was separated by Gilder in the chaos, and likely saw his owner being hauled away after Vyse surrenders. Little guy probably flew all the way to the Claudia (which was probably hanging around Sailor's Island as a rendezvous point, waiting for Gilder to return post-Clara), and informed the crew via squawks like "Gilder taken!" or "boss in trouble!", and the crew just put two and two together from thence (and might have even heard rumors about Nasr and Vyse's crew given how quickly word spreads around Sailor's Island). So they made a rescue plan and gave a dispatch to Willy, who dropped it off in his Master's cell.

Change of clothes

• Why didn't Fina ever consider changing her clothes while she was travelling with Vyse and Aika, even if only temporarily? I know she was planning to return to the Great Silver Shrine once her journey was over, but dressing in something more suitable for travel or combat would've done wonders for her, and kept her from standing out so much.
  • Why don't any of the other characters change clothing, like Enrique, whose princely, matador-esque outfit probably isn't the greatest or most flexible for combat? Cause there was only one default outfit programmed in per character (save for brief, cutscene-exclusive costume changes like Enrique's wedding clothes and Fina's pirate garb towards the end). You can get all kinds of items that are described as clothing (a durable raincoat, Nasrean desert mail, Valuan armor, various robes for Fina, ensorcelled clothing, etc) but even if you equip them on your character, you don't see any changes in their appearance! The only difference is in the stats, really. But if we're looking for a narrative reason? Could just be she likes the clothes.
  • As stated, the characters change their clothes throughout the game if you buy new outfit at the shops. But if you don't consider that canon, then a good explanation would be that Fina would only have been comfortable in Sylvite clothes, being what she wore all her life.

Ixa'Takan hermit

• This troper recently came across a hermit from Ixa'Taka who can be found above the clouds near Rixis. Wasn't it said that only the Yafutomans had the technology necessary to go that high?
  • Excellent question! After all, Enrique was given the Book on Ship Polarity by the Yafutoman royals, and that's the only reason the Delphinus can ascend into Upper Sky or descend into Lower Sky at all. I looked this up on Legends of Arcadia and saw a theory of sorts: "I would wager its from a more natural source than any sort of technology. Such a ship could use lighter than air gasses such as helium or hydrogen as such a thing as floating plants exists in several forms in Arcadia. Using a plant of some sort of to create and store a gas may aid in a ships buoyancy and allow it to go higher without the aid of any technology. And as we have seen, Ixa'takan boats are made from natural materials and would weigh much less than a metal ship so this natural alternative wouldn't be viable to standard ships." Or it might just be a plot hole. *shrug*

Language

• If Yafutoma has been separated from the rest of the world, presumably, since Soltis was sent into Deep Sky, how did they manage to develop their own written language yet still speak in a verbal tongue that Vyse and co. can understand?
  • I think they all speak English for the player's sake. You know, so we can understand what they're saying! But as for a more in-depth answer? Well, it's obvious that Yafutoma are aware that the West exists, given that Jao and Mao call Vyse and his crew "Westerners" along with various Yafutoman citizenry, and Kirala's comments about showing "you Westerners a thing or two that would really amaze you". Plus, Mikado's vizier, Kangan, refers to the Blue Rogues as foreigners when he says: "Foreigners have only brought us disaster; we must cleanse them from our lands immediately!" With that context, we can assume Yafutoma has definitely made contact with other nations before. Remember when Belleza and Vigoro arrived? Enrique reminds Vyse that they're there as Valuan Imperial Representatives at a diplomatic meeting, warning him that launching an ambush would mark them criminals. So clearly Yafutoma has foreign relations / diplomatic measures put in place. All of these context clues mean they've dealt with Westerners before, so it's entirely possible they just picked up the dialect.
  • Or, another, alternative theory that I have is that English is simply the universal, go-to language in Arcadia, and the floating continents wound up developing their own, differing languages to give them a sense of autonomy and independence. Language and linguistics evolve as people do, and a nation having its own language solidifies its independent standing as a culture and society.
  • And they may all have a common language because the entire world was much more accessible (if not united) in the past, before the Class 2 Apocalypse How. The different written languages could all be representations of the same modern tongue, and the different continents haven't been isolated for long enough to diverge into different languages.

