Post by Melissa Foxworthy on Dec 4, 2007 1:03:18 GMT -5
Star Ocean
Star Ocean tells the story of Ratix Farrence, a young Fellpool living in the town of Clatos on the underdeveloped planet of Roak. He is part of a group called the Clatos Brigade, a small organization of fighters who defend the town from thieves and robbers. Ratix himself is a swordsman, as is his friend Dorn Marto—who is also a member of the Brigade. One day, a strange disease that spreads by touch begins turning people in the northern city of Cool to stone. The town healer and father of Milly Kiliet—one of Ratix's best friends who also secretly loves him—goes to Cool to try and use his Crest Magic (Heraldry/Symbology) to defeat the disease, but ends up becoming infected himself. When this news comes to Milly, Ratix, and Dorn, they set off for Mt. Metox north of Cool to recover the Metox herb, a legendary herb said to cure any ailment. With this, they hope to cure the disease and save Milly's father. When they reach the summit where the herb grows, a mysterious light bursts from the ground and two people wearing odd clothes appear before them; a man with blue hair and a woman with blonde hair. The man introduces himself as Ronixis J. Kenni, captain of the Earth Federation starship Calnus. From there they learn that the disease was sent to the planet by the Resonians, a civilization that the Earth Federation has been at war with. However, it is a mystery as to why Resonia would even launch such a biological attack on an underdeveloped world. What could possibly be gained by it?
It was soon revealed though that Roakian blood could block out the visible light spectrum of the human eye and that Resonia had used their blood to process a special, invisible material. The sort of material that would give them a massive advantage in the war. However, instead of fighting with it they send emissaries to the Federation HQ and reveal that they were being forced into war by a shadowy, powerful third party with a disgust for the Federation called "Fargett".
The group then discovers that the virus originates from a monster on Roak itself -- Asmodeus, the King of the Demon World [Daemonium]. Asmodeus however died 300 years prior to the spreading of the disease. Despite the possible court martial that could be dealt to them, Ronixis decides to go to the Planet Stream (Planet Styx) to use the mysterious Time Gate to travel back in time and recover a sample of blood from Asmodeus. Upon getting there, the Gate accepts them and they enter into the opened time warp. However, Iria Silvestoli -- the blonde woman from the Calnus -- trips prior to getting into the Gate and Ratix helps her back up.
After the trip through time, Ratix and Iria find themselves on an entirely different continent to the one Ronixis and Milly wound up on...
The Second Story
The universe of Star Ocean holds many similarities to that of Star Trek. Most aliens look like humans, although more so in Ocean than in Trek. The Earth Federation is the central human government and works very similarly, albeit likely more controlling than the United Federation of Planets.
Roughly the first half of the plot of Star Ocean 2 takes place on the planet Expel, an underdeveloped planet on the verge of its industrial age. On Expel kings still rule over great kingdoms, swords and sorcery dominate the battlefield, and sailing ships are still made from wood. According to a Federation law, named the UP3 (Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact) in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, a planet with such a level of civilization may not be directly contacted under any but the most dire circumstances -- and even then, contact must be minimal and secretive. This law is reminiscent of Star Trek's Prime Directive.
Star Ocean: The Second Story tells the stories of Claude C. Kenni, son of Ronixis J. Kenni, and Rena Lanford, a young girl living on the Planet Expel. Claude, having recently been commissioned as an Ensign in the Earth Federation, is given his first mission under the supervision of his father. This first mission is to survey the planet Milocinia, where a mysterious energy field appears. Once they arrive, they find an alien ruin, filled with mostly broken machinery. Finding a mysterious device in the center of it, Claude begins to examine it close-up, despite orders to keep away from it. Upon getting close to it, the machine activates, teleporting him to Expel.
At approximately the same time, Rena is resting in a forest just outside her village, Arlia. While there, she is assaulted by a monster. Suddenly, Claude teleports into the area, and, seeing Rena being attacked, rushes in to save her, wielding an advanced energy weapon (the Phase Gun that his father gave to him). Upon seeing how she is rescued, Rena decides that Claude is the Hero of Light, spoken of in legends on Expel: he has arrived to an Expel in great danger, he wields a "Sword of Light" and is dressed in "alien raiments." She takes him back to her village, Arlia, for corroboration.
