Board 8 > Anyone want to talk about the ending to Cold Steel III? (major super spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Truly, the "Infinity Wars" of JRPG's. Awesome in all respects but also totally confusing. If anyone here considers themselves a Trails expert and wants to address some of my questions, please do.

If the answer is "it's meant to be confusing now, wait for CS4" then let me know.

Seriously don't look at these if you haven't finished the game

Basically I had a hard time following from the time the dark dragon appeared to the end,
1) Were Ouroborous and the Gnomes working together the whole time?
2) CS1 and 2 seem to be about Vita trying to avoid the Phantasmal Blaze Plan. Why was the rest of Ouroborous helping her then but not now?
3) For that matter, why are people so eager to commit the Phantasmal Blaze Plan/the Great Twilight and end the world in the first place? I understand that Osborne's motive is yet to be revealed, but why is everyone else going along with it? This only makes sense to me if Osborne is the Grandmaster, but I feel like he isn't.
4) So Musse is actually working behind the scenes and somehow has Aurelia and Vita working for her? I didn't get this at all.
5) Do the gnomes have some way of bringing people back to life, or do certain people (Awakeners) come back to life when they die? If it's the latter, why is Franz/Black still alive if he's not an Awakener?
6) I guess that Awakeners are somehow "mentally immortal" or something and when their current life dies they are replaced by their original personality or something?
7) The Great One just randomly infects people to do evil things?

@Logicblade

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For number 4,

Musse's goal was to build back the Noble Faction to act as a counterweight to Osbourne after Cayenne was defeated in Cold Steel 2. She got in contact with Aurelia and Vita in the wake of her uncle's fall and gained their trust by displaying how intelligent she was, mostly by predicting certain outcomes (Aurelia being sent to North Ambria being one of them). The general consensus is that the Noble Faction would've fared much better in the Civil War if Musse was in charge instead of Cayenne.

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aww yeah go my CS3. My #2 game in the series behind The 3rd, I think.

Questions (I have not played CS4 so if answers are there idk):

1. I don't believe so, but the timeline is indeed a bit tricky. Vita states that her going solo is due to her losing a 6-1 vote among the Anguis on the question of teaming up with the Gnomes on Great Twilight because it'll also help with completing Phantasmal Blaze. That makes it sound like the vote occurred some time ago, certainly before you encounter her in Crossbell since she's already alone and a target of Ouroboros by then. OTOH, they appear to be in open hostility with the Gnomes through at least Chapter 3 because they are always opposed during the Aion Experiments and the way they talk suggests they are trying to bait the Gnomes into acting. If I had to take a stab at it I'd say Ouroboros decided they were willing to work with the Gnomes fairly early on in the game, possibly even before it (causing Vita's walkout) but they never are able to get the alliance going until after Chapter 3 concludes which is why everything is seemingly so quiet in Chapter 4 - they finally agreed to work together. It's possible they were teamed up longer and just put on a convincing act but if so idk.
2. You're mistaken on this, I believe. Vita was always working towards the completion of Phantasmal Blaze. The Grandmaster is the one who orders its commencement in The 3rd and presumably puts Vita in charge and Vita makes it clear her ultimate loyalty is to the Grandmaster. I think what happened here is Vita's goal in CS1 and CS2 was to defy the prophecy in the Black Records in order to complete Phantasmal Blaze without activating the Great Twilight, which she deemed too dangerous/bad. What exactly this entailed, I don't believe we know, but just based on CS2 my read on her was that the reason she said that either result was fine with the Valimar v Ordine duel at the Infernal Castle in terms of the plan was because it was the crux of her "derail the prophecy" plan. If Valimar won it meant the Black Records and Great Twilight were still on track and she failed to divert history (but Phantasmal Blaze still advanced it would just now likely require Great Twilight) and she was hoping for an Ordine victory because it meant she successfully moved events onto a new track and could complete Phantasmal Blaze on her own terms. In CS3, the rest of Ouroboros just rolls with the new plan meaning working with the Gnomes and release the curse/Great Twilight since Vita's version failed except Vita who bails and continues to work to stop the Great Twilight.
3. I have no idea what the Gnomes intend here because yeah that goal seems quite nihilistic. This, I assume, is a CS4 issue that is addressed there. Osborne seems to profess the idea that he hates the fact that history is preordained via the Black Records and may just be try to burn it all down idk. Ouroboros is the real question mark, as always, because we know for a damn fact that Phantasmal Blaze is just Stage 2 of their actual ultimate goal - The Orpheus Final Plan, so you'd think the world ending would be an obstacle to that. I actually raised the same confusion on this point when I finished the game and dowolf noted there was a mistranslation on Campanella's "The fulfillment of the Phantasmal Blaze plan is the end of the world" line when Duvalie is all "wtf have we done" and it was really more like "In exchange for the Great Twilight we will complete the Phantasmal Blaze plan" though that still leaves their motives in being "okay" with a world ending plan in the first place. Again, I assume CS4 talks about this.
4. Seems like it. Also filing this under "CS4 better explain." Aurelia was 100% working with/for her the whole time and you see them chatting at times during the game which is much more intriguing in retrospect. Vita seems to have joined them once she left Ouroboros since she needed a new backer since they were now after her.
5. This 100% has to be a CS4 issue because there's no way they leave it unanswered. Roselia seems to think there's more to it than "Awakeners = Back to life" because as she notes it sure didn't save Dreichels who we know was Valimar's Awakener before Rean. And as you note, Alisa's father doesn't appear to be an Awakener either (though to be fair we only know 6 out of the 7 right now so it's not impossible he's the 7th.)
6. See above. Given Roselia's speculation there's another factor in play you have to imagine this is answered in CS4.
7. It sure seems like it. Based on the Emperor's description it basically causes people to lose their inhibitions and go full on self-destructive. Ash seems to be the extreme case where the curse clearly was planning steps ahead since it had him pick up that gun in the Catacombs for use in assassinating the Emperor later. It doesn't seem like it's that direct on people in the curse-is-released cutscene at the end where it "just" seems like it is riling up the people of Erebonia into a war with Calvard but the exact mechanics are something that hopefully CS4 gives more detail on.

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Oh boy, I'll try my best with this.

For the first three points:The Black Workshop (The Gnomes) was originally one of the Society's Thirteen Factories. However Osbourne usurped control of them after the Liberl Incident, because they had the same goal in mind, the completion of the Sept-Terrion of Steel, by invoking the Great Twilight. Vita's Phantasmal Blaze plan was an alternate attempt to try and seize control of the Sept-Terrion without invoking the Great Twilight, but it failed. The Anguis' of Ouroboros want the Sept-terrions for some reason, and they decided that getting them was worth the risk of ending the world, and outvoted Vita 6-1 in that regard.

Point 4 is covered pretty well by Shadow Dino. Question 5 and 6 is straight up Cold Steel 4 Spoilers so I can't say much about it.

As for point 7... The Great One (Sept-Terrion of Steel) is actively working toward a state where it can be revived. In order to do so, it needed the cursed divine beast to die in order to return to it's true form. The mechanism of this revival was written in the black records. We can assume from dialogue that the events can be changed to an extent (see Osbourne talking about forcing the Civil War to happen ahead of schedule), but that they will happen eventually, in some manner. So the great power is manipulating people and things to make it revival happen, by acting like the devil on the proverbial shoulder, whispering in their ear.

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Thanks xp1337, Shadow Dino and Logicblade. That all helped a lot.