Ship dungeons

• How are Vyse and co. able to fight battles inside the Dark Rift and the Maw of Tartas? If you try to go out onto the deck while exploring the bridge, he'll stop you because he says it's too dangerous. But whenever a battle comes up, he and the other crew members are all out there like it's nothing.
  • Gameplay And Story Segregation. Or, it could be the fact that Vyse and co. decide the invading creatures are enough of a problem that the crew opts to just deal with them quickly and directly, instead of risking the potentiality of the creatures boarding the ship's interior and potentially infecting the atmosphere, ruining the equipment, pipes, circuitry, infrastructure, killing off your fellow shipmates, et cetera. I think Vyse is making a distinction between wandering outside onto the deck for no real reason (which is quite dangerous, leaving you needlessly prone to the elements), and heading outside to take care of an immediate threat (threats that tend to be too small and fast to target with the Delphinus' cannons and torpedoes, at that).

The Green Crystal

• I understand that Valua knew about the whereabouts of the Green Crystal already, but did no one see the problem in Fina discussing its location when Belleza was standing right there in front of them? It's not like any of them had known that Valua already knew where it was, so shouldn't they have waited until they were back on the Little Jack to plan their next move?
  • No idea, actually, kind of an odd scene placement, and stupid on Vyse's part. Maybe it was a decision on the writers' behalf to give the player information about their next destination as quickly as possible. Still, really dumb of them.
  • They probably assumed that Belleza would at worst be out of commission for a while and wouldn't be in a position to tell Galcian anything, as her ship was disabled and the Nasrad skiff is incapable of traveling through the stone reefs. Besides, Valua already knew Fina's mission and the idea that the Moon Crystals are hidden under their respective moons was common enough knowledge amongst all parties. Even if she was able to immediately report back to the Armada, Belleza wouldn't have anything useful to tell them.
  • Plus, next time we see her, the Green Moon Crystal was already claimed by Vyse (then claimed by Valua, then reclaimed by Vyse), three more Admirals were taken down, the prototype flagship was stolen, Prince Enrique was "kidnapped", the Grand Fortress was severely damaged, AND Vyse and the crew are zeroing in on the Blue Moon Crystal in a region of land that was previously inaccessible. If anything, any information she had was laughably outdated by that point.

Silvites

• I seem to recall Fina stating that there aren't any more Silvites living in the shrine than is strictly necessary. But then why was she there? The only practicality of her being there was to serve as a backup in case something happened to Ramirez, but she says that she was there with him before he ever left on his mission. And their ability to create new Silvites whenever they please rules out the usage of Ramirez and Fina in some Adam and Eve Plot. Why wouldn't she have been created until afterward?
  • There's a theory that they always intended to use Fina's crystal to awaken Zelos.
  • But if they had to use a crystal to create Fina, why go to the trouble of creating her instead of just using the crystal itself?
  • You answered your own question, technically. She was a backup in case something happened to Ramirez. That makes perfect sense to me, especially for such a nihilistic, brutally-pragmatic, Darwinist society like the Silvites. Who else would have gone in Ramirez's the place, the Elders? They're so incredibly old their life support systems are the only thing keeping them alive. Plus, who knows: maybe the Elders were actually really fond of Fina and her personality, so they had both practical and personal reasons for keeping her around. She is endearing, after all, and Ramirez's best and only friend.
  • I know she was there as a backup for Ramirez, but a backup isn't "strictly necessary" unless something happens to the first choice. They didn't create another backup for Fina once Ramirez fell through. If they only create new Silvites as they need them, why didn't they wait until after Ramirez was gone to create Fina?
  • The "Fina's Crystal was meant to awaken Zelos" theory comes at it from the angle of needing a Silvite to create a Silver Moon Crystal, not the other way around. Fina says at one point that the Moon Crystals are highly refined Moon Stones, and if we assume that part of the refinement process uses that Moon's element (say having to use extreme heat to make a Red Moon Crystal), then refining a Silver Moon Stone into a Moon Crystal may involve messing with someone's soul, since life and death is the Silver Moon's 'element'.

Securing the Crystals

• Why did the Silvites leave the Yellow Crystal in Yeligar's possession when they sealed him up? Why not just put him to sleep and then take the crystal up into space with them? And why didn't they do anything about Rhaknam?
  • So, Yeligar is a quad-tentacled, lightning-wreathed, golem-esque, floating Gigas that can fire lightning at anyone he so chooses. Ancient records say his thunder tore open the skies themselves, according to Fina's account. Would you wanna try and extract the crystal directly from that thing yourself while it was alive and breathing? I imagine the Silvites really tried to extract it but the Gigas are herculean, powerful beings; they were especially powerful when the Silvites were still on Earth (a thousand years ago), long before Enrique and the Blue Rogues waltzed in with the most powerful ship in Arcadia. They were probably forced to just be content with sealing him and being done with it, even if they had Zelos alongside them.
  • As a small addendum, they probably didn't know about Rhaknam! Rhaknam is the only proper Gigas in the game not re-awakened by a Moon Crystal; he was probably never properly sealed, or was too quick for the Silvites' efforts. Rhaknam is stupidly mobile, hence why Drachma's been hunting him for so long.