Soon afterwards, the town elder explains to Claude what exactly is going on: Three months ago, a meteorite crashed into Expel. Almost immediately afterwards, monsters began appearing, and natural disasters occurred with increasing frequency and intensity. Believing that these events were related, the people of Expel called the meteorite the "Sorcery Globe". Hoping that the Sorcery Globe may be the key to finding his way home, Claude agrees to investigate it. Rena, still believing that Claude is the Hero of Light, joins up with Claude in the investigation.
Their journey takes them across all three continents of Expel, and eventually they meet the ten wise men and are somehow transported to Energy Nede.
One of the things about the game that was hyped were its multiple endings. The exact number is often said to be 87, though it's really 86 with two having minor differences. There is one ending for each character alone and one for each possible pair of characters. If two characters could be recruited together, they can have an ending together. For example, an ending involving Bowman and Precis does not exist as you cannot have both recruited. There are also secret endings involving characters outside of the party. This adds a certain element of replay value to the game; to see all the character endings, it would be necessary to play through the game nine times or more and would require a vast amount of time and effort since the game is quite long not to mention taking the time to get the characters paired up correctly.
Blue Sphere
Taking place 2 years after Star Ocean: The Second Story and the defeat of the 10 Wise Men, all the characters have since moved on with their lives. Claude has taken Rena, Leon, and Precis to live on Earth with him. Ashton, Celine, Dias, Noel, Chisato, and Bowman still live on Planet Expel. Ernest and Opera are treasure hunting when their ship crash lands on Planet Edifice. Opera manages to send out an S.O.S. to Precis, who then rounds up the entire gang (sans Claude and Rena, who are on a Federation mission) in her self-built ship and heads to the planet. They are also mysteriously pulled down through the planet's atmosphere and crash-land. They decide to explore their surroundings and search for their missing comrades, hoping that Claude and Rena will rescue them, but they too crash-land on Edifice later on in the game.
Star Ocean; Til the End of Time
The universe of Star Ocean is science fiction in nature, although like the first two games in the series, much of the plot is set on an "underdeveloped planet." It features a galaxy-spanning government in the Pangalactic Federation, several races and species of aliens, different factions, multiple colonized planets, and advanced technology. But despite this science fiction atmosphere, a form of magic exists in the universe: symbology, also translated as heraldry in the Japanese version and in Star Ocean: The Second Story. Standard symbology involves tattooing crests and runes onto one's flesh to draw out apparently latent power in the form of spells, and numerous underdeveloped planets make extensive use of it. Despite its supernatural connotations, Symbology is treated a legitimate field of scientific study in-universe.
Star Ocean 3 features an in-game encyclopedia. Whenever a new word appears in a color different from the standard text, a detailed entry is added to the encyclopedia. It offers definitions and backgrounds for the different races, people, places, and other general terms. The encyclopedia also includes many of the scientific concepts that are introduced in the game, though the majority are only science fiction.
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time begins on the planet Hyda IV where a young man, Fayt Leingod, and his childhood friend, Sophia Esteed, are on vacation with Fayt's family. Fayt is son of a famous scientist in the field of symbological genetics. For an unknown reason, the Vendeen Empire — an alien civilization with highly advanced technology that spans only a single planet — attacks Hyda IV unprovoked, thus initiating a war with the Pangalactic Federation. Fayt and Sophia escape on the starship Helre, but are separated from Fayt's parents, Robert and Ryoko Leingod. The Helre is also attacked by the Vendeeni, and the two are separated.
Fayt's escape pod lands on the "underdeveloped planet" Vanguard III, a planet with technology equivalent to 16th Century Earth, and discovers an off-world criminal, the exiled Rezerbian Norton, plotting to take it over. Cliff Fittir, a member of the anti-Federation organization Quark, then lands and helps Fayt defeat this criminal. Fayt learns that Quark's leader wishes to speak to him and plans on rescuing his father, though Cliff does not reveal the reason behind this interest. After getting off the planet with Cliff and meeting his assistant Mirage, the Vendeeni again attack them — but they escape and crash-land on another underdeveloped world, Elicoor II. Elicoor seems to be around 17th Century Earth in terms of technological advancement. Fayt, Cliff, and Mirage crash-land into the capital of the Kingdom of Airyglyph, who believe that their ship is a weapon developed by the country they are at war with, Aquaria. Fayt and Cliff are imprisoned as a result (Mirage escapes), though they are soon rescued by an assassin-like agent, Nel Zelpher, who believes they are engineers from the technologically advanced continent of Greeton. She rescues them under the condition that they aid her country, Aquaria, with their technological knowledge. This leads the two directly into the war between the two kingdoms and eventually into a great final battle between them. Then a new — at least to the Elicoorians — foe appears in the skies above, a Vendeeni battleship that has found their quarry. However, Fayt destroys the battleship with a previously unknown power of his, though another battleship remains in orbit. During the distraction, the leader of Quark, Maria Traydor, manages to arrive on Elicoor. It seems that both Quark and the Vendeeni knew of Fayt's unusual abilities, and he had been their target the whole time. The party vies with the Vendeeni over control of an unusual "out of place artifact" and Fayt's father, who is killed before Maria can finish interrogating him over his "crimes."
