Ciel nosurge plot summary

Version 1.03

Ciel nosurge is the prequel to Ar nosurge, which is coming out in English on September 23rd (NA)/September 26th (EU). It's a hybrid of a visual novel and a life/dating sim on the Playstation Vita. You might hear someone say that you don't need to know anything about Ciel to be able to fully enjoy Ar. This is a lie. Ar nosurge is a direct sequel to Ciel nosurge, the character cast in Ar nosurge is 90% returning characters from Ciel. The events and character building that happens in Ciel are incredibly important to understand what is happening in Ar and to care about the characters. Things WILL be confusing and major plot points WILL be lost on you if you play Ar without knowing anything about Ciel.

This guide was originally written back in February of 2014 to help provide people who were importing Ar nosurge without having played Ciel nosurge some basic background on the characters, setting and story. At the time, there was no other source of information on the game's story in English.

However, recently an extremely devoted user on the A Reyvateil's Melody forums who goes by 'blackraen' has created a truly impressive walkthrough with screenshots, videos and a much more detailed play-by-play of nearly everything that happens in Ciel nosurge. It takes a while to read, but let's be honest - if you have 70 hours to play Ar nosurge, you should have a few hours to go read his summary. You'll be glad you did. Check it out here!:

http://www.unit03.net/view/Ciel_nosurge/Summary

I'll leave this pastebin up to serve as a shorter summary and an additional reference. I've updated the pastebin with the contents of the remaining chapters and refocused it to help players who are going to buy the English version of Ar nosurge, but really, you should go check out blackraen's walkthrough above if you have the time. Also check out the 'Ar nosurge Tips' section at the bottom of the pastebin here.

Please email questions, corrections, etc. regarding this pastebin to lighthousekeeper1987@gmail.com.

SPOILERS

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It should go without saying, but this entire guide is full of spoilers for Ciel nosurge, do not read any further if you don't want to be spoiled!

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~Starting Ciel nosurge~

The game begins with Ion, the main heroine of Ciel nosurge, repairing an old terminal. That terminal turns out to be a 7th-dimension communicator, and it allows her to communicate with the player (the player being a literal self-insert - you're meant to imagine that she has repaired a terminal that connects to Earth and your end of the terminal is your PS Vita that you can use to communicate with her). Ion lives a solitary life in a small house by herself. The house itself is in a mysterious place where the only other living being besides her is an eccentric woman who seems to know a lot more than she lets on by the name of Nelico, who runs a shop (although Ion is her only customer since nobody else lives in this place).

Ion is an amnesiac and has no memories of her life before she began living in that house. That is all about to change as you (or rather, your terminal on Ion's side) has the ability to enter Ion's dream world (like a cosmosphere for those who are familiar with Ar tonelico) and retrieve her lost memories. With Nelico's blessing, it's the player's job to help Ion recover her memories by diving into her dream world and unlocking the memories inside.

Inside Ion's dream world, her memories are broken and must be repaired before they can be retrieved. Memories can be repaired by assigning strange fairy-like creatures called 'Sharls' to repair them in real-time (players can acquire Sharls by scanning barcodes of various real-world items, they live in a 'Sharl Nest' in Ion's dream world that looks like an aquarium). As the Sharls repair Ion's dream world, you can slowly begin to retrieve her lost memories as each broken memory is repaired.

~Words and Terms to know~

Genom - A race of creatures that live on Ra Ciela that are capable of synthesizing with humans to bind and create song magic.

Genometrics - A person's inner spirit world. Like a cosmosphere, if you're familar with Ar tonelico terminology.

Tenmon - A political faction that places their faith in human technology and ingenuity. They developed advanced devices that allow humans to make use of song magic without needing the help of genom.

Chimon - A political faction that admires and reveres the genom and their close relationship with the planet, they think that humanity should learn more from the way the genom live.

Cielnotron - A type of programmable vacuum-tube developed by the Tenmon faction that allows people to make use of song magic's power without a genom. People have become very reliant on them, as they have many daily uses like healing, heating and more, not just the ability to bind song magic.

Sharl - An artificially created genom, capable of doing most anything a real genom can do, like bind song magic. They're just empty vessels without their own free will unless someone's spirit is transferred into one, though.

Colon - Short for 'colony', floating settlements that the rich and well-connected live on. For the sake of not having to call them 'colons', I'm going to just refer to them as colonies henceforth.

~Central Characters~

Ionasol Kkll Preciel (Ion) - The protagonist of Ciel nosurge, and the empress candidate of the Tenmon (Astronomical faction) group. Unsure of herself, she wants to do what she can to save Ra Ciela but lacks conviction at first, especially compared to the fiery and determined Kanon. Ion is quite the gearhead, and loves tinkering with machinery.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha01.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_04.html

Kanoyeel Kkll Preciel (Kanon) - The empress candidate of the Chimon (Earthbound faction) group. Sophisticated, good at public speaking, and firm in her ideals, she wants to save Ra Ciela and at first thinks that Ion is too wishy-washy and weak to enact real change. She has a weakness for cute animals, especially birds, although she's embarrassed by it. Highly dignified, kind, and elegant.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha06.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_09.html

Tabou (Delta Lantanoil) - A young boy from the town of Manjusara who saves Ion. Childhood friends with Casty, he always rushes into danger to help his friends and cheers them up however he can. Headstrong but a bit thickheaded. Ta-bou is the protagonist 'Delta' from Ar nosurge - Ta-bou is a nickname from the last syllable of his real name, Delta. 'De-ru-ta', 'ta-bou', 'bou' being a nickname for young boys like him.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha03.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_01.html

Casty Rianoit (Cas) - A young girl from the town of Manjusara who is friends with Tabou. Haughty and arrogant at first, she's a good person underneath her cold exterior, you could call her a tsundere.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha04.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_03.html

Nayaflask (Nay) - An energetic singer and idol with a twisted and complicated past who inhabits the body of an artificially created genom, she befriends Ion early on.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha07.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_11.html

Sarly - A young girl and childhood friend of Casty's. A hacker prodigy. The leader of the resistance group 'Quantize'. Helps the party however she can throughout the story.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha11.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_05.html

Shirotaka - A bright and kind, nerdy figurine collector who is also a hacker-enthusiast, he lends his technical expertise to the party many times.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha10.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_15.html

Zillillium (Zill) - A genius researcher aligned with the Chimon faction who aims to create a world where everyone lives in harmony as Sharl-like creatures that lack individual free will. She is in love with Undu, a researcher who currently inhabits Nero's body after he lost his in an accident. Her secondary goal is to rescue him. She will stop at nothing to achieve her goals.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha12.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_07.html

Nero - Known as 'Reon' at first and then as 'Nero' eventually, her real name is 'Ululiya'. She is a being who was summoned and imprisoned by humans 5000 years ago. Her power was used 5000 years ago to teleport humanity away from a different dying planet to Ra Ciela. Her main wish is to be returned to her home world. Like Zillillium, Nero will use any means necessary to get what she wants.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha14.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_17.html

Renall Tatalca - A high-ranking officer in Tenmon's special PLASMA task force, her conscience and the orders she receives from above are a constant source of conflict for her.

