[ChicletPrime]

Chapter 2: Above The Clouds

• okay, so we're on Skyhaven's highest point and the saboteur(?) is on the tarmac with a detonator in his hand. dead man's switch i'm guessing, since they say the sniper hasn't taken the shot.
  
• ah, not the saboteur on the ship, the suspect from the playground bombing. why did he run to the highest point of Skyhaven where the ships obviously dock and how does bombing a playground translate into stirring up anger towards 'the new Colonel'?
  
• i don't mind saying at this point that the main plot of this section is really thread thin; maybe its a translation issue? maybe also its because i don't equate 'fleet' with 'police'.  Caleb is commanding spaceships, not the military police units who are obviously doing a terrible job of keeping the high end ordinance under lock and key.
  
• "The Fleet forced me!"  what?  awright girlfriend, we had the exactly same quizzical moment!
  
• oh. you can be driven mad by spending too much time in the Deepspace Tunnel? that's interesting to know. although that could be anything from the Call of Cthulu all the way down to cabin fever and lack of decent entertainment options on long voyages.
  
• yay, that has to be Caleb's ship coming down!
  
• thas my new boyfriend. isn't he fine?
  
• all that detail on his sleeves must drive the cosplayers nuts
  
• okay, 'Joseph' was/is a pilot chosen for a (upcoming?) year long mission into the Tunnel, with a proven track record. But... his wife and child died in the 'Fleet's brig'? what the fuck? "believing you revealed the Fleet's secrets during your mission, you (??) put your family under house arrest. they died as a result."
  
• i guess the writers meant to imply that Joseph's suspected actions had his family held hostage and they didn't survive. 
  
• this begs the question of what Fleet secrets a man could tell on a mission in the middle of a wormhole, and to who.
  
• well, that sheds a different light on the residential explosion i guess - just a random act of violence out of rage and anger? you killed my family, i'll kill some other family because... ? 
  
• "You know why!"  this guy sounds unhinged and/or on the verge of changing into a Wanderer. At least Caleb knows why! i am going to have to wait four episodes to find out, aren't i?
  
• excellent, even the girlfriend notes that Joseph does not sound right, like his vocal cords are wrecked.
  
• Caleb disagrees ambiguously. whatever 'why' Joseph has isn't flying with Caleb.
  
• wow okay. so buddy comes back from the first mission all fucked up from radiation exposure in the Tunnel which messed with his memories (note: i doubt its actually radiation - the word was 'severely' affected), gets a medical prescription for it but then ups his dosage beyond the recommended. the medication is "Cybezin" and its a psychotropic (definitely not radiation then)
  
• my brain is trying to weld legos together. if long term exposure to the Tunnel fucks with your memories...
  
• anyways, moving on
  
• oh. so Caleb says that because of the overdose of meds, this guy went crazy and killed his own family and then made up a story to himself to avoid facing it.
  
• that probably happened! because he's well on his way to changing his state of reality. 
  
• /popcorn, swivels back to Joseph
  
• mind control chip? well... we ARE talking Ever, here.
  
• INCOMING PROTOFIELD!
  
• oh shit, that's not a *protofield*. holy fucking fuck, Caleb just created a black hole? out of nothing?
  
• I Am Stunned™
  
• aaaand lockdown commencing, still need to find the traitor. adkjafdkahfh
  
• muahah! girlfriend is convinced the Colonel just KNOWS she's infiltrated somehow and is in a panic of near discovery.
  
• oh shit, he really does? i am flattened!
  
• this is a very cool visual!  /screenshot
  
• flashback! this is a lovely old house, sounds of rain, thunder. Caleb trying to keep me home.
  
• the footsteps that got closer and closer behind me in the headphones.  /chef's kiss
  

okay. huh. wow even.  let's recap - i must have misunderstood the previous chapter's revelation of a traitor, i thought it was a saboteur on the ship but actually, somehow Caleb knew that I'd taken over somebody else's identity on the ground and turned his ship around? i think?

/actually goes back and replays that segment in the previous.

nope, it read it right the first time, there was/is a an actual traitor on the ship itself that nearly "sank" them in Deepspace. although playing it again, the person giving the report does say "..maybe our navigation was off."  boy, doesn't THAT sound familiar.  Target Anchor Lost, mebbe?

so if there's a ship traitor to be found still, how the fuck did Caleb just single me out of the crowd like that?