Killing Fina

• So how was Ramirez killing Elder Prime for his crystal more beneficial than killing Fina for hers? Fina has already allied herself with the Blue Rogues and has an extensive knowledge of the six civilizations, meaning she's a liability to Galcian's plans as long as she's alive. At best, Elder Prime put up less of a fight before being killed, but considering how powerful Galcian and Ramirez are, taking out Vyse and and co. shouldn't have been much more difficult.
  • Elder Prime could have activated the Rains of Destruction if he was still alive, simple as that. Ramirez had absolutely no pragmatic reason to keep Elder Prime alive; in addition, Ramirez was no doubt bitter towards all the Silvites after Galcian's manipulation, his lonely childhood, and his probable feeling of abandonment on Arcadia. Fina was a little different; Fina and Ramirez were childhood friends, so he no doubt had at least a vague soft spot for her. He only really shows a desire to murder her on exactly two occasions: when he needed her crystal (and even then, he remembered he could have just taken Elder Prime's, which he did), and after Galcian was murdered by Fina and the Blue Rogues.
    • How did he expect Elder Prime to activate the Rains? Even if Vyse were to let the elders kill Fina for her crystal and they could get down to Soltis when it's buried at the bottom of Deep Sky, Galcian already has the other five that are necessary.
  • Plus, no doubt Ramirez and Galcian were in a hurry to kickstart their apocalyptic plans of world domination, so I imagine they just wanted to grab the crystal and leave the crew to their own devices. Let the Rains of Destruction, or the vast emptiness of space, sort them all out, you know?
  • Vyse and company probably weren't seen as a threat, so one crystal was as good as another. The elder may also have been seen as more of a threat, someone who could have mobilised the Silvites to take action in some way.

Knowledge of Fina's mission

• So Galcian was planning on betraying the Valuan Empire from the very beginning, and with Ramirez to tell him where the crystals were, the only reason he needed Fina was for her shard of the Silver Crystal. So why did anyone else in Valua know about Fina in the first place? I'm assuming the information about her must've come, directly or otherwise, from Ramirez - no one else in Arcadia knew she existed - so why was Alphonso the one who captured her? Why didn't Galcian capture her himself, keep her locked up somewhere so no one else would know about her, and use Ramirez's intel to gather the other Crystals?
  • Ramirez tells Galcian, who tells the other Admirals in the Valuan Armada. Galcian is an incredibly smart dude, and he probably thought it wiser to tell his tightly-knit, (mostly) trustworthy group of Admirals about this vital intel (Alfonso is the black sheep in the Armada anyways; all the other Admirals are incredibly competent and earned their position compared to inheriting it). It makes perfect sense to me; seven admirals all pooling their resources and time together for the sake of completing one common objective is way more practical and less time-consuming than if Galcian and Ramirez just tried to find her themselves. As to why Alfonso captured her, it's probably because he spotted her ship first and just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
  • Galcian's advancement in the Armada wasn't inevitable - he may have had to trade the ancient knowledge to the Empress for a path to his own power. One piece of evidence: Galcian apparently couldn't dismiss Alfonso at will at the start of the game, despite it being obvious Alfonso was a cowardly and disloyal moron. And recall that Enrique (and Gregorio) identify Valua's current world domination plot as a newer development. 'Make me Lord Admiral of the Armada and I'll conquer the world for you' would fit perfectly.
  • If he were open about Ramirez being a Silvite the two of them likely would not have been able to operate as openly or have as tight control of information (the Empress might want to keep him prisoner for example, or attempt to extract information Galcian doesn't want Valua to know). This way he gets to use the Armada to search for the Moon Crystals without revealing his trump card or the fact he has information the others don't.

Murder

• The fact that Ramirez accuses Vyse and co. of murdering Galcian...I know he's mentally unhinged and murderous enough to try and slaughter them all anyway, but it loses some of its edge considering they didn't kill Galcian. Belleza did, for a completely different agenda than Vyse's. And she and Ramirez were both admirals, so he should've recognized her ship easily as the one that destroyed Galcian's. So where does he get off blaming Vyse and his crew?
  • They may not have dealt the killing blow, but they were the ones who defeated Galcian and thwarted his plans. He was on that escape pod because he was running from them. It's a stretch to say they murdered him, but they definitely had a hand in his death. And given that Ramirez isn't thinking rationally at this point and the person who actually did the deed is gone (and thus not a viable target for Ramirez' vengeance) he may just see Vyse and co. as the next best thing.