Appearance in Ciel nosurge: http://social.gust.co.jp/pc/cielnosurge/offline/cha09.html

Appearance in Ar nosurge: http://www.arnosurge.eu/chara_14.html

Telefunken - A small genom that looks like a tiny flying dragon. Ion saves him by synchronizing with him and becoming his genom partner. He worries often about how he is holding back Ion by being such a weak genom.

COSAL - The king of the genoms, he is Kanon's genom partner. Like most genoms, he seeks harmony between the planet and the people living on it.

~Chapter 1~

The planet of Ra Ciela is in crisis. Its dying sun Bezel sends frequent bursts of energy called 'wave bursts' raining down on the surface of the planet, killing anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in them. The rich and powerful can afford to live on floating island colonies that afford some protection from these bursts, but the regular people on the ground mostly just have to hope they don't get wiped out by a stray burst.

Two rival political factions have formed plans to save humanity - Tenmon (the astronomical faction) and Chimon (the earthbound faction). Tenmon's plan (called the 'Grand Phoenix Plan') is to evacuate humanity to an entirely different planet, abandoning Ra Ciela to its fate and moving to a more hospitable planet. Chimon's plan (called the 'Save Bezel Plan') is to have humans join together with creatures called Genom in an attempt to heal Bezel and stop the destructive wave bursts. To decide whose plan will be carried out, each faction puts out a candidate to become the new Empress of Ra Ciela - whichever candidate succeeds the throne will carry out their respective faction's plan. Ionasol Kkll Preciel (Ion) is Tenmon's empress candidate, and Kanoyeel Kkll Preciel (Kanon) is Chimon's empress candidate (no relation, the 'Kkll Preciel' seems to just be an empress candidate title). During this 3 year trial, the empress candidates will live among the people and test themselves.

Chapter 1 opens with Ion and Kanon making their debut to the public as empress candidates. A huge crowd is out to greet them. Kanon carries herself with dignity and greets the gathered peoples to introduce herself, but Ion is nervous among so many people, and when they close in on her, she runs away. Lost and confused in the town of Manjusara, a hungry and tattered Ion is found by a young boy who goes by the nickname Tabou, who brings her home and gets his mother, Ruray, to feed and shelter her for a while.

Ion befriends Tabou and his friends, who turn their secret club into a cheering brigade for Ion when they learn that Ion is an empress candidate. Aside from Tabou, the club's other two members are Pram (a young mechanical genius) and Casty (a childhood friend of Tabou's and the daughter of a rich household). Ion also synchronizes with a stray, small, weak dragon genom named Telefunken that she finds in an alley in order to save his life. Telefunken is a weak genom not considered a suitable genom for someone as important as an empress candidate, especially compared to Kanon whose genom partner is the king of the genoms, COSAL.

Ion's fun days with her new friends are cut short as a wave burst strikes Manjusara, wiping out a large portion of the town's old protective barrier, causing debris from the barrier to rain down on the city, including the house that Pram lived in, killing him. A second wave burst is due to strike any time, and the town is in panic as it seems like everyone has abandoned them. Chimon's empress candidate Kanon helps evacuate a small number of people to safety in a colony in the skies, but everyone else is stuck below.

With nothing to lose, Ion attempts to create song magic to protect the town from the incoming wave burst with the help of her genom Terefunken, but Terefunken is too weak by himself. After managing to convince several dozen citizens of Manjusara to lend her their Cielnotrons to form a link that amplifies her song magic, Ion completes and performs a song magic that sprouts giant flowers that rise into the sky and protect the rest of Manjusara from the wave burst right before it hits, saving the town and its people.

~Chapter 2~

Ion leaves Manjusara to continue her journey as an empress candidate, leaving for the Yumenotama colony, which is experiencing oddities in its gravitational balance field.

Meeting up with Casty's father Gregoff, Ion and Gregoff investigate the cause of the imbalance and find that the problem is caused by suspicious irregularities in the Cielnotron network throughout Yumenotama itself - the Cielnotron producing company 'Tube Company' seems to be implicated. Along the way, Ion meets an energetic girl named Nay who helps her when she's in trouble and becomes friends with her.

Taking matters into her own hands, Chimon's empress candidate Kanon binds and performs song magic that destroys the Cielnotron network on Yumenotama. Tube Company sends soldiers to attempt to stop Kanon, but Ion protects Kanon even though she disagrees with what she's doing, admiring her decisiveness and bold vision that Ion lacks. Tube Company, although upset at Ion for getting in their way and protecting Kanon, still decides to invite Ion to come visit their headquarters. She temporarily turns down the offer, opting to travel with Nay for a while longer.

~Chapter 3~

Ion travels with Nay to the 'Planetary Mezon' colony, where she finds out that Nay is actually an incredibly popular singer and idol who goes by the alias 'Pretty Berry'. Ion also meets with a friend of Nay's by the name of Shirotaka, a nerdy figurine and tron-technology enthusiast and a hacker who is also a huge fan of Pretty Berry. Nay is getting frustrated with Ion for being such a doormat and just going with the flow, and tells Ion that she needs to get her act together and make up her mind on if she really has what it takes to be an empress candidate.

Nay suggests that Ion bind some song magic expressing her will to save Ra Ciela and perform along with her at the next exhibition. With the help of Shirotaka and Shirotaka's mysterious voice-changer using internet friend who goes by the alias 'Noel', they use an older-generation tron called a G2-tron to bind Ion's feelings into song magic that she can perform. Kanon is in the audience during Ion's performance, and it moves Kanon and convinces her that Ion really is taking her empress candidacy seriously.

~Chapter 4~

Ion finally decides to accept an invitation along with Nay from the persistent Tube Company CEO, Neptul, to go visit his headquarters where the next-generation Cielnotron, codenamed 'Neptron', is being developed.

We also learn that the current Cielnotron network's OS, called REON-OS, was created by trapping a being similar to Ion who they refer to as 'Reon' into the Cielnotron network and using her soul as the essence of the Cielnotron operating system. Unknown to Ion, Neptul actually intends to use Ion's as a vessel to free Reon and bring her out into the real world. To help in this purpose he is blackmailing Nay, and also blackmailing Casty's father Gregoff by holding Casty hostage.