/excitement

[ChicletPrime]

/checks clock - yeah, i can do the next chapter before i gotta jet

3, Empathic Interrogation

• i am restrained on a chair, black walls, little red lights everywhere. Morticia Addams would be quietly approving.
  
• ah, one way glass it is.
  
• the best defense is an overwhelming offense. how about *i* ask the questions?
  
• "i am a small fish" - not according to Rafayel! i am definitely a medium sized fish with delusions of grandeur, and he would know.
  
• what IS the punishment for impersonating an officer? well, a rookie officer.
  
• eeee, he's coming in to interrogate in person! is my hair okay? did my makeup smudge?
  
• does he even recognize me? does he know who i am? who he is?
  
• i can't tell if that's a tie clip or another choke collar.
  
• "how can a stranger look so similar to Caleb?"   oh dear.  "sir, have we met before?"
  
• "You're wrong."  Caleb, are you scrubbed or playing a long game?
  
• LONG GAME
  
• his eyes are so beautiful. well, they all are, honestly.
  
• "an interrogation.. and a thorough inspection."  wooo! i mean, ah. oh noes. please don't. i promise to be ever so good.
  
• oh, he lifted the necklace charms out from under my collar.  yes, i'm still wearing them. did you think i wouldn't?
  
• and he tucks it back. awww.
  
• augghhhh! CHOKE COLLAR! noooooo
  
• what the... "mood tracker"?  so now everybody is going to know i'm feeling depressed when it dulls to a murky green?
  
• oh, oh okay. the cameras scan your eyes and face to send data. it then measures your 'emotional stability' or, in other words, when you're lying. that has to be what Caleb is wearing as well.
  
• eeeee! whispers: "be obedient and it will be over before you know it."
  
• CALEB!
  
• please don't be double crossing me, please don't be double crossing me...
  
• aaaand i get threatened with a very thin.. stick? baton? RIDING CROP!?
  
• oh, so.. confess that i'm here about the aether core? how does HE know about the aether core?
  
• riding crop baton thingie under the chin...  this is great. sorry girlfriend, you really need to play along better than this. and that crop baton thingie has a chunk of machinery on it, so... more data collection?
  
• oh, the N109 zone, hey? yeah, there was a core there too, but i dunno what happened to it. could have been anything really. a crow ate it?
  
• wow, somebody is really keeping tabs on me in particular. they know i disappeared into the zone, didn't check in anywhere and wasn't punished on my return.
  
• okay, i take it back. this VA is working fine for me.
  
• Fleet > World Evol Government. we're in Skyhaven baybeee and the cameras are watching
  
• "your survival and your chance to leave this place alive depend on your honesty and willingness to follow my orders."
  
• that is... that is a remarkable sentence. i am in AWE of that sentence.
  
• aaaand the little crop trails dowwwwn her chin, her throat, her collar...
  
• i also love that the "name" that is normally there to indicate who's speaking is still just "??"
  
• "i will ask... again."  so, sooo soft a delivery.
  
• finally enough light on his throat to confirm that yes, that's not a tie clip, that's also something going around his neck that you can barely see. Ever really has a kink for that.
  
• Is he really Caleb?  
  
• he has really elevated the art of deception into a class of its own, it seems. i deeply approve of this. its like every sentence he's uttering is an over/under layer.
  
• we, on the other hand, are goddamned terrible at it.  whyyyy did we lie? although i guess you have to test the boundaries as soon as possible.  always fall off a cliff into the water in any MMO as soon as you can to check for fall damage and drowning mechanics.
  
• yeah, the baton stick with its little monitoring thing is now blank. good? bad? did Caleb crush its little parts inside?
  
• ooookay? i passed the test? but i lied through my teeth!
  
• WHAT THE HELL?
  
• Hiiiii Caleb! not to complain or anything because i am very grateful to be out of the restraints, but you are touching my hair and your voice has changed and no, i didn't fucking forget you! yes, i am surprised!
  
• "Did I scare  you?"  DUDE.
  
• i like this interrogation a lot better now!  but bloody hell, are we no longer under surveillance or... ?!
  
• that was the BEST HUG EVER
  

[ChicletPrime]

Chapter 4: Gentle Gaze

• Is this the chapter where me and Caleb escape from Ever's clutches and fly free?
  
