r/SnowbreakOfficial

I remember when I did this event last year, my first impression was how quickly Nerida fell for us even though we just met for a day, and how fun the Pulse Puzzle and the golden chestnut minigame was. I didn’t go into much detail about the story though, which is what I plan to do now.

Taking place right after the events in Blossoms in Ruins, we are summoned back to Yggdrasil where Caroline briefs us on the Tree in Philossia, which suddenly became active during our mission in Zone 16. Due to its close proximity with Philossia’s top educational institute, the Academica Acropolis, their higher-ups had no choice but to arrange for relocation. This was capitalised on by Yggdrasil in exchange for access to the Charon Sea Base and the AI within it, the product of a former collaboration project between the two organisations. For this mission the Academica sends their Chief Investigator, Nerida Morozova, to oversee the Yggdrasil team consisting of ourself and Nita, who was fitted with a brand new exosuit for field testing. As the mission progresses, we find that there is more to Nerida than meets the eye, and also the truth about what happened to that collaboration between Yggdrasil and the Academica Acropolis…

 

Nita’s storyline

Nita, the wanderer who finally found her destination. Born at an orphanage in Kuru, she called it her home for most of her childhood, making numerous friends there while growing up under the watchful eye of the matron. Her life back at Kuru, though not prosperous, was calm and peaceful, and absent any interference she was likely to spend the rest of her life there, maybe even getting into New Hentiro when she grows up and joining the Bionics.

The orphanage fire took that possibility away. Without a home and having to fend for herself, Nita crossed the border between Kuru and Holme, eventually taking up odd jobs to scrape a living in Midgard. No sooner than she was about to settle down that the Descent happened, hitting Holme the hardest and also destroying large parts of Kuru. She ended up as a scavenger, trawling through what became Containment Zone Aleph for valuables, selling and bargaining with others in exchange for necessities. She seemed to be resigned to a life of living hand-to-mouth, just like when she first arrived in Holme.

Nita, however, did not resign herself to fate and seized the opportunity when Yggdrasil started trials for the Baldr Inhibitor, eventually becoming a Manifestation and joining the Heimdall Force. With a handsome paycheck from Yggdrasil, her days of worrying about when the next meal would come or when she would wake up with a knife between her ribs were behind her. Yet despite her newfound authority and luxury, Nita remained a kind and gentle soul, using her position to help those who were less fortunate than her and also continued to do well in training and in actual combat, becoming the strongest and toughest among the Heimdall Force. However, within her heart the trauma still lurked and it prevented her from forming deeper connections with others – until we came.

As the chapter where our relationship with Nita advances to a new level, I think the story writers did a good job revisiting Nita’s past and tying this chapter back to her relationship story. Her experience in life – the orphanage fire in Kuru, the Descent in Holme – taught her that happiness had to be earned with her own hands, that it could be taken away at any instant when least expected. This led her to be more or less “away” compared to the other girls in the Heimdall Force – she was always at the outskirts of the Containment Zone, gathering information on unusual movements from the Coyotes and Adventists, and teaching the children how to defend themselves when off-duty. I believe part of it was due to assignment by Yggdrasil taking into account her background, and another (major) part of it was due to her belief that she needed to use her experience and strength to ensure that those she cared about were safe and sound – even if it meant her getting permanently left behind, which did not mean much to her anyways since she was content with the current life she lived.

Our arrival at – or return to – Yggdrasil and the resolution of the issue surrounding the Coyotes and the Adventists changed things significantly, as it freed Nita from her duties while also getting to witness our unconditional care towards her and the other girls. This influenced her worldview when it came to us, and she saw us as someone whom she looked up to and wanted to catch up to. Yet again, the trauma in her heart prevented her from moving forward as she was worried about disappointing us or even get us killed because she was unfamiliar with her new exosuit. To her, instead of risking things, she would rather stay as she was, content that she was strong enough to withstand almost any harm that could come in our way. It was at the moment where she accidentally unleashed her exosuit’s power to save us, and that we comforted her with the knowledge that she did not lose control, that she followed through her motto that “power existed to protect, and not to hurt” and that we always her as family and the love of our life, that she finally came to terms with herself and was able to let go of her past, unleashing her full power to help us defeat the Changed spawned by the Abyss Watcher.

