What happened was the Valkyria were kicking butt and taking names, but then there was a feud among two smaller factions, who completely destroyed each other via a Final Flame attack in what was later called "The Darcsen Calamity." Realizing that their own power doomed themselves and the world, one branch who would become the Gallian Royal Family used a weapon/skill that genetically sealed their powers, and their memories of those powers, and then used it on themselves; a side effect erasing their memories of everything and darkening their hair. The Darcsens walked away, the Valkyria vanished, and history had a muddled sense of what happened and blamed everything bad on who was left.
The "blame the Darcsens" thing was supposed to be a scolding for themselves, but it was vastly over-interpreted.
The genetic seal, ironically, would be nullified via rare cases of crossbred atavists with other races.
- This would explain one small, but unusual thing. We never learn Aliasse's last name in the sequel. Maybe her parents were Darcsens who were related to non-darcsens (e.g. like Lynn and Karl's children would be). Aliasse might not even have a last name.
- It might be a little on the meta side, but why assume Aliasse is a real name in the first place?
- It even says in the game that the Valkyria themselves uses a Spiral insignia to represent their power.
As to why one would be playing with these meatbags... Boredom, maybe. Or interest in the Valkyria.
- So all the Gallian soldiers have the brain implants necessary for Reaper possession? Man, that's creepy.
- What better way to explain how they just shrug off being SHOT while moving around? The enemy soldiers seem to deal with pain a great deal less...
- It has been speculated that Shepard is somehow a "human Reaper" who empowers those who join him (but without controlling their free will). If so, this is the kind in the game.
- What better way to explain how they just shrug off being SHOT while moving around? The enemy soldiers seem to deal with pain a great deal less...
- Jossed. Battlefield Heroes has become far too saturated with modern weapons to work alongside VC.
- Yes, there are others who can use commands, enemy leaders and Avan in the sequel, but the enemy leaders don't use the Game-Breaker ones, and for Avan these require far higher levels of training (and a lot more Command Points) to learn and use. Avan's bizarre Jack of All Trades ability to be anything lets him use the commands, just not as well as proven commanders like Kurt and Welkin.
- Seems like it considering she's gotten away scott free in EVERY SINGLE GAME.
- ...Isara is dead. Her Old Save Bonus appearance in the sequel is treated as non-canon by that game.
Consider: Even by the most GENEROUS assessment, Gallia lost 75,000 people in EWII... out of a population of 800,000. Now, even if we tweak those numbers to their most generous extent, that still leaves us with just under an 8th or a 9th of their population to death, and chances are it was actually *higher* than that. And then, just when the ability to rebuild is absolutely necessary, a civil war breaks out soon after the end of the Imperial invasion and lasts for about two years. And this is before we talk about the more likely lower population threshold minimum, which would have seen at LEAST 46,000 dead out of a population of 430,000, WEEELLLLL over 10% dead. Now, even assuming that births outpace deaths throughout this period of time, that STILL is a massive chunk of the Gallian population that is just dead, with the most affected being men and women in the prime of life (who are in the armed forces and generally get killed, incapacitated, or disappeared)- precisely those in the traditional childbearing stages of their lives- with most of the replacements being (naturally) extremely young. As such, the older generation is probably decimated in an almost literal meaning of the term (with about a 10% death rate at least and even more rendered all but hopeless by their wounds). And if Gallia faces another large-scale conflict at any point in the next twenty or so years, that demographic situation is likely only going to worsen. Which means that soon Gallia will be desperately short of warm bodies and with absolutely no room to maneuver in terms of military and political options. And traditionally when that happens, VERY bad things occur.
- On the other hand, the sequel mentions that a large number of Darcsens are immigrating to Gallia from the Empire after Cordelia revealed her heritage. Granted, many were killed by the rebels, but that still represents a source of repopulation, especially after the civil war is won and they can safely resume immigration.
- Are you sure the population is 800,000? One of the guidebooks I've got (the Japanese artbook, I think) gives the population as 4.3 million or 4.5 million or so. I had been wondering about the population because Avan's hometown of Mellvere is big enough to field a soccer team, which wouldn't be possible if the whole country had a population equal to one big city. Gallia being in the 4-5 million range puts it around the same as Norway and Finland.
