[ChicletPrime]

I'm still working through the CN translations of the last couple of episodes, but one thing that REALLY stood out so far is that, in the Professor's garden, when Caleb walks in and starts questioning and being questioned, the translation says:

"The plan will be starting again. You must ensure she doesn't interfere with it. Otherwise I won't be able to help you keep this a secret for much longer."

vs the english we got:

"Otherwise I won't be able to keep this a secret for much longer."

that's only a couple of words difference but that is a LOT of difference.

EDIT: fucking hell. is THAT why Caleb wanted to be a (fighter) pilot? so that he could take us into the stars, take us back home? is that the nature of Caleb's deal with the Fleet? he uses his evol to help their 'master plan' and return, he gets to take us away without interference?

EDIT EDIT: my past theories were great! you know it, i know it... :P

[Coldsaturn]

Needless to say, the Chinese translation is the one that actually reflects canon.
Caleb being a pilot and wanting to explore the universe with us to take us back home but also to simply elope is also canon.

Your past theories deserve a spin-off canon-divergent fanfic.

---

- they are weirdly stressing the 2300 light years away
Either they're really trying to make you understand that we're looking at the future, or that specific supernova will be relevant. There's a nice fan-theory on what specific explosion they're witnessing, but you need Caleb's limited myth for the context.

- is there something in the Tunnel that needs guns?
I mean, wanderers came through the Tunnel. Back in the N109 zone a wanderer literally descended from the tunnel in the form of a final boss. Who knows what else is in there.

- The people around us look toward the sky, but his gaze remains fixed on me.
That is my favorite shit right there, yessir!

-cleanup. the test subjects for Ever's experimentation
Yuuuuuuup.

-They're practically indistinguishable from Wanderers now.
I love the ethical implications of that. They're "practically" wanderers. They're "on the brink" of transformation but haven't transformed yet. Where do human rights end? At which point of the process do you start seeing them as monsters?

- "The rain stops, and the smoke from guns and crystal particles appear to be suspended in time."
/fans self
Of course if you control gravity, you can bend the spacetime continuum, which means you can technically twist the flow of time like in a black hole. I LOVE his evol.

[ChicletPrime]

I'll be pedantic and say that looking at the supernova is looking at the past, not the future. The light has just reached us from 2300 years ago, so the massive red giant it came from is 2300 years dead.

I had the impression (possibly wrong) that looking through the Deepspace Tunnel would let us see things as they are on the other side, like it was a direct portal or something with no time involved at all. But the whole past vs future thing is kind of timey wimey in this game - Philos is supposed to be the future because the Backtrackers 'came back' to us here, but everything else seems up for grabs.

Hah! Per the Professor and his entire fucking team, what ethics? Humanity is incidental to whatever this process is meant to do or be, it very much sounds like 1) if you don't have an evol and/or 2) if you can't handle having crystals implanted in you so you can transcend and/or 3) you can't handle an aether core (which is just crystal implantation +5) you are very discardable.

re/time and gravity evol - Fuck. Yes. My lord, Caleb is hot for that alone. I am getting used to his VA and am really starting to enjoy it but even if it was nails on chalkboard, I would just grit my teeth and deal with it. his evol is so hawt, there is no question. the visuals in my head!

[Coldsaturn]

You are absolutely right and that was a huge lapsus of mine. The supernova is them looking at the past, which still checks out with the fan theory.

Philos is in the future and the backtrackers travel back in time to Earth, that's canon. What isn't clear is if Philos is an entirely new planet that was colonized after the Earth died or if it's still planet Earth but with a new core.
I'm currently of the idea that the wormhole is a literal wormhole connecting two distant points in the spacetime continuum. The point it connects to could be the past, just like it could be the future, based on how you're folding the universe. I'm inclined to say we're looking at the future because Xavier and [redacted] travel back in time through the tunnel (and it's established that Philos is future!Earth).

To that you have to add spacetime fragmenting itself into multiple overlapping timelines.

[ChicletPrime]

Chapter 7: Dark Side

• oh boy. medical first aid from the Colonel himself on his sleek aircraft. i am... i am really bleeding. his gloves are awash in it as he unwinds the bandage from my leg.
  
• Caleb: "Are you mad at me?"  i don't know what i am. but clawing disappointment is in the top three, let me tell you.
  
• "No."  no?!  excuse me, me and girlfriend need to conflab for a minutes, what do you mean no? 
  