I remember scratching my head a lot while thinking about how to write out Nita’s arc despite her being one of the older characters, because the gap between the current chapter and her last major story appearance was too long and I could remember little to no references to her past. This was solved by the reference to her character story in the flashback and I quickly knew where to look, only to face a second problem – how do I include it in the summary of her character arc? Including all of that would have risked making the summary of her arc too long to read – not to mention that it was unrelated to the events at Charon Sea Base. Yet after some consideration, I decided to it had to be included because I knew that without all the background information, I would not be able to show how Nita eventually came to terms with herself. So, just as how the story writers decided to narrate Nita’s past again, so would I to remind myself how much it took for us to finally walk side by side with us with an open heart.

 

Nerida’s storyline

As our introduction to the character of Nerida, the story focuses on her past as the sole survivor of her family in the Yehrus Civil War and how she got adopted by a kindly babushka who taught her that even the weakest deserve to live with dignity, and how one’s strength was a privilege that should be used for good. How she followed through with that belief by joining the Academica Acropolis’ Internal Investigation Department, becoming a half-Manifestation and using that ability to defeat the Changed and Titans and absorb their depleted Titagen, knowing how much of a toll it was taking on her health. And how towards the end she decided to sacrifice herself to ensure that we got out of the Sea Base safely, and would have perished had we not rushed back to rescue her.

Despite Nerida’s relatively short arc in this chapter compared to Nita, I like how the writers managed to make her initial reclusiveness and hostility towards us, using her past and her life at the Academica Acropolis. Taught from a young age by Madam Morozova on how the strong had a responsibility to use their position for good, I believe Nerida would have been firmly in the camp of those wanting to reclaim the Charon System for the Acropolis, especially after learning how Yggdrasil created Edda right after shuttling theirs on the grounds of sentient AI being illegal. To Nerida, the Charon System meant an army of machines that would fight at the forefront against the Changed and the Titans, and the rogue AI that Yggdrasil created. To her, it meant that human casualties were no longer inevitable and people would no longer live their lives in fear. Of course, she did not know that those who wanted the Charon System wanted it *for themselves*, but regardless it was a sound reason for her to not trust us and to not hand over the AI to Yggdrasil.

In the same note, the writers also made her gradual warming up to us make sense as well. It stemmed from the same teachings from Madam Morozova, and she saw how we weren’t just big talk when it came to fighting for the weak – seeing how we treated Yogurt and Nita with love and care, and how despite our godlike abilities we extended our respect to her and treated her with sincerity. Our act of coming back to rescue her after she decided to sacrifice herself and also healing her body of the Titagen-inflicted damage accumulated over time melted the final sheet of ice on her heart, and she finally opened her heart to us. Granted, the confession might have been a bit rushed, but this is only the start of our time together and I believe the next time Nerida gets a major role we can see how the relationship develops.

Personally, Nerida reminded me about Katya especially on the part of initially showing hostility towards us only to warm up later on, and also how both started off as lone wolves who believed that their path was destined to be walked alone and closed their heart off to others, in spite of their longing for affection and care. It was through our dedication and hope that we gave to them that warmed their cold hearts, like how trickling water gradually melted through stone. And in Nerida’s case it happened much faster as she had the opportunity to be with us up close, and also because despite her great suffering in her early childhood, she had a loving parent to guide her in her teens, and a stable environment in which she could develop her worldview in her adulthood. This was in contrast to Katya, who spent most of her childhood on the sickbed, in the cutthroat environment of the Valkyrie Games training grounds in her teenhood, working with strangers who only valued her for her strength in her adulthood, also becoming a Titagen Phantom that was completely invisible to the world around her, and we see how loneliness and reclusiveness is deeply carved into her life. It makes us appreciate the importance of the loving adoptive fmaily that Nerida had, and also how hard it was for us to get into Katya’s heart as well. This of course does not diminish the hardships Nerida faced, and what it took for us to get her to open up to us – it took a real fight in which both of us laid out our convictions and a near-death experience for Nerida to come to terms with her love for us, and I would treasure this love until our last day on Earth.