• (i only just found the guy and already i want to run away into the future with him)
  
• okay. alright. INTERESTING. and here i was just wondering if our very convenient amnesia had something to do with the girlfriend being in the Deepspace Tunnel or something, and -- when "Grandma" took us home for the first time, I didn't know who Caleb was, and he says "It's okay if you've forgotten. I'll remind you."
  
• so Caleb was definitely part of my tragic and unknown past.
  
• and we're now being patched up in a med bay. and i'm still not sure if this is really Caleb or not.
  
• honestly, if we were playing any other type of game, i would be infinitely more suspicious too. this is just slightly too clean.
  
• of COURSE i can't believe you're back, THERE WAS A FIREBALL WHERE YOU WERE STANDING
  
• also, really despising that choke collar he's got. now that i see it, i just stare at it all the time. good thing i don't have gravity evol, or i would be trying to mangle it and we all know my control isn't that great.
  
• this guy has been telling me he'll always be by my side since i was a child in arms.
  
• he doesn't remember what happened after the explosion? "when i woke up, i assumed it was connected to the aether core" and "i just 'knew'. that's all."
  
• Caleb, i know you promised me that you'd never lie to me, but i have a feeling you're holding about fifteen things back here.
  
• "if i didn't join the Fleet, i would've been 'abandoned'. i couldn't contact you - i can't bear to imagine you being put through that pain again."  i do not in the least understand that. hopefully the girlfriend is equally confused. why the hell didn't he contact us once he recovered and how did he end up in the Fleet and promoted to the position he has now in so short a relative time?
  
• hang on hang on.  'abandoned' as in... pushed into the Tunnel and lost, only this time deliberately?  did Ever snatch him and give him the worst ultimatum possible?  join, or be lost? join, say nothing to anyone so if you can't get back a second time, nobody will grieve a second time?" and i just read that first Anecdote, he knows exactly what being lost in the Deepspace would entail.
  
• well, apparently i'm not going to press him for a better explanation. i am written as an emotional marshmellow a lot of the time, aren't i?
  
• oh. Grandma definitely didn't make it, but it sounds like he made sure i was okay.
  
• interesting comment Caleb makes about somebody else: "Come back to me when the bauble around his neck grows a brain."  so they're all in control collars, as if that is at all surprising.
  
• oh boy! i have been voluntold to go live in his quarters. traitor schmaitor to the fleet, no probs.
  
• New Cover Identity Acquired: New Adjutant To The Colonel.
  
• i hope i get a miniskirt for a uniform. and access to that command chair. and maybe the thin baton thing.
  
• in a more serious note, i hope this doesn't backfire spectacularly on both of us. i still don't get what happened to the surveillance we were under, since apparently we aren't under it anymore. unless we fucking ARE and Caleb's playing me. crap, Caleb's playing me, isn't he?
  
• whowhatsits about his armband? does it signify something special? or just.. i guess just a rank symbol and because he is the rank he is, he's already proven he could give a shit about anything else because of the bodies he's already stepped over.
  
• i may be a fool, but i am a fool in love.  curled up in the cockpit of his personal aircraft, i tell him eeeeeverything that happened since i lost him.  i am hopefully not so much a fool that i tell him about Sylus, the N109 and my own personal aether core.
  
•  /facepalm
  
• girlfriend, he has a collar around his throat and a demonstrated ability to lie cleverly and easily under extreme duress. WHY did you tell him about your aether core?
  
• "Caleb, the one who's pulling the strings is Ever," she says miserably to the guy who's wearing the mechanical eye on his left breast.  for all we know, it's tattooed on the flesh underneath along with a manufacturing date and serial number.
  
• At Caleb's Place: gee, sis, how about you call in to work and ask for more holidays? we could totes get caught up with each other!  also, fingerprint access, you can come and go as you please. (although this is on a floating island so no way off except by plane, everything is dusty like nobody lives here and the decor is bland and inoffensive.. like nobody lives here).
  
• apparently i am THAT sort of New Adjutant To The Colonel, the one that has home access, the miniskirt, the uniform and the baton.
  
• point of interest:  he's in his regular clothes now and no collar. maybe its just when he's wearing the uniform?
  
• i am such a dork for this guy - by all means, lets jump on him piggyback style so we can head to the kitchen for a homecooked meal of my five favorite dinners.
  
• also: very tin foil hat, but the shirt he's wearing has detailing that looks like he's wearing cloth handcuffs.
  
• niiiiice. apparently the bedroom i picked out to stay in is HIS bedroom.
  