The chapter culminates with Tabou infiltrating Tube Company to rescue the captive Casty, Reon taking over Ion's body to escape her captivity, and Nay eventually betraying Neptul and performing song magic to save Ion and let her reclaim control of her body from Reon. As the ceremony to bind Ion to the Neptron fails, Tube Company is destroyed. Casty's father Gregoff, a former employee of Tube Company, sacrifices himself to let Ion, Tabou, Casty and Nay escape to safety, dying along with Tube Company's CEO Neptul as the entire facility crumbles and the Neptron project is destroyed. Gregoff's last wish is for his daughter Casty to be happy, and Neptul, in his dying moments, also wishes happiness for his own daughter who we have not yet met.

~Chapter 5~

Highly concerned by the destruction of Tube Company, Tenmon (the Astronomical faction) has their cutting-edge research organization, PLASMA, summon Ion to report on what happened at one of their outposts on a colony called Almetica, a colony that specializes in storage and preservation of history (it's namesake is a genom called Almetica on the colony, whose vast stores of knowledge are like a library of history). Nay, Casty and Tabou also come along, all of them to be held in custody by PLASMA until the investigation into the events at Tube Company is finished.

While Ion and her friends are being held for questioning, Kanon is also on Almetica. Kanon is looking into suspicious circumstances regarding her birth and upraising that she had never been able to investigate before - she had heard rumors that she was 'unfit to be an empress candidate' because of this secret. Reon, who had escaped from her captivity earlier at Tube Company, takes control of Tabou's body and has him guide Ion out of PLASMA's reach, where she meets with Kanon. Kanon tells Ion about the rumors that herself and Ion are unfit to be empress candidates due to foul play perpetrated by both Tenmon and Chimon, and they vow together to find out the truth behind what foul play is going on in the two factions.

With PLASMA in close pursuit of Ion and her friends, Kanon uses her song-magic to shield Ion and everyone else's escape from the colony, returning the favor from earlier when Ion had saved her.

~Chapter 6~

Ion, Tabou, Casty and Nay escape to a new colony known as 'Four Seasons', where they take refuge with a hacker collective known as 'Quantize' that works in the shadows against PLASMA. The leader of Quantize is Sarly, a sickly young girl who is Casty's childhood friend and also the daughter of the now-deceased CEO of Tube Company, Neptul. Shirotaka also makes his way to Four Seasons and is shocked to find that the true identity of his hacker friend 'Noel', who always used a voice-changer to sound like a man, was actually Sarly.

Also living on Four Seasons is a mysterious scientist woman named Zillillium (Zill for short) who seems to be plotting something and is blackmailing Nay into working for her. Reon (now being called 'Nero' by Zill), who had been lying dormant in Tabou up until now, also made her appearance and seems to also be working with Zill.

Breaking into Zill's lab behind her back and looking into her research for a way to save Tabou from being taken over by Nero and also for a way to cure Sarly's terminal illness, Nay breaks her contract with Zill and helps Ion and her friends find what they need from Zill's research lab. Sarly's imminent death is averted by turning her body into an artificial genom via a virus that Zill developed, and Nero is separated from Tabou's body. With Zill and her minions in pursuit of everyone, Ion and Sarly have to escape by themselves, leaving Nay, Casty and Tabou to an unknown fate on Four Season to Zill and her minions.

~Chapter 7~

Sarly guides Ion to the secret location of an old research lab, the 'Genomirai Research Facility', which is under the control of PLASMA. Hiding in a secret room is an old man by the name of Clackett who was the ex-leader of the Genomirai research team, but currently wants to find a way to undo all the trouble his research caused. He reveals that both Nero and Ion are actually beings from a different world who were forcibly transported to Ra Ciela, and that this was a major cause of the disturbance causing the planet's sun to send out destructive wave bursts. He believes the best way to restore stability is to find a way to send Nero and Ion back to their own world. They also meet back up with Kanon, who escaped safely from the events of Chapter 5 and came to the Genomirai research center in search of the mysterious circumstances surrounding her birth - she finds out that she is not actually of the bloodline required to be an empress, but was rather the result of countless experiments carried out by Chimon in this lab.

While Clackett, Sarly and Ion are doing research into ways of sending Ion back to her own world, Zill and Nero are on their trail and catch up to them. They strike a deal to send Ion and Nero back to their own dimension by seizing the Genomirai facility from PLASMA and using its equipment, sending Ion back first because she was the one who was most recently summoned and things will proceed with the most stability if they go in order. Zill's motivation is that Nero is currently sharing her body with the soul of another ex-Genomirai researcher named Undu that Zill is in love with - if Nero is sent back, Undu can take full control of the body and be saved. Nero has different plans though and wants to make sure she gets sent home to her dimension first, believing that once Ion is sent back, Zill and the rest of them won't uphold their end of the bargain and send her back. Nero uses a special ability that only her and Ion possess, 'fukanshiten' (loosely translated: overlooking viewpoint) which allows her to slightly alter the future, shifting the axis of the world's timeline and causing the plan to become 'send Nero back first before Ion'. Only Ion, who also possesses that ability, realizes anything is wrong. Everyone else just proceeds as if the plan had been to send Nero home first all along.

The chapter culminates with the party frantically trying to hold off PLASMA as they perform the ritual that would send Nero back to her own dimension. Ion, who has been convinced by PLASMA's leader and her old friend Renall to stop the plan, tries to interrupt the ritual. In the end, PLASMA breaks through, the ritual is interrupted, Kanon is shot by PLASMA soldiers, and as the facility crumbles and everyone evacuates, the ship that Renall and Ion are escaping on is shot by one of Zill's soldiers, destroying the ship and killing both Renall and Ion.

~Chapter 8~

Two years have passed since the events of Chapter 7, and the world has largely fallen under the control of Zillillium and the church she set up. She plans to turn all of humanity into artificial genoms like the Sharls, robbing everyone of their free will but calming the dying sun and restoring stability. Her second-in-command is Nay, who has been given the ability to manipulate Sharls, and Undu, who is now in control of Nero's old body.

Tabou, Casty, Sarly and Clackett have been powerless to stop the apocalyptic events unfolding, and with Ion dead they don't know what to do. They live in hiding in Tabou's mother's home, coming under constant harassment and attack from Zill's acolytes as heretics.