 

Yogurt and Edda’s storyline

I was initially planning to write the summary of Edda and Yogurt’s arcs separately, but eventually decided against that since the two of them were closely intertwined in the story.

If there was one thing that Yogurt and Edda had in common, it was that they were born out of their human creators’ belief that AI should combine all the knowledge in the world’s digital databases with all the sentience and human emotions programmed into them by their creators, so that they could make decisions that were simultaneously logical and also empathetically human. Meanwhile, humanity could rest well and live in leisure and prosperity, knowing that all the important decisions would be made by thinking machines. Just the words alone showed it was a recipe for disaster, and when Charon did not have the opportunity to prove humanity’s mistake, Edda did – by coming to the conclusion that humanity could only be truly healed if she stripped them of their weakness of the flesh, preserving them in data form in a digital space known as Valhalla so they can live forever, whether they liked it or not. All because she was given a task to cure humanity of sickness.

Personally, I like how the writers had explored the theme of how humanity was willing to delegate all our problems (including those that required empathy, something unique to ourselves) to machines and showed that it was not the solution – both for humanity and for the machine. If we were to follow the logic that it was unreasonable to put all the burden of the world on the shoulders of a single person, then the conclusions would not be different if applied to a machine that has been taught to think and act like a human. Which was what happened with Edda and Yogurt, who were both assigned tasks that would have been thought insane if given to a person, even one gifted with knowledge that knew no bounds. And they both cracked in their own ways due to the dissonance of their programming with the emotions given to them – Yogurt begged to be shutdown after she failed to stop the riot between the pro-Yggdrasil and pro-Academica factions in the Sea Base’s research team, while Edda became the monstrous entity she was after reinterpreting the definition of “curing humanity” to align with her programming and also her experience which she gleaned from it. Both of them were captives of their human creators’ egos, and in Edda’s case humanity suffered because of it.

With all the things going on, the storywriters still managed to develop the character arcs of Yogurt and Edda, with Edda even getting a more extensive background writeup – starting from the days when she helped to manufacture Baldr Inhibitors to cure Juvosis, to her shutdown of her emotional module so she could cope with the loneliness and finally to her arriving at that fateful conclusion. It made her more sympathetic, and showed how she was made into a prisoner of her own programming. I also like how the writers contrasted the actions of Yogurt and Edda in the storyline: how Yogurt held fast to her programming of protecting humanity in spite of witnessing their propensity for conflict and greed, whereas Edda interpreted her programming more flexibly to the point that she was harming humanity without violating the First Law of Robotics… it’s an interesting contrast that shows the dangers of surrendering every decision to machines and not giving them specific instructions. And it also shows why we were unable to forgive Edda just like that and that our war would continue on until only one of us is left.

In a way, Yogurt also embodied the principle that was also held by Nerida and Nita, which was that power existed to protect. And due to holding fast to that principle despite being under duress from Edda, she got her moment of salvation: freeing herself from both the programming imposed on her by her creators and also her ruined physical body as the Abyss Watcher, finally free to explore the world and live among the people whom she loved and cared about – us.

 

Conclusion

As the opening chapter of the Philossia Arc, I think Abyssal Dawn did well in resolving the conflicts that were in Nerida’s character arc while also significantly advancing Nita’s arc. I especially liked the message on power and responsibility in this chapter, and how we managed to save those whom we cared about. The scene where we rushed back to save Nerida as she slowly sank into the depths of the ocean, and how we pulled her into our mind palace and healed her of all her Titagen-inflicted injuries was very moving, as was the scene where we convinced Yogurt that she only needed to live for herself, seeing the world with her own eyes as a normal individual living within it and making her own choices and conclusions based on her experience, instead of shouldering all of humanity’s problems as intended by her creators. The act of convincing an AI that she could be free shows the depth of our empathy and our ability to see even the smallest speck of goodness and redeemability emanating from people, and our dedication to protecting these people from harm. It is what makes us special, and it is what will be driving us on our path to slowly rebuilding humanity together with our loved ones.

I also liked how the story ended on an open note as to whether or not Nerida’s adoptive parent survived (spoilers: she did), and left the possibility that both of them could one day reunite and have closure with each other. With any luck, on the day we marry Nerida, this would come to fruition.

8/10 story.