Fayt finds himself space-borne once more, and the galaxy has not stood still. Shortly after the apparently unprovoked attack on Hyda IV, a threat of staggering magnitude emerges in the form of ultra-powerful space-borne beings calling themselves "Executioners." The best ships of the Federation and the Vendeeni are nearly powerless against these new beings, and are quickly being forced into full retreat. The party, acting on a hint from Fayt's father, venture to the Moonbase research station, and Fayt is reunited with Sophia. While on the station, they are confronted by an angelic-looking Executioner that calls itself Proclaimer. It launches itself to attack, telling them that they must be destroyed.
Investigation of the Moonbase records reveals the truth behind the Executioners and their appearance. During the charting of a planet called Styx, explorers encountered an extremely advanced and extremely old Time Gate. When activated, it informed them that their forays into the field of symbological genetics had angered the Creator, and that they were to be destroyed. Even if they were to abandon symbological genetics, the reins would be taken up by another soon enough, and that they were not being warned — they were being sentenced.
The explorers beat a hasty retreat and informed the Federation of what they had found. Studies soon suggested that the statement came from another plane of existence; an entirely new universe. Further study revealed that symbology might be used to access this universe. The scientists agreed to use their own offspring; the subjects were Fayt Leingod, Sophia Esteed, and Maria Traydor. Fayt was the son of Robert and Ryoko Leingod, while Sophia was the daughter of Clive Esteed. Maria was an orphan who was later adopted by the fourth member of the team, Jessie Traydor. The three were symbologically altered in such a way that if they worked together, they could gain entry through the Time Gate. Maria was given the power of Alteration, which would allow her and those with her to remain in physical forms in the new world. Fayt was given the power of Destruction, as it was assumed they would need to physically defend themselves. Two years later, the younger Sophia was given the power of Connection - the key ability needed to make contact with 4D space. (This process of creating humans with inherent symbological power is quite similar to Nede's creation of the Ten Wise Men in Star Ocean: The Second Story, though apparently that did not draw down the wrath of the Executioners.) The Vendeeni had been attacking in hopes of handing over Fayt to the Executioners and staying their wrath.
The party goes to Styx and finds the area flooded with Executioners. Escaping their ship in a small shuttle, they witness the mysterious beings and their awesome might first-hand as the Federation battleship Aquaelie which had escorted them is destroyed. Reaching the Time Gate, the party enters "4D space," a dimension higher than their own. According to the 4D beings, their universe is actually not real in relation to 4D space; rather, it is a computer simulation developed by Luther Lansfeld, the owner of the Sphere Company. Dubbed the "Eternal Sphere", it is similar to a real-world massively multiplayer online role-playing game for the 4D inhabitants. This plot twist is hotly controversial.
Fayt and his allies learn that the Executioners are anti-viruses sent to delete anomalies in the Milky Way section of the Eternal Sphere. With the help of Blair Lansfeld, programmer and sister to Luther, the party manages to find Luther. Blair and the group believe that the residents of the Eternal Sphere have managed to achieve a level of intelligence equal to that of 4D citizens; Luther, however, considers them "mere data." Luther then decides that the only way to delete them is to delete the entire universe (apparently ignoring that he is currently in the Eternal Sphere). The party fights and stops him, but fails to stop the deletion.
However, the world is not destroyed for not entirely clear reasons. Blair mentions an "Eternal Sphere backup" earlier, but there's no evidence that was applied. The characters decide that even if they really are just programs, they have achieved "consciousness" and therefore cannot be deleted. Alternately, others suggest something to do with Maria's power of Alteration has something to do with it.
The ending slightly changes based on the "affection level" of the other characters for Fayt, derived from the player's choices during the game and in Private Actions. Fayt has an ending for each character if that character has the highest affection level, as well as an "alone" ending if no one sufficiently likes Fayt.