Nay arrives at their home and explains her plan to attempt to save the world and Ion, who they find out is actually not completely dead, her soul is being stored in a special vacuum tube in Zill's base. We also find out that Nay is actually the 'real' Ion - when Nay was a child, her soul was forcibly removed from her body so that the being Tenmon summoned could inhabit it and become the 'new' Ion. A kind researcher named Fractel saved her from being thrown away by transferring her soul into the body of a Sharl and helping her escape.

Nay's current body is actually a Sharl that requires constant medical treatment that only Zill possesses, which is one reason she has been being blackmailed all this time. The party steals the tube that Ion's soul is being stored in, and Nay dives into Ion's genometrics with it. Nay harbors a lot of hate and resentment towards Ion for stealing her body and life, but as she sees the abuse and horrible treatment that Ion had to put up with after being forced out of her own dimension and kept in a tiny jail cell for most of her life, she realizes that life has been hard for both of them, and they forgive each other. Undu, Zill's former lover and fellow former Genomirai researcher, also agrees to help put a stop to Zill's plan.

With Ion's soul (and her special 'overlooking viewpoint' ability) recovered, the party hatches their last ditch plan - they will use the energy from the upcoming ritual that Zill wants to use to turn all of humanity into Sharl-like creatures, hijack it and use Ion's ability to turn back time to before Nero threw off the timeline back in Chapter 6. While the rest of the party gives their lives holding off Zillillium's soldiers, Nay, Sarly and Undu perform the song magic they created with Ion's help, hijacking Zill's ritual's magic to power their own song and turn back time to before Nero changed the timeline.

Arriving back in time, Ion confronts Renall and vows that she won't forgive Tenmon or PLASMA for shooting Kanon and doing everything else they've done, and that she can't continue to act as their empress candidate any longer. Renall, deeply hurt by her old friend Ion turning her back on them, tells Ion that Kanon is still alive and wasn't killed by the gunshot she sustained earlier, and that she will take Ion and her friends to Soreil, the colony where she is currently being healed, to prove it to her. Meanwhile on the colony Four Season, Tabou, Casty and Shirotaka are taken captive by PLASMA for being members of Quantize.

~Chapter 9~

The chapter opens with Tabou, Casty and Shirotaka in a giant amusement park dedicated to the hugely popular mascot character 'Nruluki', a cute stuffed-animal-like character. None of them can remember how they got there, and for some reason they don't care - they just have fun in the amusement park, wanting to just spend their lives having fun forever in it.

Meanwhile Ion, Nero and Sarly have been taken to Soreil and are awaiting news of Kanon's recovery. It turns out that Soreil is actually a facility built underneath the Nruluki amusement park, and Renall gives the three of them tickets to get into the park. Sarly is suspicious and doesn't want to go, but Nero thinks it sounds fun and runs off by herself, where she meets up with Tabou, Casty and Shirotaka and becomes friends with them (especially with Casty), the first friends she had made in her 5000 years of captivity on Ra Ciela.

Sarly finds out that the Nruluki theme park is actually a brainwashing facility that uses Sharls to 're-educate' and brainwash people that PLASMA deemed enemies - she goes to save Nero and meets up with Tabou, Casty and Shirotaka as well, informing them of the situation. They try to escape together and manage to do so by impersonating the mascot character Nruluki to fool PLASMA's guards. Casty also synchronizes with Sarly, who became an artificial genom back in Chapter 6 and is thus capable of synchronizing with humans and binding song magic with them. Casty turns out to be proficient in song magic use when she synchronizes with Sarly, and her song magic helps them escape the brainwashing theme park and make their way into the heart of Soreil's top-secret research lab. Meanwhile, Zill has accepted an offer from her former enemies at Tenmon to join their research team and is currently working in that very lab.

~Chapter 10~

The party runs into Zill as they sneak into the lab, and once again offers to work with her like they did back in the Genomirai research facility, but Zill leads them into a trap and they end up captured by PLASMA again. Only Casty manages to slip away. As Casty sneaks through the lab, she discovers a huge aquarium of sharls that PLASMA have been using to power the Cielnotron server ever since Nero escaped from the original. The facility also is home to a new model of vacuum-tube called an 'Ar nosurge tube', which is said to support something called 'interdimmend', a technology that is said to be able to 'open windows between worlds', something that interests Nero greatly as it may allow her to return to her home world. Nay, who can still control sharls as a result of the experiments Zill performed on her, reaches out and uses a sharl to communicate with and guide Casty throughout the facility.

Meanwhile, Ion's old friend Renall has staged a coup to take control of PLASMA from her father Revelt, and a civil war erupts between the two factions. Renall is a good person and has been biding her time for this chance to take control from her increasingly corrupt and self-destructive father. In the chaos, Revelt sabotages the sharl aquarium that serves as the Cielnotron server, causing it to overheat and cause a 'Cielnotron panic' as the server stops working and everyone on the planet's Cielnotrons begin randomly exploding and overloading, becoming unusable and causing mayhem as the technology that society had become so reliant on suddenly stopped working.

Ion, Kanon, Renall and Nay form a plan to try to save humanity from the panic unfolding, involving Ion using her 'overlooking viewpoint' ability to change reality ever so slightly to avoid the previous sabotage of the Cielnotron server. Using it requires an enormous amount of energy and Ion's genom, Telefunken, is again unable to provide anywhere near enough for it. To amplify the energy, the plan is that Ney will control the sharls and send them out across the planet, Renall will break Kanon out of Soreil with the help of Casty's attack song-magic, and Kanon will announce to everyone that if everyone sends their feelings to Ion through the sharls that Nay controls, the panic can be stopped. The plan is a success - people heed Kanon's advice and synchronize with the sharls that Nay controls, sending their energy to Nay, who then channels it to Telefunken and Ion. Telefunken can't handle the energy and is about to give up, when he is scolded by the King of Genoms, COSAL, for not believing in Ion as much as he should. Eventually Telefunken manages to completely merge with Ion, giving Ion the appearance of a dragongirl with scales, wings and a tail in her merged Ion/Telefunken form and allowing her to use all the energy sent to her from the people to change fate again and stop the Cielnotron panic.

In the end, disaster is averted and Nero agrees to willingly, temporarily go back into the old Cielnotron server to stabilze things for a while. Ion and Kanon hold an announcement to the people of Ra Ciela that they are both dropping out as empress candidates and that they will instead work together, not as the empress candidates of Tenmon and Chimon, but as representatives for all humanity, to find a solution that can make everyone happy. Renall succeeds in taking over complete control of PLASMA and breaks it off from Tenmon (the Astronomical faction) entirely, reforming it as an indepenent organization. She pledges to use it to help Ion and Kanon in their goals.