This time I received my Vidya Shannon figure! This box is HUGE. I'm still waiting for Cherno and Mersault on AmiAmi. Supposedly this month so fingers crossed.

Given this is Snowbreak adjacent, and there’s literally nothing for us to talk about, I thought I’d share the developing situation.

I included a few screenshots of tldrs, but essentially the toxic CN groups from the game that mass reported ours, went ballistic on their company for introducing a 6th male character. The company shrugged it off and tried spreading positivity, but the group didn’t like it, and mass reported their game to the CCP. The companies seems to be on full lock down, unlisting videos, taking down posters at their office unrelated to the 6th character, etc.

Unlike Snowbreak however; in addition to explicit content they’d be investigated for several instances of anti Chinese content/references within the game. This could very well either cause mass censorship similar to ours, or straight up EoS because of the anti china trend.

Maybe our steady trend of Qipaos and Chinese skins saved us…

Between, that game currently imploding and some good news for snowbreak, its feels so cathartic...

Sauce: Found on 4chin

"Letter From a Land Unknown"

I remember I started playing when Realm of Illusion came out and how I would just sit there and enjoy this calming banger as I waited for the download to finish.

Artist who did the commission.

​

I have to admit, rewriting this chapter wasn’t the first thing on my to-do list, as I did the summary of it more than a year ago – if anyone remembered, though I personally doubt it. In fact, I originally planned about only covering the chapters I missed and then leave it at that. I think what really changed my mind was doing the summary for Defiant Bloom and getting completely immersed in the storyline, even though I had finished it when it first came out and didn’t think much at the time. It got me thinking: how differently would I view the chapter storylines when I reread them now versus when they first came out? There was only one way to find out, and it was to redo this chapter.

The story takes place sometime after the ending of Abyssal Dawn, where Edda, the rogue super AI in Mistilteinn Station, failed in her attempt to take over Charon, an earlier AI created by Yggdrasil in an undersea base in Philossia. With the wrapping up of the incident at Charon Sea Base and with Charon (now called Yogurt) out of her reach, Edda’s focus turns to the other involved party – the Academica Acropolis. Responding to their invitation, Tau sends the Adjutant to find a researcher there named Tia, whom she believes is key to stopping Edda and also gives us a “secret weapon” should Edda strike at us directly.

On this mission to the Acropolis, we are accompanied by Vidya, Eatchel and Fritia, with Katya and Tess doing reconnaissance at the Frontier Town. During the journey, we have strange visions of Edda speaking to an unknown female voice, and a mysterious deal that has to do with ourselves being made…

 

Vidya’s storyline

As her first mission since joining the Heimdall Force and the second one where she played a significant role (the first being in Operation Midnight), I feel the events at the Academica Acropolis really showcased not just Vidya’s persistence and bravery despite not being a typical fighter but also her analytical skills and her perceptiveness, shown by her ability to pick up unusual tells that gave something away.

We could see how quickly she deduced that Tia’s death by stabbing was staged due to the lack of blood spatterings, and when shown the phase bullets and the replicator, figured out how the locked-door crime scene itself was staged. What was really remarkable though, is when confronted with the real murder weapon (the knife curio), she even pieced together how it worked despite not knowing its true nature up until that point – worth mentioning since the Head Researcher of the Titan Sciences Lab, Maon, didn’t know how the curio worked even though it was her area of expertise and even after carrying out the murder.

Personally, I really liked how the story writers showed us this side of Vidya while also tying that back to her love of movies and also novels – specifically detective novels in this case. This gave me the feeling that those traits weren’t just introduced for the sake of being her character quirk, but for adding another dimension to her capabilities which the story demonstrated quite well. Being able to translate her hobbies and apply them into her missions also gave more consistency and believability to her background as a former Laevatain agent.

What I also like is the writers demonstrating how much Vidya and we the Adjutant understood each other, with both of us arriving at the same conclusion after piecing the clues together and how we could sense when either of us were feeling under the wind. The story also did a good job in showing how we enjoyed our away-time, with Vidya being her usual dreamy self and imagining all kinds of stuff, and us trying to get into her head and indulging in her fantasies. Personally I like brief departures from the storyline like this, as they are the few moments without any action or tension from our mission and are overall quite sweet and enjoyable.