Belleza and the Lynx

• Did Belleza have any other crew members onboard her flagship when she kamikazed into Galcian's escape pod? I could very well be wrong, but a ship like hers doesn't seem very easy to get up and running and commandeer on her own...and if so, does that mean she basically invited those potential crewmates to give their lives for her agenda?
  • Given the kind of person Belleza is, she most likely ordered her crew to evacuate the Lynx before making her attack. Running the ship on a crew of one is not unfeasible when it’s just for one simple maneuver.
  • Alternatively she could be operating a skeleton crew and got those who remained to agree with what she was doing. Galcian did commit genocide on Valua after all, so plenty of people would have reason to give their lives to stop him.
  • The dialogue during Belleza's last conversation with Vyse indicated that her men were with Galcian. So she was probably the only one at the Lynx during the kamikaze attack. This also explains why she didn't try firing at Galcian's escape pod before resorting to a suicide attack — her ship was undermanned.

A hitch in the plan

• Fina's hunt for Moon Crystals is pretty much brought to a halt once the Valuans capture her - she doesn't trust anyone enough to tell them her mission at first, and she can't get anywhere on her own now that her ship is gone, yet she doesn't show any incentive to try and get the ball rolling or anything. She never tries to find a way off Pirate Isle and seems content to simply hang around Vyse's house before the Valuans return and destroy the place. Was she planning to wait around until she'd developed enough trust in him to tell him her mission? Did she have any plans at all?
  • The hitch was her nimble ship being sent plummeting. She was probably trying to figure out just ‘’how’’ she was going to get around.

Summoning Zelos

• Why did the Silvites build Zelos in a way that required all six Moon Crystals to summon it? It makes no sense to base the activation of their ultimate, world-ending weapon on having the Moon Crystals of their enemy countries. If they are so concerned about Arcadians using the Gigas to destroy the world, then why didn't they just get rid of the Moon Crystals after the first Rains of Destruction? The fact that the Moon Crystals are still in their countries of origin during the time of the story indicates that the Silvites just gave them back after purging the world.
  • They didn't. Zelos was created and manipulated by the Silvites, without the other countries' crystals. Fina makes it clear that (some of) the other Gigas were still running amok even after the Rains of Destruction - so they didn't have all of the crystals to call the Rains the first time. The seal they placed on Zelos after use was what took the six crystals to break. They probably figured at the time one Class 2 Apocalypse How was enough, and leaving Zelos accessible (to literally any Silvite - they all have the Silver Moon Crystal) was a bigger risk than making him inaccessible. This belongs in Fridge Horror but... Ramirez and Fina's missions were proof the Silvites changed their minds about that.

Ixa'taka Discrepancies

• So dialogue from one of the traveling Black Market dealers and Ramirez's backstory (as shown through Doc's flashbacks) indicate that Ixa'taka has been a colony of Valua for several years. If this is so, why is Ixa'taka described as an undiscovered continent? Also, if the Valuans have been oppressing and enslaving them for years, why didn't the Ixa'takans recognize the "men from the East" when they arrived?
  • The Armada could've kept the existence of Ixa'Taka a secret from the rest of the world, including their own people. There were rumors of its existence, but until Vyse reported it, there was no proof. And they did recognize them as being from the east - they're just confused at first due to mistaking Fina for Quetya. Once the crew clarifies that they got there via South Ocean, the villagers recognize them as being like the "other men from the East."

Valua-Nasr War Timeline

• Belleza (as Bellena) states that the Valua-Nasr War began twenty years prior to the story. However, the "Valuan Wreckage" discovery indicates that the war ended twenty years ago. It could have been a very short war which lasted less than a year, but the village elder in Maramba claims that he had been at war with Valua for more than half of his life. This means that the war would have had to span at least thirty years.
  • Quemal, the items shopkeeper in Maramba, posits that a war between Valua and Nasr broke out ten years prior.
  • This also brings up questions about the war's relevance in the story. Besides providing a tragic backdrop for Belleza's character, the Valua-Nasr War doesn't really have any significant impact on current events in the story. Valua and Nasr are positioned as historical enemies, but the player doesn't ever see tension between the two countries. (The destruction of Nasrad was a full-on curb stomp with seemingly no consequences for Valua.)
    • One country completely destroying another isn't a sign of tension?
  • The war could be comparable to the 100 Years' War from Avatar: The Last Airbender, or the real Hundred Years' War for that matter, where there were periods of conflict interspersed with times of relative peace, although relations between the two countries were tense throughout. It could even be argued that the war is still going on during the game, what with Valua's decision to launch a surprise attack on Nasrad halfway through the story.