• "As I hear him take out the medicine and equipment, I start to turn around. But then his hand covers my eyes." hopefully he took the gloves off. "a fine needle pricks my skin and the searing pain instantly dissipates."  oh. phew. thanks.
  
• okay, the girlfriend is finally saying some home truths. will it carry her anywhere at this late date is the question.
  
• what has he been doing behind your back? you weren't even supposed to BE in Skyhaven! you weren't supposed to even have your brother at all. this was all supposed to be done and dusted where it wouldn't have been anywhere near you, no matter which direction you were facing.
  
• "What do you think could've happened if I hadn't been there tonight?"  i might have gotten eaten i guess. i might have gotten shot. i might have gotten chewed on, shot, and then thrown into a cell for another interrogation by somebody who is more interested in the collar and baton than you were
  
• (Caleb, could we go back to that at some future unnamed date? asking for a friend)
  
• what? "I can't bear going through the same pain again. Or do you want me to re-experience that loneliness because i left you?"
  
• i don't know, Caleb. i don't think we hold grudges, we've been pretty darned forgiving so far. 
  
• yeah, he's not even seeing anybody else as worthy at all; live, die, whatever, as long as I'm safe.
  
• "Anybody who dares wield power that isn't theirs must pay the price." now what the fuck does THAT mean? /intrigued
  
• "Fine. Once your fleetship lands, I'll leave."  ohhhh, that is NOT going to go down well, girlfriend. that may not go down AT ALL.
  
• "No, you won't."  bingo! i so called it. "Since you managed to escape once, we'll be going somewhere else."
  
• oh BOY. do you mean to tell me.. and correct me if i'm getting the wrong impression here, gege.. that since you tried it the nice way with the apartment and the cuddle toys and my favorite meals in the kitchen and i was patently unappreciative of your efforts, that i am now going to be handcuffed to a radiator in a squat somewhere? 
  
• (He lifts his hand and cups my cheek. Yet his fingers are freezing cold.)
  
• "I will protect you." 
  
• handcuffed to a radiator in a squat somewhere with a BLANKET.
  
• THE NEXT MORNING, stapled to the medical bed: i am a mystery passenger to the nursing crew. my vital signs are apparently abnormal "because of the rain".  i guess i got contaminated in the storm.
  
• ooooh. do i respond when he asks me how i am, or do i glare in silent judgment. decisions, decisions. where's my third option, break into Caleb-incapacitating tears? 
  
• i can "leave" when my medical signs return to normal.  i notice he doesn't say where i'll be leaving to. 
  
• OOOOOH, i confront him about the "cold" pills. wow, girlfriend. bold as brass this morning. or desperate to hear the worst of it and fall to the bottom of your heart.
  
• "You never planned to let me go since the beginning."   and the beginning might be farther back than you're even aware of. aaaand I throw a cup at him in anger. aaaand he lets it hit him. 
  
• i may never call this man gege again.
  

Chapter 8: Escape

• okay, still in the medical bay, but its nighttime. i was sleeping? "A few lights twinkle like fireflies in the heavy mist."
  
• heavy mist?! 
  
• am i in a betacurve protofield?
  
• XAVIER? no. no. little twinkly lights do not ALWAYS mean your prince so very warm and charming is here.
  
• oh darn, i was right to yank my runaway horses to a standstill. the mist is OUTSIDE the window, along with the outlines of buildings. darn. i thought maybe somebody with the rest of Spatium was going to walk me out through an alternate reality.
  
• /little lore snippet - the "Fleetship" is a starship that spends most of its time in the sky, rarely landing.
  
• nice. poor nurse. at least she'll get a nice nap in my medical restraints. do we.. switch uniforms?
  
• nice. i'm a nurse on the lam. with uniform, face mask and cart, i am on my way to freedom, baby.
  
• oops, i am heading to where the guns are on the ship. i would have stopped me too. 
  
• okay. so the officer that stopped me commandeers some syringes on the cart - "stabilizers". wasn't there something that EVER was handing out to civilians in Linkon, "flux stabilizers" that were wearable and were supposed to, i guess, calm the metaflux around it to prevent Wanderes from manifesting (ie, manipulate the fields to do whatever the fuck EVER wants them to do). is this more of the same, only injectable?
  
• Cybezin. Shit, thats the stuff that drove Joseph mad or that Caleb claimed drove Joseph mad with an overdose.
  