- Second game; a minor feature of this was given to Lanseal Cadets. Characters do not die anymore if their bodies are set upon by enemies after they're downed. They're "hospitalized" for 3 battles; and then return good as new.
- Abilities like "Phoenix" also trigger this feature; and so is Dirk and Baldren's ability to revive any of their units that you don't send one of your units to retrieve the body.
- After Dr. Foerster left Lanseal, and after Lavinia and Avan
destroymake the Ghost Tank stop moving, Dr. Foerster studied it and learned how to duplicate them. The Three-Star missions in VC 2 are Dr. Foerster's mastering reviving Dirk, Baldren, and Audrey (this was occurring even during the main game; hence how you could keep killing them and they would get back up); and backing them up with Ghost Tanks for combat data.
- After Dr. Foerster left Lanseal, and after Lavinia and Avan
- Abilities like "Phoenix" also trigger this feature; and so is Dirk and Baldren's ability to revive any of their units that you don't send one of your units to retrieve the body.
Wherever the Valkyria come from, it was a matriarchal society. It wasn't a One-Gender Race, they simply come from Lady Land; eventually when they came and conquered Europa, the Calamity happened. It's said that they installed Cordelia's family to rule and disappeared afterward— but they didn't. They simply married. Just like the legendary Valkyries, marriage is a punishment that enslaves a former Valkyrie to her husband and robs her of her powers— they knew the Calamity was their fault, but also knew they couldn't rule Europa and do penance for what they had done, so they installed the Darcsen traitor family as rulers in their stead, hoping to do both. Generations down the line the Valkyria eventually married themselves mostly out of existence; modern living Valkyria simply have never had married ancestors.
- Not married, but perhaps when they have children, for the same reason only women seem to be able to naturally use such power.
- Alicia pretty clearly loses her blue-flame powers with the ring and the kiss, though it's possible that she would have only lost her rapid healing and boosted stats at half-health after giving birth (after all, those abilities probably make childbirth a breeze)... unless li'l Isara had already been conceived by that point... *blush*
- Having the powers dissipate after a kiss doesn't mean she lost them, just that she stops using them. We have no reason to believe they were actually gone for good.
- I dunno, I think that part is up to interpretation. She never uses them again, after all that blue fire dissolves into green pollen and scatters all over the plant life around them. Every other time, the fire just goes out, it doesn't go anywhere. That scene is ambiguous enough to be open to interpretation.
- The green pollen seems like a pretty obvious nod to Welkin's influence. It makes more sense for Alicia to be subconsciously compelled to use her powers, then freed from them through marriage as a nod to the Norse myth, because if that's not what happened, then Alicia spent most of the game being a huge moron.
- Alicia pretty clearly loses her blue-flame powers with the ring and the kiss, though it's possible that she would have only lost her rapid healing and boosted stats at half-health after giving birth (after all, those abilities probably make childbirth a breeze)... unless li'l Isara had already been conceived by that point... *blush*
- The Darcsen Calamity was the destruction of the only known "Awakening" method of the Valkyria. With it gone they were doomed. In retaliation, they blamed the Darcsens.
- Juliana and Leon are later invited into this group.
- Also, if people are revolting because of the revelation that the royal bloodline isn't Valkyrian after all, then some of them might want to put a true Valkyrur on the throne, and the only living person out there with a proven Valkyrian heritage is his wife. His family is a major political symbol in the war whether they want to be or not, so he needs to do something to help keep them safe.
Aisha is only 12 in the game, by far the youngest unit in the series thus far (even beating out Aliasse in the sequel). It says she starts studying strategy to emulate Eleanor Varrot. So 20 years down the road, she might be an important character (maybe playable, maybe not). Given she's been described as a genius, she'll probably be 'The Zeri' in your squad so far as brains go. Same with Aliasse.
Also it says Helmut and the Imps were preparing for another invasion... but his heart was not into it. So we might have a possible turncoat for the Gallians.