Star Ocean tells the story of Ratix Farrence, a young Fellpool living in the town of Clatos on the underdeveloped planet of Roak. He is part of a group called the Clatos Brigade, a small organization of fighters who defend the town from thieves and robbers. Ratix himself is a swordsman, as is his friend Dorn Marto—who is also a member of the Brigade. One day, a strange disease that spreads by touch begins turning people in the northern city of Cool to stone. The town healer and father of Milly Kiliet—one of Ratix's best friends who also secretly loves him—goes to Cool to try and use his Crest Magic (Heraldry/Symbology) to defeat the disease, but ends up becoming infected himself. When this news comes to Milly, Ratix, and Dorn, they set off for Mt. Metox north of Cool to recover the Metox herb, a legendary herb said to cure any ailment. With this, they hope to cure the disease and save Milly's father. When they reach the summit where the herb grows, a mysterious light bursts from the ground and two people wearing odd clothes appear before them; a man with blue hair and a woman with blonde hair. The man introduces himself as Ronixis J. Kenni, captain of the Earth Federation starship Calnus. From there they learn that the disease was sent to the planet by the Resonians, a civilization that the Earth Federation has been at war with. However, it is a mystery as to why Resonia would even launch such a biological attack on an underdeveloped world. What could possibly be gained by it?
It was soon revealed though that Roakian blood could block out the visible light spectrum of the human eye and that Resonia had used their blood to process a special, invisible material. The sort of material that would give them a massive advantage in the war. However, instead of fighting with it they send emissaries to the Federation HQ and reveal that they were being forced into war by a shadowy, powerful third party with a disgust for the Federation called "Fargett".
The group then discovers that the virus originates from a monster on Roak itself -- Asmodeus, the King of the Demon World [Daemonium]. Asmodeus however died 300 years prior to the spreading of the disease. Despite the possible court martial that could be dealt to them, Ronixis decides to go to the Planet Stream (Planet Styx) to use the mysterious Time Gate to travel back in time and recover a sample of blood from Asmodeus. Upon getting there, the Gate accepts them and they enter into the opened time warp. However, Iria Silvestoli -- the blonde woman from the Calnus -- trips prior to getting into the Gate and Ratix helps her back up.
After the trip through time, Ratix and Iria find themselves on an entirely different continent to the one Ronixis and Milly wound up on...
The Second Story
The universe of Star Ocean holds many similarities to that of Star Trek. Most aliens look like humans, although more so in Ocean than in Trek. The Earth Federation is the central human government and works very similarly, albeit likely more controlling than the United Federation of Planets.
Roughly the first half of the plot of Star Ocean 2 takes place on the planet Expel, an underdeveloped planet on the verge of its industrial age. On Expel kings still rule over great kingdoms, swords and sorcery dominate the battlefield, and sailing ships are still made from wood. According to a Federation law, named the UP3 (Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact) in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, a planet with such a level of civilization may not be directly contacted under any but the most dire circumstances -- and even then, contact must be minimal and secretive. This law is reminiscent of Star Trek's Prime Directive.
Star Ocean: The Second Story tells the stories of Claude C. Kenni, son of Ronixis J. Kenni, and Rena Lanford, a young girl living on the Planet Expel. Claude, having recently been commissioned as an Ensign in the Earth Federation, is given his first mission under the supervision of his father. This first mission is to survey the planet Milocinia, where a mysterious energy field appears. Once they arrive, they find an alien ruin, filled with mostly broken machinery. Finding a mysterious device in the center of it, Claude begins to examine it close-up, despite orders to keep away from it. Upon getting close to it, the machine activates, teleporting him to Expel.
At approximately the same time, Rena is resting in a forest just outside her village, Arlia. While there, she is assaulted by a monster. Suddenly, Claude teleports into the area, and, seeing Rena being attacked, rushes in to save her, wielding an advanced energy weapon (the Phase Gun that his father gave to him). Upon seeing how she is rescued, Rena decides that Claude is the Hero of Light, spoken of in legends on Expel: he has arrived to an Expel in great danger, he wields a "Sword of Light" and is dressed in "alien raiments." She takes him back to her village, Arlia, for corroboration.