• "only those with Toring chips may use this. this drug should not be used daily."
  
• "If chip implantation is common in the Fleet, then Caleb might have gotten it too."  you don't say. "maybe everything he'd done so far wasn't of his volition." 
  
• well. i guess. that's a good question. does he really want to handcuff you to a radiator in a squat because the metallic command centre in his brain tells him too, and the real Caleb just added the blanket as a rider to the addendum?
  
• "For a moment I can't tell if I'm onto something or trying to excuse his actions."  I KNOW. its a mind bender, this one.
  
• (( for the record, even if Caleb DOES have a chip and even if it IS controlling him, I will hang onto my personal belief that he's choosing to let it do what it does for reasons of his own, because anybody that can make a black hole on command could certainly squash a tiny piece of metal into dust between one heartbeat and the next. ))
  
• oops, Caleb! uh.. shit. meld with the walls meld with the walls.
  
• oh, he's going to take the fleet on patrol through Deepspace in three days.  
  
• WHAT THE FUCK! WOOOO!  "The Fountain of Atei is about to enter its next phase. A banquet in your honor will be held before you leave."
  
• that Caleb does not intend to be at, due to 'personal' matters. its okay, you can say my name without combusting.
  
• CAUGHT! 
  
• i think Caleb just has tingling-me sense, the bastard. orrr, yeah. right. eyes everywhere. i forgot about those. i am terrible at this, good thing i'm not normally employed as a spy.
  
• good point! if Caleb is going to take me to HQ (and not a squat with a radiator and ...) then that has to mean he believes he can keep me safe there.  (definition of 'safe' a variable descriptor, perhaps. or maybe he just figures if it get bad enough, he'll just implode it and have done.)
  
• ... so he takes me home? to the apartment? this is 'safe and sound'?
  
• oops. locked door. didn't i shoot that off? well, i was out for a bit in the medical bay.
  
• my knee is bleeding again. 
  
• Answer the question, Caleb!
  
• ack! picked up and just moved. ow, ow my leg. Caleb, you're.. uh. hurting me.
  

Chapter 9: Captive Bird

• am loving these chapter titles but so far, this is my favorite. now what? 
  
• I WAS NOT READY FOR A CUTSCENE OF ME BEING CARRIED
  
• oh, this is really confrontational. wow. okay! /popcorn
  
• whatever makes you think Caleb and the Colonel are different people? just because you want them to be? 
  
• this is.. uh. 
  
• Caleb kneeling between the girlfriend's legs, looking very pissed off as he strips off her boots, is really really doing something for me.
  
• oh fuck me. he's using his evol to pin her leg down when she tries to get up.
  
• that's just so. so. hawt.
  
• this game is really pushing my buttons here.
  
• soooo. do we sass him back or do we tell him he can do whatever (implication: because we can't stop him anyways)
  
• we've been collared. well, braceleted.
  
• nice, infection risk! well, we did get hit with a 98% build Wanderer and Zayne did tell us what could happen with crystal infection. 
  
• "Is there a way for you to run around without getting injured?"  haven't really found it yet, no.
  
• struggle, girlfriend! tell him to get his untrustworthy hands off you! "I've had enough of your protection"
  
• oh, this is not going well. for either of them.  is Caleb going to smash it and her to the wall? throw her in her bedroom with a new lock? say something truly cutting and then just leave her there to cry? 
  
• "If being with me only brings you pain, just put up with this for three more days."  "What are you going to do?"  "Tie up loose ends." 
  
• aaaand he leaves.
  
• THREE DAYS LATER: radio reports the lockdown is ending. 
  
• "The Fleet will return to the Deepspace Tunnel. You'll be safe. For now." 
  
• "In other words, you'll just disappear again? And not even say anything?"
  
• /clutches pillow
  
• "I'll be gone. Aren't you happy that you won't have to see me then?"
  
• /clutches two pillows
  
• oh. oh, that's heartbreaking. he grabs her arm to lead her to the kitchen for their last meal together and she just violently jerks her wrist away.
  
• oh, she is being cruel.
  
• i love that this scene is playing in very little color, just grays and browns and blacks. 
  
• aaaand she sits down couch, he sits down on the coffee table in front of her...and grabs a red apple.
  
• "I'm not mad." girlfriend, you could fool me. you seem super mad.
  