The last cliffhanger before Chapter 10 ends is Nay whispering something unknown with Telefunken, and him leaving Ion without telling her anything. We aren't told what the circumstances were, but he seemed to be convinced that he couldn't stay with Ion any longer.

~Chapter 11~

Ion is distraught over Telefunken's sudden disappearance, and Nay tells her what happened - he felt that he was too weak and that he wanted to leave and train to become stronger so that he would someday be a genom worthy of being Ion's partner. He probably knew that Ion would never accept that, so he left without telling her.

Casty stops by the Cielnotron server to ask Nero why she willingly went back into it after she had fought for so long to get out of it - Nero answers that it's because she cares about Casty. As the only real friend she made on this planet, she's willing to put her plans on hold if it will save Casty. She doesn't care about the rest of humanity, but she doesn't want to make Casty sad.

Now it's time for Ion and Kanon to go meet with the empress and explain themselves to her for their sudden cancellation of the empress succession contest. She is seemingly furious at them and scolds them harshly for so carelessly breaking such an important tradition and not properly thinking through the consequences - Ion and Kanon leave feeling dejected, but that night, the empress leaves the two sacred imperial artifacts in the room they're sleeping in, wishing them the best. Ion and Kanon wake up and see that, realizing that the empress is secretly cheering for them, and they cheer up - but COSAL contacts Kanon to interrupt the happy moment, urging them to come quickly back to the Genomirai research lab, as something terrible is about to happen.

Revelt, Renall's father and the former leader of PLASMA, is holed up with the people still loyal to him and he is plotting to use up the planet's remaining energy to teleport just themselves away to safety, leaving the rest of the planet - the vast majority of humanity and all of the genoms, to die. He has also seized the Cielnotron server that Nero is in and locked her back inside it - he confronts her and tells her that she's just a tool and that she was a fool to trust anybody to keep their promises to her. Nero, betrayed yet again, is shut inside the server and Revelt uses her special overlooking viewpoint ability to find a new planet that they can escape to.

With the preparations set, Revelt and his small group of followers prepare to execute their plan. Zill, much to her displeasure, is being threatened at gunpoint to sing the song that will destroy Ra Ciela in order to transport the few humans on that platform to a new planet.

The king of the genoms, COSAL, is not having any of this. As he senses this going on, he summons all the genoms on the planet to follow him in an assault on Revalt's position to stop him before he can complete the song. Ion, Kanon, Professor Clackett and Sarly all show up to try to stop Revelt as well. COSAL is used to humans behaving selfishly, but this plan to sacrifice everything, to basically commit genocide against the genoms, is a new low even for him, and he is seething with rage. Revelt taunts COSAL, telling him that the genoms are no longer needed, and erects a powerful barrier around him and his followers that repel the genoms' attacks. Clackett, who is being held by Revelt's men with a gun to his head inside the platform, breaks free while the genoms' attack has everyone distracted and runs to control terminal, quickly entering some commands to throw off the power balance and weaken the shield. Revelt shoots him in the back and in desperation, releases all limiters on the power generator to keep the barrier up. The energy is too much, the song fails and it's about to overwhelm everything and destroy the platform along with Revelt and everyone on it.

A dying Professor Clackett hands Casty a special Cielnotron that she says Sarly should one day be able to research and understand, that it's his legacy. He's too injured to escape in time and he stays behind on the platform. It's time to run, but Kanon won't go - she will stay and fight until the end alongside COSAL. Ion doesn't want to leave her, but there's no time - Ion, Casty, Zill and Renall escape while a massive explosion destroys the platform where Kanon, COSAL and all of Revalt's minions are, extinguishing their plans and, it is assumed, the lives of everyone there.

The world is now in turmoil as everyone on the planet saw the genoms suddenly flying in a united group followed by the earthquakes that were caused by Revelt's song. A lot of humans now think that the genoms did something and were responsible for the now-hastening demise of the planet, as Ra Ciela has frequent earthquakes and seems on the verge of breaking any time. Some humans have started hunting down and killing any genoms they can find in revenge.

With Kanon presumed dead, Ion is the only remaining heir to the throne, and she is announced to be the new empress. She's extremely distraught over Kanon, but she knows what she has to do - the empress tells her that she didn't want things to come down to this, but that they must try to evacuate humanity from the planet, and a new empress is needed to unite people around this plan. As part of the ritual to pass on the 'voice of the empress', Ion has to kiss the former empress to receive her magical 'voice of the empress'. The player can tease Ion about this later if you want, back outside the dream world. She'll get very defensive and insist that it 'doesn't count' because the empress is a woman and besides, it was a ceremony so it couldn't be helped!

~Chapter 12~

Ion, now known simply as 'Empress Ra Ciela', is now swamped by politics, trying to gather support for the evacuation plans. Fortunately she has Renall, who is skilled in organizational management as the head of PLASMA, and Nay, who is always around to cheer her up, to help her.

One of these events is a special ceremony that takes place upon the crowning of a new empress - the empress selects seven special people who helped her during her trials, and gives them new imperial names. Normally, if COSAL were still around, he would be in attendance and bless the seven special attendants with the ability to create powerful song magic, but since he is presumed dead along with Kanon from the explosion in Chapter 11, it will just have to be ceremonial. The seven people Ion chooses are: Nay, Renall, Tabou, Casty, Shirotaka, Sarly...and Kanon, even though she's presumed dead and can't actually be there to accept the honor in person. Most of these names aren't important to remember, but there are two that you should keep in mind for Ar nosurge - Ion gives Nay the name 'Tentouki' and Kanon the name 'Boudaimyoou'.

With the ceremonies over, it's time to focus on evacuating the planet before it is destroyed. Ion asks Renall for a few days to visit the places she's traveled on Ra Ciela, she's tired of being cooped up in formal political events and wants to talk with the regular people again. Renall is against it, but Nay convinces her to let Ion go, since if Ion has any doubts remaining in her mind she may not be able to properly sing the song magic that will allow them to evacuate the planet. Nay also synchronizes with Ion as her new genom partner (Nay's body is an artificial sharl, so she can synchronize with humans), it's what Telefunken wanted and Nay and Ion have become close friends anyway. And so Ion begins traveling to all the cities that she's visited throughout the game so far, meeting up with old friends and getting encouragement, steadying her resolve.

