[Coldsaturn]

Which is interesting! Because if I have to think about the LIs in terms of main-story presence, Xavier is high up there with the co-worker excuse he pops out quite frequently; he's followed by Zayne; then Raf who turns up only three times; Sylus was near the bottom before the latest main story update, and of course Caleb but he's the latest addition to the game so it's understandable (he still got an entire section dedicated to him, like Sylus, whereas the other LIs are sharing space and only once got the individual spotlight).

Then on top of presence you have how much you get of their backstory from the main chapters, as you said. Xavier again on top, he gives you lots of puzzle pieces to work with. Zayne, too, especially with Death&Rebirth but also just with the story coming before that (you know about his research, connections to Dr.Noah - Ever - and Xander Sciences - again Ever - the suspicious promise to MC's grandma, his problems with controlling evol, his nightmares). Sylus doesn't have a lot of info outside of his trope - hot mafia boss - but that is also corrected with Death&Rebirth. Caleb was the one written in the most efficient way, imo. Homecoming Wings is packed FULL of plot and backstory for him. And then you get Raf... I swear I'm not trying to be biased but the player learns very little about him from just the Main story lol A mention of him possibly killing at least one person (but if you don't read his anecdotes and other texts you might just miss it or think it's a coincidence), canon info that he's a merman and that he does shady deals at the Nest. The end. Everything else is in cards and Bonds, which means you either pay for him or you already main him enough to unlock those bonds.

Yeah, the price is truly something. I was looking at a few reddit posts earlier, and stumbled upon this one counting how much it would cost to main 1 LI or more in a year. This game is no joke. But I'm also a the sims player, and that's even more pain lol.

re: Xav
"trying to keep the status quo going or set it up so that the status quo happens"
That's something I come back to time and time again. Whether intentional or not, I think the time travel fucked everyone over big time. I wouldn't be surprised if Ever was founded by some of the backtrackers so they would ensure their own existence in the future. The only issue is that as of now they don't look like people who already have a clear goal in mind and are just waiting for technology to catch up so they can do what they want to do. They discover, they experiment, they fail and try again. But they get insider info from the future thanks to the backtracker/s who defected, that's for sure.

re: Sylus
No it comes from the Timelock event that accompanied Death&Rebirth. You were collecting the background images, and unless you were getting them from the internet you went through the text that accompanied each image. In case I misunderstood and you actually didn't read the text that accompanied them, the relevant part is just the first image for Sylus: "Ruins groan in the wind, and screams tear through the silence. A long journey reaches a new destination. He arrives at the most inopportune moment. Buildings collapse and order crumbles, yet this brings him a newfound pleasure."
The inopportune moment is, of course, the Chronorift. The background image of the building crumbling upward toward the hole in the sky is the drawn version of what is played during the cutscene of the chronorift.