• "Tell me. How did you turn into someone I hardly recognize?"
  
• oh, wow. so he comes back with the whole "you think i have a chip in my brain and that's the problem". he really does know her that well. or, you know, she can't keep anything off her face to save her life.
  
• "What if I told you I was always like this?" 
  
• eeeeeeeee
  
• "The people who are after your power, who wanna hurt you - they should all just... disappear."
  
• AND YOU"RE JUST THE GUY TO DO IT
  
• wow, how long was he hiding behind the affable brother mask, i wonder. or even, when did it become a mask.
  
• "You're only safe when you're by my side." 
  
• UNTRUE. but i'll grant you the sentiment. Sylus is fast on the kill but you might be faster. 
  
• also, truly awesomely terrible screenshot of Caleb leaning over us with a slightly unhinged expression.
  
• "I don't need you--!"
  
• SO CRUEL GIRLFRIEND
  
• (hides face in hands oh my god he's nearly on top of her)
  
• "All right. What do you need? You can tell me."
  
• (a knife, another knife, a really big breakfast, twelve plushes in a single round and a half forty of vodka)
  
• oh no, he took off the necklace. to remove the tracker but he's not wearing it anymore. oh no, that's so not right. even with all of this. "No one will be able to find you ever again. I'll protect you forever."
  
• oh, she is going to break his heart.
  
• "You can't just... you're very important to me. And no one could ever replace you."
  
• "Really."
  
• and he grabs her by the arm again and there's a fast shot of the red apples on a serving tray.
  
• "I've always held myself back and endured. Day, after day, after day. It was suffocating."
  
• are we sure its just Rafayel that might be affecting the weather? Because the rain has now turned to lightning.
  
• "But now I'm tired of playing these games." 
  
• oh shit, he has her by both wrists, kneeling over her on the couch.  bruises. so many finger bruises from that. bracelets of them. aaaand apples scattered in the foreground. they are not being subtle with the imagery.
  
• NO DON'T STOP THE CHAPTER THEEEERE
  

heart attack time. that was INTENSE.

[Coldsaturn]

THESE ARE THE CHAPTEEEEEERS

- "I can't bear going through the same pain again. Or do you want me to re-experience that loneliness because i left you?"
Put a pin on it!!! Something about seeing MC hurt or seeing MC risk her life is very familiar to him.

-  he's using his evol to pin her leg down when she tries to get up.
THIS SCENE LET'S GOOOOOOO 

- Ok this is it. Captive Bird HAS to be watched with direct translations from chinese, because I'm telling you they were having A WHOLE ANOTHER conversation in the original and the english version just...completely flies over it.

Oh we're so close to being done with Homecoming Wings, then it will only be Lucid Dreams and you'll be officially done with the Main Story for a bit! And you'll finally start reading stuff that will put the puzzle pieces where they belong. All done during Juneleb, our pilot's birthday month. /chef's kiss

[ChicletPrime]

please please please be quiet at work today so i can watch the translations of those chapters.

[Coldsaturn]

It will be a treat if I remember them right!

[ChicletPrime]

it has not been at all quiet at work today. so I will watch/listen to them on the walk home!

[ChicletPrime]

okay, its been a bit but we're back, baybee!  between being a real person, i have had many thoughts and i've watched the CN translations for these last chapters a couple of times.

1) I wish to god they'd localize better. A lot of Caleb's dialogue in the original is several degrees different to what we're getting in english and I, for one, feel like we're getting screwed a little. While the stepbrother vs childhood friend definitely brings a different dynamic to the situation, the english team really could have done better translating the tension and i feel these last couple of chapters were the "worst" so far where some of the english just didn't compare.

2) MUCH more clear in the CN translation was Caleb's dynamic with the girlfriend, the back and forth pull of old affection and new betrayal. So much heart-attack inducing of talking over and through each other. Of all things, I was particularly enamored of the line in Chapter 7 (i think it was 7) where Caleb asks if the girlfriend is doing "this" deliberately so he can experience the same pain of loss that she did when he left. It was weirdly phrased in english and hard to parse, but sucker punched in the translation. 

3) Caleb's mannerisms are /chef's kiss. He jerks his chin up when he tries to make a point and its so realistic i die a little each time he does it. 

