LogFAQs > #910642097

so where does that leave us? this felt like the first ending of real significance, but it's really hard to say what it actually means at this point. this will be a thinking out loud post.

1) the obvious suggestion is that baby Phi, sent back in time, turns out to be actual Phi. the ages, personalities and stories line up perfectly. it's actually kind of beautiful. on the other hand, this is not the historical timeline that led to the events of Virtue's Last Reward, and Phi still ended up there. I guess we've already had evidence that histories that "don't happen" can still impact those that do, though, so maybe that's not a contradiction.

2) if Phi is indeed Phi, so to speak, then Delta immediately becomes of vital importance. who is he, and why have we not heard his name so far (to my recollection)? there are two characters of incredible significance in this universe who go by aliases: Zero and Brother. unless we're being misled, Delta can't be Zero, because Zero has indirectly suggested he's an older person, and directly said that he came into possession of the transporter in 2009, when Delta would only be a child. but could Delta be Brother? it seems distinctly possible.

3) it would be a very Zero Escape-style plot for Delta to somehow mastermind the Nonary Game in order to try and stop himself being born - either out of sheer misanthropy if he's Brother, or if he felt like his birth indirectly led to the release of Radical-6 if he's not. but the VLR timeline implies that Phi and Delta are born regardless of which history transpires, and in any case Zero specifically instructed Sigma and Diana to use the transporter and start this sequence, so maybe that's illogical. this sequence would really seem to raise more questions than it did answers, which I guess shouldn't be surprising.

4) Phi's life is so wild. she's born, sent back in time, lives for twenty years, gets sent to the future to save the world, gets sent back to her own time to finish saving the world, dies, and nine months later is reborn and sent back in time to repeat the loop. it's too late for me to work out if any of this makes any sense whatsoever.

5) the last few scenes of that segment felt very biblical. if Sigma and Diana are Adam and Eve, does that make Phi and Delta Cain and Abel? it's bizarre how many messianic figures this series manages to maintain simultaneously.
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