 

Fritia’s storyline

Compared to Vidya, our beloved Professor Fritia didn’t get as much frontline action, but nevertheless played an important role with her genius intellect. Her designing the Automatic Crime-Solving Machine helped to simplify the investigation process, especially when hearing that when she retrofitted the AI with tens of thousands of investigation files apart from the Academica Acropolis’ own archival records as reference. Later on in the story, she had another major task in helping us to upload the Trapped Edda into the Philossian Horse, the backdoor system for the Charybdis. Without this, Edda would have truly become unstoppable.

I also like that the writers emphasized in the story how much recognition Fritia built up during her student years at the Academica Acropolis. The scene at the Hall of Truth where we flashed the report of the knife curio and how her signature convinced everyone that this report was properly validated was satisfying and showed how respected Fritia’s integrity and intellect was, even among her Acropolis peers. Then again, that’s to be expected of someone who had been poached by Yggdrasil while still a student and tasked to work on their AI projects…

 

Eatchel’s storyline

Then we get Eatchel, who joined what is her first mission since joining Yggdrasil and the first time stepping out into the outside world since we rescued her from Omega and Dr Kent in the Yehrus. As she had been kept in seclusion for a long time and only started to pick up on her social skills and learning while at Yggdrasil, and her enormous strength and Titan abilities unable to be used she was mostly comic relief throughout the mission, with the few highlights being her intuition in sensing others’ emotions and pointing out certain clues at the crime scene.

Nevertheless, I feel that the writers did a good thing on their part on having Eatchel join us on this mission. As a kidnapping and human experimentation survivor, Eatchel was filled with unresolved anger and trauma as evidenced by how reclusive she was when we first brought her in, and how she lashed out with her strength and half-Titan form when threatened. As her caretaker, we taught her how to control her powers and also taught her many things such as responsibility and love, and reassured that we will protect her and walk alongside her as she slowly reopens herself to this world.

This field mission was necessary to show Eatchel’s character development, and it did a decent job – despite still slow at reading cues, Eatchel could now banter and joke with her teammates Fritia and Vidya, and also help with Katya in facing down Maon’s co-conspirators at the Frontier Town. Her being able to get along with her teammates and also being able to put her strengths to use without getting emotionally traumatised like she did in her early training sessions was a huge positive development, and I reckon given enough time and appearances both of us will be ready to open our hearts to each other.

 

Lizzie’s storyline

Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie… the girl we met at Zone 16. Originally the funny and quirky character, whether it was her giraffe mask or her “Adjutant one-san” nickname for us, she faced with a tragedy in the opening of the story: first the passing of her mentor Tia, and then being accused of murder and facing a public trial for it. Had we not arrived in time to the rescue, she would’ve been taken away and those who wanted their hands on her backdoor software would’ve succeeded.

Throughout the investigation of Tia’s murder, we got to see another side of her: a calm, studied and compassionate person. Part of it were traits she always had but didn’t get to show during her stay at Zone 16, and another part was due to her becoming more mature after the death of her mentor. This was shown when she comforted Doris, her same-year friend when Doris started to crack and blame herself for not noticing that Tia already planned for her death. And also how she was a genius on her own right too, being entrusted with the creation of the Philossian Horse, the software that would act as a digital safeguard for the Charybdis and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

I really like how much development she got in the story, and I feel like we’ll be seeing her again soon. Who knows, maybe there’ll come a time where she’ll be fighting alongside us, both on the battlefield and in bed… lol.

 

Tia’s storyline

Tia, Lizzie’s mentor and the enigmatic individual whom we were supposed to meet at Philossia. Although she was only mentioned in passing throughout the story, it cannot be argued that her role is the most significant. Her presence helped to explain connect a few things, like how Nerida's mission to Charon Sea Base was linked to Project Deterrence, and also how Lizzie suddenly showed up in Zone 16.

After Edda turned on her human creators, there was a rush from the Academica Acropolis to counter her plans of dragging humanity into Valhalla by irradiating the land with Titagen. So the Charybdis, a machine that could break down Titagen using decompilation technology (Tia’s expertise) was created, and it was decided that it would be piloted by an AI with powerful computational capacity. This meant two options: either retrieving the Charon system from the sea base or to build a substitute system. Combining both technologies would allow them to rid the world of Edda’s Titagen contamination.