The First Silvite

• How did Ramirez manage to hide the truth of his origins from the entire Armada (sans Galcian)? Doc's flashbacks show Ramirez, in his Silvite garb, being carried on a stretcher by Valuan soldiers. Did no one question his strange clothing or his ability to summon a bizarre-looking sword from seemingly nowhere? Doesn't the Armada run any sort of background check on their soldiers, especially in regards to their highest-ranking officers?
  • How do you know what a Silvite is like if you've never seen one before? Evidently-not-from-around-here isn't the same as being proven Silvite. In any event, they probably could have found out if they interrogated him as a prisoner, but the way Doc describes it Mendosa warmed up to Ramirez quickly.
  • Enrique states during the party's first night on Crescent Isle that he doesn't believe even Galcian knows about Ramirez's past.
  • Which is disproven completely later in the game - Galcian had to have known about Fina since he sent the Armada after her at the start of the game. He had to have known about Soltis, Zelos, and the Moon Crystals since his entire plan revolves around them. And he certainly knew that Ramirez had a way of reaching the Great Silver Shrine, since he uses it to travel there to claim the Silver Crystal.
  • Galcian in one late game cutscene says "I know you are a Silvite" to Ramirez, which could suggest Ramirez didn't even tell him let alone or anyone else and he discovered it on his own. Either way there's nothing to suggest anyone else in Valua knew Silvites even existed. As for the background check Ramirez is clearly very talented so Galcian vouching for him may have overriden any objections people had about his past.

Gonzales

• There's this really weird set of dialogue relating to the remains of Gonzales on Crescent Isle. When Vyse first comes across him, he remarks that he'll provide him with a proper burial, and immediately after saying this, he stands up and says, "...There. Now that that's done, I should check out the rest of the isle," even though he didn't do anything. Re-checking the remains has Vyse promise that he'll bury them as soon as he gets the chance - but once you do explore the rest of the island, Vyse sees an incoming storm and suggests that he take shelter in the cave near where he "buried" Gonzales...Is this a translation error or something, or has Vyse gone completely goombah-beans? Why does the game act as though you've already buried this guy two separate times when you very obviously have not?

The Maga Sphere

• Even after the Valuans have seized control of Yafutoma, it ends up being Kangan who awakens Bluheim using the Blue Crystal. Why does he still have it at that point? Wouldn't Beleza have arranged for it to be handed over as part of their deal, especially when letting Kangan keep it risks him turning the Blue Gigas against her and her troops?
  • Kangan probably never told them about Vyse retrieving it. Kangan's deal with Valua was to betray Yafutoma to them in exchange for the right to rule it in their name. Vigoro and Belleza were there to conquer Yafutoma and then get the crystal - they couldn't have known about Vyse retrieving the crystal unless they had a loyal spy in Yafutoma already to tell them. Kangan certainly was not.

Odd name out

• Why does Ramirez's name go along with the Spanish naming conventions of the Valuans, even though he's a Silvite? I know it's been suggested his name was originally Rami (since that's what Fina says at a couple points whenever he's mentioned), but connecting the name of a Valuan admiral with that of your long-lost childhood friend when they only have that much in common seems a stretch. Plus, when Fina is discussing Ramirez's betrayal with the elders, they never have to stop and ask who "Ramirez" is.
  • Out-of-universe, probably to keep the fact that he's a Silvite a surprise until Fina reveals how she knows him. In-universe, Ramirez is probably just a Silvite name that happens to sound Valuan.
  • The halting dialog in Fina's memory just says "Rami." It's left ambiguous whether his original Silvite name was Rami and it was Valuized into Ramirez, or whether the -rez was just omitted from the complete dialog.
    • This was touched upon in the original question. If "Rami" was what his name used to be, and Fina doesn't know what he's been up to since he left the shrine, why is hearing the name "Ramirez" be enough to make her think it might be him? That doesn't seem like enough of a resemblance for her to pay it any mind.

Gilder's pirate status

• Is Gilder a Blue Rogue or a Black Pirate? His ship sports black sails, suggesting the latter. However, he acts more like a Blue Rogue, lending others a hand without demanding compensation, like when he rescued a stranded Vyse, or when he helped him rescue Aika and Fina at the Grand Fortress. The fact his flag is purple isn't really helpful here. Unless you see him as somewhere between Blue and Black, which would explain the purple color.

Piloting flying ships

• Flying ships in Skies of Arcadia use helms just like sea ships, which should be fine for steering. But how does the helmsman the control the ship's descent and ascent? There don't seem to be any controls for those...

Bowdlerisation

• So the localization censored any references to alcohol and smoking... yet references to rape (and even onscreen rape attempts) got a free pass? Huh?