One of the places Ion visits is the city of Almetica (she was there in Chapter 5), where she gets in touch with the genom that oversees the colony (Almetica himself). Ion wants to save everyone, but there are some humans, especially former members of Chimon, who plan to stay and die with Ra Ciela. Distressingly, Almetica also informs Ion that the vast majority of the genoms will also stay and die along with the planet. There are a few who will go with Ion, but it's a very small number. Almetica explains that the genoms have been with Ra Ciela for countless ages, as opposed to the humans who just migrated to the planet 5,000 years ago. Most of the genoms consider the planet to be their mother, and have no plans on abandoning it. Ion asks if the genoms are angry at humanity - Almetica says they're not angry, they're just disappointed that they weren't able to guide humans to a more enlightened path. Almetica also reveals that the planet itself (which has a will of its own) wants to save humanity, and supports Ion in her plan to evacuate it. However, the genom king COSAL, in his last moments confronting Revelt, DID possess an unbridled hatred towards humanity for what they were doing. Almetica is worried that COSAL's dying hatred might eventually affect the normal genoms as well, so it's probably for the best that most of them aren't going with her. Until now, Ion had been holding out hope that Kanon might have somehow survived the explosion, but Almetica tells Ion that unfortunately, she's almost certainly been killed alongside COSAL. Ion is crushed - she knew that Kanon surviving that was a long shot, but she still had hope that she might have made it somehow.

After Ion's journey to various places is over, it's time to get back to business - using her overlooking viewpoint ability, she locates a hospitable planet. Everything is in order - the humans and the few genom who are coming along board the ship, and Ion prepares to sing the song that will use the last of the planet's energy to teleport humanity to the new planet. As she stands over the precipice overlooking Ra Ciela, the planet trembles and shakes, barely holding itself together. Ion thanks Ra Ciela for holding out so long, the planet has been clinging to life to make time for Ion's plan and now it can finally rest. Ion stands atop Singing Hill and sings the song, Ra Ciela Fusor - the planet of Ra Ciela crumbles beneath her and is turned into energy, and the colony ship is transported above a beautiful blue and green planet, full of life. The song was a success, humanity has been saved from their fate of dying alongside Ra Ciela.

It's not over yet though, as they still don't know if the new planet is safe to land on, so an expeditionary force of humans and some genom is created. The genom are the few who came along with Ion, since the majority of them decided to stay and die alongside their planet. As Ion goes to bid them luck on their expedition as their empress, she's shocked to find out who the leader of the genom expeditonary force is - it's Telefunken, who she hasn't seen since he left in Chapter 10. She's overjoyed to see him again, and Telefunken explains that he wants to become strong and will prove himself to Ion by leading the expedition.

~Terminate Pack~

So, all's well that ends well, humanity found a new planet and everything worked out, right? Not quite, we're not done yet. There are still some broken memories in Ion's dream world, but the player and Ion can't seem to find a way to repair them. Also, we still don't understand why Ion is in the strange world she's in, how she got there, or if humanity safely landed on the new planet.

At this point, Nelico is getting really upset at the player and Ion for continuing to repair Ion's memories - she seems nervous, like they're about to find something out that they shouldn't know. Ion thinks hard for days (literally days, the game makes you wait several days to let Ion think) and finally remembers a recipe for a special vacuum-tube and for a robot. The robot is something special - as Ion creates it, she experiences Deja-vu and she sees mental flashes of herself walking alongside the robot, talking with it..and when she finally finishes crafting it, something in her mind snaps - she gets a massive headache and cries out in pain, and the PS Vita crashes (not really, but the game puts up a screen that makes it look like it has crashed). When the game comes back online, Ion's house has been half destroyed - most of the roof and parts of the walls are completely gone, and her dream world's locked memories can now be repaired.

We repair those previously inaccessible memories to find out what happens next after the expeditionary team led by Telefunken was sent down to the surface, and we can kiss our 'good end' goodbye as we see what happens next. Just 10 days before it's planned to have everyone leave the colony ship and set foot on the new world, Ion is awoken in her sleep by the voice of Nero, calling out to her. Nero tells her to meet her at Singing Hill, that she has something very important to tell her. Ion wakes up and wonders if it was just a dream, but she goes out to Singing Hill anyway, and sure enough, Nero is there. Not physically, but spiritually (her body is still in the Cielnotron server). She explains to Ion that she found a way that she and Ion can go home to their own worlds and begs Ion to synchronize with her so that she can show her the plan. Ion reluctantly lets her- and she sees that Nero's plan involves sacrificing the vast majority of humanity to serve as a power source that will allow her and Nero to be transported home. Nero explains that she'll spare Ion, Casty and their friends since she cares about them, but that she couldn't care less about the rest of humanity, who have constantly betrayed her and used her. Obviously, Ion refuses to go along with this plan, but Nero refuses to break synchronization and tries to take control of Ion's body. She begins to systematically break Ion's mind, destroying her memories and her self-identity.

Ion cries out mentally for help, and Nay hears her since they synchronized earlier. She rushes out to the Singing Hill, and sees Ion and Nero vying for control of Ion's body - Nero is about to activate something bad, something that would probably set her plan in motion to turn the humans onboard the ship into fuel. Ion, unable to wrest control of her body back from Nero for more than a few seocnds at a time, begs Nay to kill her before it's too late. Nay doesn't want to - but there's no other choice, Nero is about to activate the song magic through Ion's power as empress. Ion begs Nay to kill her again - and Nay screams as she pulls out a knife and runs Ion through with it. Sobbing at what she's done as Ion is dying before her eyes, Ion apologizes to Nay and thanks her - with the last of her strength, she lifts Nay's chin up to face her and kisses her, passing the Voice of the Empress on to Nay. Nero, enraged that her plan has been foiled, quickly chants out a teleportation spell before Ion can bleed out completely - as the spell finishes, it causes Ion and Nero to disappear along with the beautiful new planet that they were going to land on soon, leaving only the colony ship floating in the vast emptiness of space.

As we come back from the dream world, now Ion and the player know why Ion is here and why she was an amnesiac - Nero destroyed her memories, and this strange world Ion lives in now is Ion's cosmosphere. Ion and the player resolve to find a way to escape and get out of there together - but to do that, first she needs to transfer control of the robot she made earlier to the player so that you can escape together. Ion needs some time to figure out how to do that, so it's back to her dream world to see if we can dig up any more useful information. Ion's dreamworld guardian greets you as you enter her dream world this time, and informs you that she's prepared some more memories for you to see - they're not Ion's memories, but they're memories that she thought would come in handy for Ion and the player to know, given the task ahead of them. This also explains why some of the memories we've seen so far have been things Ion couldn't possibly have seen (like all the scenes where Ion wasn't even there) - a good portion of the memories here are things that Ion's cosmosphere guardian just gathered from other people whose minds have crossed with Ion's using her overlooking viewpoint ability that she thinks will be useful.