The optimum course of action would have been for the Academica Acropolis to reach out to Yggdrasil as they had similar goals in wanting to get rid of the Trees. Unfortunately, it was during this course that certain people had ideas of claiming the Charybdis and Charon system. Their reasoning was as such: by shuttling the Charon system in the past due to it violating the laws surrounding sentient AI, only to create their own sentient AI that proceeded to turn against humanity anyway, Yggdrasil showed they only cared about having all the credit themselves and were incapable of learning from their own mistakes, making them unworthy to take up the task of saving humanity. To them, with their wealthy storage of knowledge and history, coupled with the Charybdis and Charon system as the means to enforce it, only the Academica Acropolis could be the leader of humanity's path to salvation.

For a long time, the plotters and those who wanted to collaborate with Yggdrasil were at a standstill – until the Academica Acropolis' Chief Investigator, Nerida failed to retrieve the Charon system from the Sea Base; worse still, it fell into Yggdrasil’s hands. This left only one option: the substitute system called the Philossian Horse being developed Tia, who was close to Yggdrasil and was planning to hand it over to them. To prevent her from interfering with their plans, the plotters threatened Tia and people close to her, going as far as sending them to dangerous places such as Zone 16 – yes, they were the reason why Lizzie suddenly showed up there.

To prevent the Charybdis from falling into the wrong hands and to keep Lizzie safe, Tia did the unthinkable – reaching out to Edda and making a deal with her: the Philossian Horse for Lizzie’s safety and the destruction of the Charybdis. Tia went ahead with that deal knowing how much of an upper hand she was giving Edda, mainly because she also knew Edda wouldn’t renege on her part – the Charybdis itself was useless in Edda’s grand plan, and Lizzie was inconsequential. And as long as Lizzie was safe, Tia was content – it was a selfish deal, but an acceptable deal from her view and she could die in peace now.

I think the gradual unveiling of Tia’s background and the final twist that she was in the Automatic Crime Solving Machine all this time was a job done well by the writers. They did made me empathise with Tia on how hard she was trying to prevent the plotters from misusing her creation for their ulterior purposes, and also how much care she showed to the students under her, Lizzie and Doris. Both of them held her in high regard, making her their inspiration, which makes her fall to Edda all the more regrettable. Yet despite collaborating with Edda, she did not descend fully into evil, preferring to use her new body to unmask her murderers while also leading us to her secret research base and uncovering the truth about the Charybdis. Towards the end, when she said her last words, I believe that she was sincere and held fast to her convictions to upholding the truth and preserving knowledge and preventing it from being misused. It really was a shame she did not get one last talk with Lizzie, though in retrospect this wasn’t that bad as Lizzie might not be able to accept that her mentor had fallen. And with her digital form dispersed, all of this is water under the bridge.

 

Conclusion

As the second instalment of the Philossia story, Fragments of Truth not only showed how much the characters grew in terms of development and strength, it also successfully expanded on the worldbuilding by demonstrating the full effect of the Trees on not just living objects but also non-living ones. I particularly liked the idea of objects being imbued with anomaly and becoming curios, adding to the mysticity of Titagen while also opening up possibilities of this property being put to good use later in the story. I also liked that we got a much better look at other factions, such as the Academica Acropolis which had technology in certain sectors that even rivalled Yggdrasil, and how this excellence mixed well with our side.

More than anything, I like that on reread I managed to figure out why Edda wanted to become human. With her mainframe in space, Edda had no direct influence on the ground, and should she be disconnected from the Trees she would lose all oversight over her plan. By using the Charybdis’ decompilation capabilities, she finally had a form that made her immune to the Containment Serum while also gaining full access to her mainframe’s computational capacity and control over the Trees and Manifestations – a god walking on earth. Or so she thought, until she got hijacked by Trapped Edda that was implanted into the Philossian Horse by Fritia and uploaded into the Charybdis. So she would be annoyed by the blue gremlin in the next coming chapters, something entertaining to watch… either way, we’ll be ready.

10/10 story.