• /stares off into the distance as four fanfics at once struggle to write themselves in the air.
  

is it my imagination or are these chapters fairly long? maybe its just because i'm stopping to think every four seconds.

i'm going to go check out the translations for up to this point.

[Coldsaturn]

Yeah, the outer conflict in this section can feel pretty thin. You have to buy into the fact that the Fleet is not only part of the military, but also the ones who run things in Skyhaven.

- "believing you revealed the Fleet's secrets during your mission, you (??) put your family under house arrest. they died as a result."
The man is obviously paranoid. You have the man on one side saying that the Fleet basically brainwashed him and in order to save his family from the same fate, he tried to keep them away from the Fleet's influence by closing them up. Caleb is giving a complete different narration: the man went mad because of the deepspace tunnel and he killed his family himself.

- Caleb just created a black hole?
I LOOOOOVE that they use some of the LIs' evols to their full extent. The man controls gravity, why shouldn't he be able to create a little black hole?

- how the fuck did Caleb just single me out of the crowd like that?
I mean. He could have recognized her outright.

- "they know i disappeared into the zone"
This created a meme for players reaching this point of the plot.
"Our intel suggests you were in the N109 zone"
/flashback to Sylus pinning her on his bed when she was stealing his brooch
"Wrong. The N109 zone was in me"

- The hug is so good in the chinese version too! MC's VA sounded amazing there.

- why the hell didn't he contact us once he recovered and how did he end up in the Fleet and promoted to the position he has now in so short a relative time?
Well, if you push aside all the very legitimate reasons he couldn't contact us and was absolutely committed to not do that every again in his life, there's also the fact that now that he's part of the Fleet he could really die at any moment during his missions. So it would be extremely cruel to make MC go through grief only to come back and then die for realses later on.

- i am written as an emotional marshmellow a lot of the time, aren't i?
Her inability to press for answers is possibly the most immersion-breaking part of the game. I can literally feel the writers breathing down my neck like "we have to make this plot last at least other 2 years"
My personal headcanon is that she can't deal with overly dramatic men and just decides she doesn't get paid enough for that.

The chapters do get progressively longer, yeah. Death and Rebirth is like 5 hours.

I hope you checked the translations on youtube, they even put comments when they say things that have a double meaning, it's very thorough. And Caleb in its original and pure form is truly something magical. I'm fond of eng Caleb but the original script hits a dramatic amount of favorite tropes I have in fiction.

[ChicletPrime]

i see what you mean about the chinese VA - that was butter smooth and while i understood nothing natively, that was very well voiced indeed. the cadence! the little hesitations! eeeee.

the plot made 100% more sense in the subtitles in that video than it did with whoever is in charge of the english localisation, i mean, its still fairly thin but it hung together better and i was able to follow along with the internal logic better, whereas in english there were gaps of understanding you just had to take on faith and leap across. why is it that fan content is so often superior to the official product, i wonder. particularly in localization efforts.

and yes, Caleb could have singled her out in the crowd but maybe it was just one of those gap problems i was having. all the leadup to that point had a "ship" traitor and the "explosion" traitor and then suddenly i get hauled out of the rank and file with no indication of why. like, if they'd had a sentence in there where Caleb half-paused walking up, eyes raking over the gathered forces, some acknowledgement that i might have been spotted? sorry, my brain does get hung up on things that aren't foreshadowed well or at all. i am, perhaps, starting to get greedy for better writing :P

Well, if you push aside all the very legitimate reasons he couldn't contact us....

it has to be something so obvious it ought to be a fish slapped to my face. the house blows up out of nowhere, taking my brother and grandmother to an early grave. Caleb, unbeknownst to me, is NOT dead and wakes up "somewhere else" - and doesn't immediately try to get ahold of me. rational me, after thinking about it, figures out that Caleb likely woke up under sedation and/or restraints and was immediately pressed into service after brainwashing or whatever, but THIS Colonel Caleb has a lousy excuse of "well, i just don't remember what happened" and skips over really ANY sort of explanation, and girlfriend just appears to accept it. it's like Rafayel wearing a domino mask as a disguise - its so inadequate as to be nose-pinch worthy.

i guess if they had her introspect that maybe there's something going on that's more than meets the eye and decides not to pursue it right then and there, that'd be something. like, she HAS to know something ain't right, right? the Caleb she knows would have pulled out his IV's and crawled to get to phone to check on her from his recovery bed and the fact that he didn't should be this big, jarring moment and its just a souffle pulled too soon from the oven.