With that in mind, the first memories we repair are some of Nay's memories. In terms of timeline, they're things that happened in Chapters 2, 3, 6 and 7, back when Nay was still working with Zill. Back when we first experienced those chapters from Ion's perspective, Nay just seemed to be an energetic girl who wanted to help Ion. Now we can see what was really going on - remember, Ion's body and name are actually Nay's - when Nay (Ion) was young, her soul was forced out of her body so that the being Tenmon summoned could inhabit it and become the 'new' Ion - an empress candidate with the 'overlooking viewpoint' ability, who could work for Tenmon's benefit. For that purpose, the 'old' Ion (the girl we know as Nay) was planned on just being scrapped - her soul would be discarded, killing her. A friendly researcher named Fractel saved Nay's soul from being thrown away and transplanted it into the body of an experimental sharl - we see Nay in her new sharl body frantically running from the Tenmon laboratory where her body was just stolen. Fractel is providing radio instructions to help her escape, and Nay hears Fractel die as Tenmon agents catch up to her and execute her. Nay just had everything stolen from her - her body, her real name (Ion), her identity, her right to live (Tenmon will chase her to the ends of the planet to prevent the secret of what they did from getting out). She swears revenge on Tenmon and on 'Nei Yuuki' the being they summoned to take over her body (Nei Yuuki is Ion's real name, before she was summoned to Ra Ciela and given the identity of 'Ion').

Nay's sharl body won't hold out for long and she ends up having to be saved by Chimon's genius researcher, Zillillium Rimonite. Zill is cold and calculating, and offers a trade - she can give Nay medicine that will allow her sharl body to maintain itself, and she can offer Nay the chance to get revenge on Tenmon and take back her body from Ion, if she helps Zill. Nay agrees - she knows Zill isn't trustworthy but she'll do anything to take revenge on Ion and on Tenmon for taking everything from her.

As Nay travels alongside Ion, first acting as a double-agent and periodically reporting back to Zill about her movements, she slowly begins to realize that what she's doing is wrong. It wasn't Ion's fault that she was summoned to their world, after all. Her friendly 'act' towards Ion eventually becomes how she really feels. She refuses betray Ion to Zill, and eventually breaks her contract and decides to help Ion instead.

More of Nay's memories from around Chapter 6-7 show her talking with Professor Clackett - he's been doing research into ways of undoing all the damage his experiments caused, looking for a way to send Ion and Nero back home to stabilize their world. He tells Nay about a technology that allows people from different worlds to remotely manipulate things in their world. This way, people could make use of the 'overlooking viewpoint' ability that outsiders to their world like Ion and Nero possess, without actually having to summon them and destabilize the world. One implementation of that technology is the ES45 cathode - a special tube that will allow that manipulation to occur via a machine interface, allowing a being from another dimension to have some basic control over a machine, with some limitations. A more dangerous but potent version of this technology is called 'Interdimmend' and it allows an extradimensional being to take remote control of a living creature instead of a machine - it seems that research on Interdimmend has been continuing since Professor Clackett left, and may already be completed.

Moving along to a new batch of memories, we see some events from Kanon's perspective from around Chapter 6-7 in the Genomirai research facility. Kanon remembers her childhood - she, along with many other children, was the subject of constant experiments by the Genomirai researchers, who would regularly inject them with experimental substances. Professor Clackett and even COSAL were involved in this research. One experimental research drug was codenamed '229', and only Kanon responded well to it. That drug actually contained genetic mutators from Nero - It gave her the ability to synchronize with the minds of others more easily, and to bind powerful song magic. She was taken away from her friends and raised by COSAL and Professor Clackett to be Chimon's empress candidate, and she was given the full name of 'Kanoyeel' by COSAL, a mix of her real name and a genom name. She was introduced to Nero, who at the time refused to speak with anyone, and slowly got her to open up a bit and start talking. A result of the experiments gone wrong, Kanon's ability mingled with Nero's and caused the first 'Cielnotron panic', destroying the Genomirai research facility and killing nearly everyone inside it.

As Kanon remembers her past, COSAL speaks to her in her genometrics. He's incredibly remorseful about what they did to her - they forced an awful destiny on her when she was young, and one of the reasons COSAL has stayed Kanon's genom partner all these years is to protect her and try to atone for what he took part in. Kanon thanks COSAL but tells him not to worry, that even though this fate was forced on her, she was happy to take on the role she was given as Chimon's empress candidate and be given a chance to save humanity.

Now we return to the Chapter 12 memories to see how it all ends after Ion, Nero and the new planet disappeared. Nay and Renall are trying their best to keep things under control and prevent people from panicking - they've lied and told the people onboard the ship that there is just a bug with the display monitor, that the planet hasn't disappeared, but they know that lie won't quell the unrest for long. Sarly, Shirotaka, Tabou and Casty know things aren't right, they meet up and try to get access to the empress' room, but they're not allowed in. They attempt to sneak in - Shirotaka stays behind in the control room to open doors and hack security for them, but they can't get past the guards. That's when Zill calls out to them from a hidden passageway on the ship - they obviously can't trust her, but she can get them through into the empress' room and insists she has a plan to help, so they reluctantly team up with her again.

As the five of them reach the empress' room where Nay and Renall are, they explain the situation to them. They don't have any ideas on what to do - but Zill does. She wants to execute Chimon's old 'Save Bezel' plan and have everyone on the ship synchronize together and use their energy to teleport the ship back to the new planet they had found earlier. While everyone is incredibly distrustful of Zill, they don't have any other options and time is running out quickly - the ship only has supplies to last another 20 days. Part of Zill's plan involves having someone replace Nero as the conduit of everyone's energy inside the Cielnotron server now that Nero is gone. Anyone will do - Zill wants to put one of her Chimon subordinates in it, but the young Tabou speaks up and volunteers to take that duty instead, because he doesn't trust Zill's minion to not do something bad while in the server. Casty is really worried about him, but he convinces her to let him take on the task. Meanwhile, Shirotaka, Sarly and Zill begin preparations with Shirotaka and Sarly providing the technical expertise and Zill providing the medical expertise - she has to inject Sarly's artificial genom body with a substance that will let her interface with the server for what's about to occur. Nay, pretending to be Ion as the empress, speaks to the humans through loudspeakers on the ship and announces to them that despite the 'bug', the day has finally come for them to land on their new planet, making everyone ecstatic with joy. She tells everyone to sychronize with their Cielnotrons and chain them together, hopefully providing the energy necessary for Zill's plan to work.