- But there was only one shot, right? Or did the Plot make the other one happen off camera?
- The Personnel tab says the "Medic" is actually three triplets(and all three of them are Fina, somehow), all three would have to be shot to prevent them from assisting.
They disappear in game, but that is just to hide that you just stabbed/finished them off. At least that is what I can see.
- VC!America could be an Isolationist country. Just like what America almost became during Real Life World Wars 1 and 2.
- Alternatively, since we not know much about the Atlantic Federation (not that one) who tried to kidnap Cordelia, their capital could be in the stand-in for the Americas.
- Isn't Arcadia the VC-verse's version of the Americas?
- Jossed. The Atlantic confederation is located on the Western end of Europa, and seems to be made up of the equivalent of France, Spain, and the UK. There's also a country overseas from Europa called the United States of Vinland that seems to be a stand-in for the US.
Vinland, you say?
- Avan tells someone to "Go to Hel!" or something along these lines in VCII. It would seem that the dominant religion in Europa has evolved from a sort of Germanic paganism.
- Given that the Valkyur literally took over all of Europa with magic-like Ragnite technology, it's extremely likely that even if there was a Christ-like figure at some point in time, he would be completely ignored over the invincible god-like figures shooting laser beams and "saving" the world from the Darcsens. As it is, Yggdism (worship of the Valkyur as, at minimum, vassals of god) is a huge portion of continental history. Also, EC refers to the "Europan Calendar", whose year 0 is when the Valkyur came by and subjugated the Darcsen.
- Jossed by VC 4. Nico was raised at a convent and makes allusions to "The Lord". And there's mention of a Darcsen priest of the same religion, so it can't be Yggdism. It seems that there's another religion in Europa that's at least very similar to Christianity.
- Poor Fritz calls out to God in his last moments, but the Name isn't capitalized in the subtitles, implying there is some equivalent but it's totally overshadowed by Valkyria worship. My headcanon is that the Darcsen's religeon is a fantastic version of Judaiism to fit the cultural parrallel.
- Other than the Norse flavoring, the religious backstory behind the Valkyria Chronicles series is basically Judeo-Christianity, with the "Darcsen Calamity" being a stand-in for the Crucifixion, similar to how many real-life Europeans throughout history blamed the Jewish people (represented in the games as the Darcsens) for the death of Jesus, which fed into real-life anti-Semitism (among many other factors.) This could be an alternate history where, when the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the Germanic kings that filled the power void eradicated Christianity, at least in Western Europe, and imposed Germanic beliefs instead.
Decades/centuries pass and the Ura rebuild themselves, renaming themselves to Darcsens in the process, the Caelondian survivors become the (mostly) normal people that inhabit most of Europa and the Cael discover smaller quantities of a material that is termed ragnite either by them or the newly encountered Darcsens, discovering that several members of their race possessed mutations that allowed them to metabolize the miraculous substance. A side effect of this mutation is premature albinism.
The Cael eventually find out that an Ura were responsible for the utter destruction of one of their most prosperous colonies, and they wage a bloody war of revenge that ruins both great nations.
- Hubert Brixham never received the eye injury that ended his sniper career.
- Juliana Everhardt survived the invasion of Lanseal in August.
- Leon Hardins didn't undertake the "special mission".
- Isara Gunther didn't die at the Marberry Shore.
- The Last of His Kind: a male Valkyria. Instead of the women's spectacular superpowers, the men's tended towards more of a supercharged Healing Factor that let them live for aeons as well as regenerate From a Single Cell. He's been kicking around for nearly 2,000 years. A few bullet holes might overwhelm his body with pain long enough to put him down for a little while, but nothing short of being caught in a Final Flame will truly kill him. Ty is short for Tyr, usually anglicized to Thor. Yes, THAT Thor. As for why he can't use lightning powers? His hammer, which he used instead of a lance, got lost or ruined.
- As a TV show 70 years on, similar to Saving Private Ryan. If any of Squad 7 lived long enough to see it, they'd be annoyed at the inaccuracies.