/i am so critical of a plot of an otome game, its awesome

PS: "Wrong, the N109 was in me." - bwahahah! oh god. that made me grin out loud, PERFECTION

[Coldsaturn]

No I completely agree with you! I feel the same kind of frustration with the writing. Especially because at times it's so good, and then it fails spectacularly on things that should be basic.
In a way it's a testament to how much potential the story has, because we wouldn't give a damn if the plot didn't make sense at all. It's when it doesn't meet the standard it already proved in the past that it makes people pop a vein or two.
Then there's also the matter of the different writing teams for the different LIs, and some of them deliver more than others with regular consistency.
Let's say that Caleb's branch will make sense on the whole, and will also be compelling in terms of conflicts and plot twists. They had problems setting it up, but once the ball is going we'll be mostly fine.

About MC and her occasionally very stupid decisions... it really helps me that I don't self insert, some fans go through the 5 stages of grief t every update and card because of the things she does and says.
I find my peace thinking that she really is like a totally different person with each LI (it will get to the point where in text messages she will say to one LI "please, I'd never do X" and then X is exactly what she'll happily do with another LI lol), and based on the situation she is smarter or more mature or more grounded with some partners than others.
With Caleb she is the little sister who's always been overprotected by her big bro and now she's finally standing on her own but is still on the threshold of proper adulthood. This too is easier to see in the Chinese version, the dialogues are leaning toward that dynamic so much that I would never guess that's the same woman who negotiated with sylus and almost killed him several times.

Some fans change hairstyle (sometimes even face) between one LI and the next and tbh I'm almost tempted to do the same, just to further help myself distinguish between all her different personalities.

BTW those legitimate reasons Caleb couldn't contact us haven't been revealed yet, so you didn't miss anything from the main story till now! Those are some very good theories though. I'd be thinking the same in your place.

[ChicletPrime]

Chapter 5: Visitation

• alright, scene opens on another part of Caleb's living room with an open concept kitchen to the right and this author notes there are apples in a bowl on the counter.  that's a nice little touch. weather outside is windy with rain.
  
• i really need Sylus to be lurking in a nearby bedroom or something - girlfriend can't put two thoughts together.
  
• i do like that one of the options is to immediately tell Caleb to open my can of soda. c'mon gege, heeeelp meeee.
  
• Inappropriate Use Of Evol
  
• ah. fear of thunder since it sounds like a roaring Wanderer.
  
• memories of hide and seek: "we probably have a telepathic connection."
  
• another fanfic struggles to be born, weak and malformed
  
• okay, so the kids that got blown up by Joseph's bomb are twins, Kevi (missing) and Mia (hospital).
  
• oh shit.
  
• oh crap, is that what's going on? Ever staged another random act of violence using one of their experimental patsies, already 70% on the way to completely breaking down as a Wanderer, took out the likely-to-object parents and snatched the telepathic kids? oh god damn it, that makes so much horrible sense.
  
• i... i don't know if i can trust you, Caleb. love and trust are not synonyms.
  
• "his sister must be worried sick about him right now. she probably wants to be with Kevi again."  well, don't say it right out loud like that, girlfriend! so far, Caleb has definitely shown more presence of mind than you have, he's gonna figure you out.
  
• well, how about that. Caleb relents and as long as i 'take care of myself' i can continue to investigate. even against the Fleet's direct orders of non-interference? and, i don't know, does the Colonel have a different opinion on this?
  
• "after everything draws to a close... can you come home with me?"  oh. oh, sweetheart. i don't think that's at all in the cards for your pilot.
  
• NEXT AM: a hearty breakfast, a chipper little voicemail and off to the hospital we go.
  
• oops, no bueno, no visitors, very unstable little girl in critical care.
  
• ZAYNE!?
  
• why am i startled. he's a specialist doctor, this is a hospital... still. Dr Zayne, HOW ARE YOU!
  
• storylines, nearly touching, brushing past each other like ghosts.
  
• great, just great. Mia wants to know if her brother is dead, because she can't find him and she always finds him.
  
• telepathy busted or blocked, it seems.
  
• "your brother wouldn't just leave you. he probably got into a bit of trouble."  OH THE PARALLELS
  
• i think the kid just slipped me a 'help me i'm being kidnapped' note in a dog plushie.
  