It's time for the plan, but the energy provided by the humans onboard the ship isn't nearly enough - Zill expected this, and she along with four of her Chimon associates begins to sing a song that forces everyone on the ship's minds to meld. Those with weaker minds begin to die, but the energy generated is enough for their plan to be carried out. However, Nay refuses to sing - at this rate, everyone will lose their free will and become a hivemind-like existence that can't really be called 'humanity' - Sarly tells Tabou to cut the connection in the server, and he struggles with the overwhelming energy but finally manages to forcibly sever the server connection. Nay orders Zill to be taken captive, and Tabou is brought back out of the server.

Now it's really all over, there's no hope left. A large portion of the humans onboard the ship died and in a state like this, nobody is going to listen to the empress or anyone in authority. One portion of the ship is called Soreil, and it's self-sufficient enough to allow people to live in it indefinitely. Now that a lot of the people onboard are dead, there aren't any worries about running out of supplies and the remaining survivors can move there and live on, even if it's a lonely existence in a colony ship in the middle of nowhere in space. Shirotaka and Renall research more about Ion and Nero's whereabouts, and they pinpoint where they went - they didn't move very far in terms of location, but they jumped 5,000 years into the future.

There's only one thing they can do to stop Nero, and they decide to put themselves (Tabou, Casty, Sarly, Shirotaka, Renall) in cold sleep for 5,000 years. Shirotaka secretly accepts the task of staying onboard the main structure (separated from Soreil) and going into cold sleep there - Sarly is incredibly worried about him and demands that he promise to board the last ship - he promises her, but he knows it's a lie, he has to stay there and carry out his mission. Only he and Renall know that he plans to stay, Renall hopes that they can come back to pick him up in 5,000 years, but there's no guarantee they'll be able to. As the memories fade to black, we hear Zill muttering that she's not going to let it end like this...

Back outside the dream world, we're finally done repairing Ion's memories. Ion has found a way to transfer control of the terminal into the robot, but there's just one problem - there's a chance that once she shuts off the connection to the terminal and moves it to the robot, that when it starts back up it might not connect to you again. Ion tries and tries to find a way to guarantee that it'll work, but she can't find one. Finally, the player tells Ion that she has to make a choice - stay here forever and give up, or give it a try and go stop Nero. Ion can't decide - she wants to stop Nero and save everyone, but just as strongly, she doesn't want to do something that might separate her forever from the player. Eventually, you tell her that she has to decide. She takes a deep breath and says that she wants to save everyone, that she'll do it. As she prepares to sever the connection to your terminal to transfer it over to the robot without any guarantee it'll work, you exchange some final words. "See you later, Ion." "Yeah...see you soon, my precious partner..." she holds back tears as she pulls the plug and the 7th-dimension communicator shuts down, booting you out of the game for good ((if you load back the data, the game will bring you back to just before the decision, like a save point, but in story terms your connection to the terminal has been severed after you make that decision)). The final credits roll, and we've finished Ciel nosurge.

THE END

****

Ion's World

Remember, in between all the repairing and retrieving of memories, the life-simulation part of the game is also still taking place. Ion likes to build things and she starts gathering ingredients from the area around her house and using them to build items that she remembers from her recovered memories. Ion interacts with the player through a small terminal that sits in her house.

Nelico also stops by with a surprise early on in the game - virtual cards that can send Ion and the player to make-believe worlds, like a beach, a school, a parts-shop (Ion loves machinery so this is a favorite for her), a cafe, and many other spots. The player and Ion start going on 'dates' to these places from time to time.

As your relationship with Ion progresses, eventually she will confess that she loves the player, even though you can only communicate through machinery. For the truly dedicated, you can actually raise Ion's affection high enough that she'll marry you, with Nelico acting as the priest for the ceremony. The requirements for this are really difficult, only a really dedicated player can do the life-sim stuff enough to get her affection that high. I never did unlock the marriage event.

After some of the later memories start getting repaired, Ion begins to realize that she might have to leave that strange world, and wants to make sure that the player can come along with her. It's for that reason that she builds things and eventually becomes a skilled enough mechanic to actually build a large fighting robot that she can give control of to the player, so that they can try to escape together.

If you have Ciel nosurge save data, you can transfer it to Ar nosurge. One thing this will do is make it so that when Ion does reconnect the terminal to the robot, it connects back to the same person who helped her in Ciel for a happy reunion. Otherwise, it connects to a new person who hasn't met Ion before in Ar. Since English players will have no Ciel data to transfer, that means they'll go the 'new person who hasn't met Ion before' route here. It's too bad there's no option to tell the game that you know about Ciel despite not having save data for it.

****

~Random Interesting Tidbits~

As you retrieve more of Ion's memories, the walls of the house she is living in slowly become more and more cracked and damaged (leading up to the Terminate Pack, where most of the roof and walls of her house crumble entirely).

The calendar Ion has pinned on her wall is missing the 21st of the month.

~Ar nosurge Tips~

Just some tips to help you get the most out of your Ar nosurge playthrough.

-There are 3 difficulties: Normal, Hard, and Veteran. Play on the hardest difficulty, Veteran! The game is only somewhat challenging in the beginning third of the game, about halfway through it becomes extremely easy even on Veteran. If you want to maintain some semblance of a challenge later in the game, don't equip gear that gives you +item usage and don't equip +uses bonuses on your power attack (O button). Early on in the game, if you can't beat a boss and you're stuck, flip the difficulty down to Hard just for that fight and then switch back to Veteran. I'm not saying this because I'm some hardcore elitist, this game just really is incredibly easy on the lower difficulties and it's no fun if you beat all the boss fights in 30 seconds like you will if you play on Normal. It's probably harder to lose than it is to win battles on Normal difficulty. Stick to Veteran, swap to Hard temporarily in the beginning if you must.

-If you're in someone's Genometrics (cosmosphere) and you don't have enough Dive Points for something, don't worry! This isn't like Ar tonelico, where once you clear a level you can't go back. You can always revisit earlier Genometrics levels and choose an option again later when you have the necessary DP.

-This is just a minor flavor thing (has no effect on drops, gameplay or anything like that), but don't finish bosses off with song magic. Unleash your song magic when the bar is at like 95-99% and then finish the boss off with normal attacks so that you can see their defeat animation. If you finish them off with song magic, you don't get to see them keel over.

~Credits~

Thank you to aquagon at the 'A Reyvateil's Melody' forum for cataloguing the canon romanizations for certain terms from official Gust materials.

~Updates~

1.02-1.03 changes (Aug.25th 2014): Added the 'Ar nosurge Tips' section.

1.01-1.02 changes (Aug.2014): Too many to name - updated the guide with Chapters 11, 12, and Terminate pack. Fixed many names to their official or more common romanizations. Reorganized the guide to be directed at preparing people to play the English version of Ar nosurge.