4a) I kind of thought Caleb would be the one for me even when I first started and honestly, I am patting myself on the back about it. He's so perfectly fucked up, I could not have designed him much better. The attraction of a villain-type is that the good guy wants to save the world and the bad guy just wants you, world be hanged. Caleb just doesn't care about much else. His entire goal is putting you in a flower garden at ground zero and that is so schmexy of him - I honestly don't find it problematic at all; i think i should definitely be the center of the backfire he's more than willing to set. 

4b) To do with the localization, its clearer in the translation that Caleb's indifferent to the plight of others, there's really not even a nod to empathy. He outright states that those caught up in Ever's clutches either survive or don't and he's counting himself and the girlfriend in the survivor category. 

5) There's a throwaway comment while we're in the med bay on the fleetship, where a nurse wonders if we're "... also getting sent to..." but it gets cut off. So there's some other facility or place we're as yet unfamiliar with where, no doubt, something heinous is going on.

6) Caleb all but confirms he drugged you with the 'cold medicine'.  Suck it, whichever half of fandom thinks you took Nyquil.

7) I didn't catch this the first time I went through the translations, but the needle he gives you in the med bay isn't a pain medication, but Cybezin, the drug for those that have the control chip.  In the translation (and I don't have the english to hand so I'll have to check again what was said right there) when you ask if you can be alone for awhile, he agrees, says to rest well and that (implied: resting) will 'help stabilize your emotions'. That's an odd way to phrase 'i hope you feel better after while' and since Caleb DID cover the girlfriend's eyes when he did the injection, its very likely that's what it was. 

8a) I don't get yet what 'mood stabilizer' means in this context, both specifically to the girlfriend and more generally in the Fleet, other than maybe 'stop thinking and nod your head like a tranquilized animal'. Extrapolating outwards, I wonder if it has something to do with allowing a better - let's use partnership for the moment - with either protofields, protocores or Wanderer implantation. EVER has given out mass produced "personal flux stabilizers" to the general populace to wear like a pin, ostensibly to keep Metaflux from forming a field / keep a Wanderer from creating a field (still unclear myself which comes first) and now this stabilizer injection for those with "Toring" chips to keep a brainwave pattern either in a certain state or away from a certain state. They have to link together somehow, it would be so weird if it didn't.

8b) Its also very clear in the translation that Kevi's chip was "re-reading the Core" when he tried to feel his feelings for his sister. So are the 'control chips' actually the previously mentioned (in Sylus' arc) way for a Wanderer's consciousness to be implanted into a human? And if the chip is a second, alien personality and not just a literal control device, then having a stable emotional mindset might allow for the overwriting to be smoother with less jarring splits as the human personality tries to win out during emotional struggles.

9) the "Fountain of Atei" and the Fleet's return to the Deepspace Tunnel have to be connected. Not sure exactly how. Whatever Caleb has overseen during the lockdown weeks, which I assume is the rapid progression and then elimination of the unworthy in the experiments, has pushed the Fountain into its next charge-up and they are... taking it back to the Tunnel? He also states that the girlfriend will be safe-r when the Fleet leaves, implying that the Fleet has either the people or the object that is of most direct danger. For all I know, it's Caleb himself who's the most direct danger to her, although that seems like more of a tin foil theory since I think Caleb would eat a bullet without question if that was the case (assuming he was aware of the danger he represents and felt he couldn't control it).

10) I find it interesting that Caleb groups himself with "people of my kind". Evolvers? Those with complete aether cores? Something else? 

11) I am torn on the chip thing. Really torn. I think he does have one, it would be really odd if he didn't. I also don't know that it has to activate that much or even at all. Caleb seems to be impressively good at defining for himself what his thought patterns need to be to obtain the results he wants. He appears to have completely bought into whatever deal he's got going on with EVER, he does not appear to be coerced and fighting to get out from under their thumb at all.  He has been giving instruction and help to the girlfriend the entire way on how to survive in Skyhaven and in the Fleet and its not his fault she's not listening very well during some moments.

12) In the last confrontational chapter, Caleb's micro expressions are just so spot on, I have to applaud. Anger, frustration, that weird mix of annoyance and helplessness when she tells him something he doesn't want to hear because it means she's not understanding what he's saying.... most video games have the emotions implied through both context and dialogue but the character faces just couldn't be that mobile/were wooden in the cutscene. I have to wonder if LaDS is doing some motion capture stuff, because when the girlfriend says "I don't need you" and Caleb replies "You don't need me?", there about seven fast things flickering across his face and I believe all of them.