[ChicletPrime]

Chapter 6: Veiled Sanctuary

• i am so sorry, but Zayne is so handsome. the only grown up among us, if you discount that Sylus was probably never a child.
  
• yup, it does feel an awful lot like what happened to you and yes, i also bet that Ever is behind it.
  
• okay, so Zayne feels that something isn't right in Hospital Land (subtext: be careful, Dorothy). The Fleet is too omnipresent for an agency devoted to Deepspace exploration and almost nobody has seen their actual ships.
  
• Operation: Find The Boy Child.  Mission: Wonder If Dog Plushie Knows More Than Its Saying
  
• ah, the dog plushie is also a recorder.  and Kevi might be hiding in 'the secret base'.
  
• Zayne, i love you so much. you are the greatest deadpan delivery ever.
  
• oooh, flirtation! in the main story! LOVE IT. lean in a little closer, Dr Zayne, i bet you smell lovely.
  
• Meanwhile, The Explosion Site:  woah!
  
• holy shit, little mini... portal thingie. Kevi, can you open little wormholes?!
  
• THE PARALLELS ARE KILLING ME
  
• oh, kid! what is on your face.. oh no. oh no, please don't tell me that's crystal breaking through his skin.
  
• /closes eyes in pain  "Granulated crystals seem to be growing around his eye sockets, almost engulfing his whole face."
  
• yup, just like the N109 and in Chansia when we were trapped in the overlapping reality
  
• eh? "I touch the crystals on his face. A sharp pain shoots through my palm, but the growth stops."
  
• oh, kid. you have a protocore fragment. and i am going to bet money i am saving for Xavier's next spicy myth that its from the Spatium aether core. he's warping realities just like the betacurve Wanderer was doing.
  
• ah. so the fragment was something left behind by mom and dad. Ever researchers? or Fleet? maybe those are nearly equal statements.
  
• oh, so mom and dad abandoned the kids?? left the fragment to Kevi and told him to take care of his sister and to hide using it?
  
• you are terrible parents. i am just going to say that out loud right now. just godawful parents.
  
• "people were looking for me and they were dressed like mom and dad".  yeah, that really isn't good from any perspective. at least mom and dad told the kid not to trust the other people in the same uniform. maybe they stole the fragment from the labs and thought they wouldn't get caught?
  
• oh, MAN.  the crystals on Kevi's face are *black*.
  
• Oh, Zayne.
  
• girlfriend, this is a terrible plan. admittedly the kid has held out for a couple of weeks on his own.
  

the plot is starting to look grim.

[Coldsaturn]

Didn't know where to put this info, but there's a new redeem code valid till the 31st you can use to get some nice rewards!
20250528GIFT

As a reminder, to redeem the code go to your profile, then Settings (the gear icon), then More, then Redeem Code

---

- Those damn apples and Caleb, they were also in his official trailer.
Something something temptation, something something Adam and Eve but who's being tempted between the two?

- "That makes so much horrible sense"
You can say what you want about ever, but they get shit done!

- Zayne is everywhere lol
It might not have seemed like that at first but the more I play the more I expect him to pop out of everywhere and anywhere. He's an esteemed heart surgeon but he gets called for anything revolving protocore syndrome, which means he gets called all the time across the map

- Forever mourning that family dinner with grandma, MC, Caleb, and Zayne that never happened. We were robbed.

- "the only grown up among us, if you discount that Sylus was probably never a child"
Should we discount that, though? Technically Sylus should be a year older than Zayne, if I remember correctly

- "the plot is starting to look grim"
A very recurrent thing in this game, I fear lol

[ChicletPrime]

i feel like i have about 80% of the major pieces, maybe even a little more than that and what I'm missing is a few critical linkages. Right now the overall shape of things is pretty clear but seriously missing the answers to "why", which is the best part.

- What was Traceback I's mission?
- What was Traceback II's mission?
- Is Ever working for or against whatever I or II was trying to accomplish?

And maybe most importantly, why are the main cast so wrapped up in each other, to the point of reincarnation? It feels like its all this jigsaw puzzle for where each of the boyfriends fit into the girlfriend (ooh la la) and it seems to have everything to do with how she enhances them, but also this really huge theme of loss and devotion? like, are they all following the trail of fate or attempting to deny it?

There are still a thousand other questions of course, but it all seems to be wrapped up overall with the crew of both Traceback missions, and we don't know (yet?) what they were actually trying to do.