Soon afterwards, the town elder explains to Claude what exactly is going on: Three months ago, a meteorite crashed into Expel. Almost immediately afterwards, monsters began appearing, and natural disasters occurred with increasing frequency and intensity. Believing that these events were related, the people of Expel called the meteorite the "Sorcery Globe". Hoping that the Sorcery Globe may be the key to finding his way home, Claude agrees to investigate it. Rena, still believing that Claude is the Hero of Light, joins up with Claude in the investigation.
Their journey takes them across all three continents of Expel, and eventually they meet the ten wise men and are somehow transported to Energy Nede.
One of the things about the game that was hyped were its multiple endings. The exact number is often said to be 87, though it's really 86 with two having minor differences. There is one ending for each character alone and one for each possible pair of characters. If two characters could be recruited together, they can have an ending together. For example, an ending involving Bowman and Precis does not exist as you cannot have both recruited. There are also secret endings involving characters outside of the party. This adds a certain element of replay value to the game; to see all the character endings, it would be necessary to play through the game nine times or more and would require a vast amount of time and effort since the game is quite long not to mention taking the time to get the characters paired up correctly.
Blue Sphere
Taking place 2 years after Star Ocean: The Second Story and the defeat of the 10 Wise Men, all the characters have since moved on with their lives. Claude has taken Rena, Leon, and Precis to live on Earth with him. Ashton, Celine, Dias, Noel, Chisato, and Bowman still live on Planet Expel. Ernest and Opera are treasure hunting when their ship crash lands on Planet Edifice. Opera manages to send out an S.O.S. to Precis, who then rounds up the entire gang (sans Claude and Rena, who are on a Federation mission) in her self-built ship and heads to the planet. They are also mysteriously pulled down through the planet's atmosphere and crash-land. They decide to explore their surroundings and search for their missing comrades, hoping that Claude and Rena will rescue them, but they too crash-land on Edifice later on in the game.
Star Ocean; Til the End of Time
The universe of Star Ocean is science fiction in nature, although like the first two games in the series, much of the plot is set on an "underdeveloped planet." It features a galaxy-spanning government in the Pangalactic Federation, several races and species of aliens, different factions, multiple colonized planets, and advanced technology. But despite this science fiction atmosphere, a form of magic exists in the universe: symbology, also translated as heraldry in the Japanese version and in Star Ocean: The Second Story. Standard symbology involves tattooing crests and runes onto one's flesh to draw out apparently latent power in the form of spells, and numerous underdeveloped planets make extensive use of it. Despite its supernatural connotations, Symbology is treated a legitimate field of scientific study in-universe.
Star Ocean 3 features an in-game encyclopedia. Whenever a new word appears in a color different from the standard text, a detailed entry is added to the encyclopedia. It offers definitions and backgrounds for the different races, people, places, and other general terms. The encyclopedia also includes many of the scientific concepts that are introduced in the game, though the majority are only science fiction.
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time begins on the planet Hyda IV where a young man, Fayt Leingod, and his childhood friend, Sophia Esteed, are on vacation with Fayt's family. Fayt is son of a famous scientist in the field of symbological genetics. For an unknown reason, the Vendeen Empire — an alien civilization with highly advanced technology that spans only a single planet — attacks Hyda IV unprovoked, thus initiating a war with the Pangalactic Federation. Fayt and Sophia escape on the starship Helre, but are separated from Fayt's parents, Robert and Ryoko Leingod. The Helre is also attacked by the Vendeeni, and the two are separated.
Fayt's escape pod lands on the "underdeveloped planet" Vanguard III, a planet with technology equivalent to 16th Century Earth, and discovers an off-world criminal, the exiled Rezerbian Norton, plotting to take it over. Cliff Fittir, a member of the anti-Federation organization Quark, then lands and helps Fayt defeat this criminal. Fayt learns that Quark's leader wishes to speak to him and plans on rescuing his father, though Cliff does not reveal the reason behind this interest. After getting off the planet with Cliff and meeting his assistant Mirage, the Vendeeni again attack them — but they escape and crash-land on another underdeveloped world, Elicoor II. Elicoor seems to be around 17th Century Earth in terms of technological advancement. Fayt, Cliff, and Mirage crash-land into the capital of the Kingdom of Airyglyph, who believe that their ship is a weapon developed by the country they are at war with, Aquaria. Fayt and Cliff are imprisoned as a result (Mirage escapes), though they are soon rescued by an assassin-like agent, Nel Zelpher, who believes they are engineers from the technologically advanced continent of Greeton. She rescues them under the condition that they aid her country, Aquaria, with their technological knowledge. This leads the two directly into the war between the two kingdoms and eventually into a great final battle between them. Then a new — at least to the Elicoorians — foe appears in the skies above, a Vendeeni battleship that has found their quarry. However, Fayt destroys the battleship with a previously unknown power of his, though another battleship remains in orbit. During the distraction, the leader of Quark, Maria Traydor, manages to arrive on Elicoor. It seems that both Quark and the Vendeeni knew of Fayt's unusual abilities, and he had been their target the whole time. The party vies with the Vendeeni over control of an unusual "out of place artifact" and Fayt's father, who is killed before Maria can finish interrogating him over his "crimes."
Fayt finds himself space-borne once more, and the galaxy has not stood still. Shortly after the apparently unprovoked attack on Hyda IV, a threat of staggering magnitude emerges in the form of ultra-powerful space-borne beings calling themselves "Executioners." The best ships of the Federation and the Vendeeni are nearly powerless against these new beings, and are quickly being forced into full retreat. The party, acting on a hint from Fayt's father, venture to the Moonbase research station, and Fayt is reunited with Sophia. While on the station, they are confronted by an angelic-looking Executioner that calls itself Proclaimer. It launches itself to attack, telling them that they must be destroyed.
Investigation of the Moonbase records reveals the truth behind the Executioners and their appearance. During the charting of a planet called Styx, explorers encountered an extremely advanced and extremely old Time Gate. When activated, it informed them that their forays into the field of symbological genetics had angered the Creator, and that they were to be destroyed. Even if they were to abandon symbological genetics, the reins would be taken up by another soon enough, and that they were not being warned — they were being sentenced.
The explorers beat a hasty retreat and informed the Federation of what they had found. Studies soon suggested that the statement came from another plane of existence; an entirely new universe. Further study revealed that symbology might be used to access this universe. The scientists agreed to use their own offspring; the subjects were Fayt Leingod, Sophia Esteed, and Maria Traydor. Fayt was the son of Robert and Ryoko Leingod, while Sophia was the daughter of Clive Esteed. Maria was an orphan who was later adopted by the fourth member of the team, Jessie Traydor. The three were symbologically altered in such a way that if they worked together, they could gain entry through the Time Gate. Maria was given the power of Alteration, which would allow her and those with her to remain in physical forms in the new world. Fayt was given the power of Destruction, as it was assumed they would need to physically defend themselves. Two years later, the younger Sophia was given the power of Connection - the key ability needed to make contact with 4D space. (This process of creating humans with inherent symbological power is quite similar to Nede's creation of the Ten Wise Men in Star Ocean: The Second Story, though apparently that did not draw down the wrath of the Executioners.) The Vendeeni had been attacking in hopes of handing over Fayt to the Executioners and staying their wrath.
The party goes to Styx and finds the area flooded with Executioners. Escaping their ship in a small shuttle, they witness the mysterious beings and their awesome might first-hand as the Federation battleship Aquaelie which had escorted them is destroyed. Reaching the Time Gate, the party enters "4D space," a dimension higher than their own. According to the 4D beings, their universe is actually not real in relation to 4D space; rather, it is a computer simulation developed by Luther Lansfeld, the owner of the Sphere Company. Dubbed the "Eternal Sphere", it is similar to a real-world massively multiplayer online role-playing game for the 4D inhabitants. This plot twist is hotly controversial.
Fayt and his allies learn that the Executioners are anti-viruses sent to delete anomalies in the Milky Way section of the Eternal Sphere. With the help of Blair Lansfeld, programmer and sister to Luther, the party manages to find Luther. Blair and the group believe that the residents of the Eternal Sphere have managed to achieve a level of intelligence equal to that of 4D citizens; Luther, however, considers them "mere data." Luther then decides that the only way to delete them is to delete the entire universe (apparently ignoring that he is currently in the Eternal Sphere). The party fights and stops him, but fails to stop the deletion.
However, the world is not destroyed for not entirely clear reasons. Blair mentions an "Eternal Sphere backup" earlier, but there's no evidence that was applied. The characters decide that even if they really are just programs, they have achieved "consciousness" and therefore cannot be deleted. Alternately, others suggest something to do with Maria's power of Alteration has something to do with it.
The ending slightly changes based on the "affection level" of the other characters for Fayt, derived from the player's choices during the game and in Private Actions. Fayt has an ending for each character if that character has the highest affection level, as well as an "alone" ending if no one sufficiently likes Fayt.