#aegir

Aegir from Tokyo Afterschool Summoners

"A giant ruling over the living, man-eating ocean spanning across Yggdrasil before being summoned into Tokyo. He is a treasure hunter with a sacred artifact that drags in anything it touches (the anchor in the second picture). Aegir's day job is a professor at a college of marine science. He is based on Ægir, the jötunn of the sea in Norse mythology."

Day 211.

2026-07-30.

Character - Aegir.

Series - Azur Lane.

It's been a long time since my I touched upon Glaucus in my long look into Blue Poison, and in my deep dive into Deepcolor.

Now I'm finally digging into the details unique to Glaucus herself.

Even if that means needing to read [Preluding Lights] "Forgotten Lighthouse" for the hundredth time. (Thank God I found the Arknights Story Reader.)

Fuzzy Origins

Unlike Specter, Deepcolor, and Blue Poison, Glaucus was not a pre-launch beta operator. Hypergryph introduced her into the game with [Heart of Surging Flame], the first-year summer event, and the second side-story of the game. So, compared to them, it seems she has less "roads not traveled" baggage in terms of character concept.

Less. But not necessarily none.

For one of her deployment voicelines, Glaucus says: "The feeling of standing on dry land..."

Glaucus' first-year archive files say she was born in "the Aegir Region", which her third file vaguely describes as a "special ecological environment". Which definitely sounds like how you'd insinuate she was swimming about under the sea like The Little Mermaid without outright admitting it to anyone who doesn't have the proper security clearance. This will come up again later in this essay.

At the time, Hypergryph was being deliberately cagey with details about Aegir and Iberia. Heck, the name "Iberia" would not appear in the game until at least another whole year, with the introduction of Thorns as part of the rerun of [Heart of Surging Flame].

Like all other Aegirians released at the time as playable Operators, Glaucus' race is left "Undisclosed". Which doesn't make as much sense for her as it did for Skadi, Specter, and Deepcolor before her, since Glaucus is not any sort of Sea Monster hybrid like they are.

But we know Hypergryph has retconned some details as they went. See my post about Skadi's disappearing family. This will also come up again later in this essay.

Whether or not Glaucus' intended origins have changed at all behind the scenes, "Forgotten Lighthouse" of [Preluding Lights], and subsequent revelations about Iberia and the 'Islander' Aegirians (the Aegirians who left Aegir for the land), give us a solid enough idea of what to assume going forward.

Glaucus surely grew up in Iberia, where silence was both visible scar and unspoken law.

Blue Poison: "Do you know why the Ægirs came ashore?"

Glaucus: "I... don't know. I thought we were meant to be here to begin with, though it seems most Iberians don't agree with that."

Glaucus herself doesn't have the clearest picture of her ethnic history. As she reveals in that conversation, she explicitly knows nothing about the Sea Monsters, nor why her recent ancestors left Aegir to build underwater cities on the continental shelf near Iberian shores.

If she doesn't even know about those underwater cities, she may not know that her grandparents had to flee them and come truly ashore, to escape the Sea Terror attack following the Profound Silence. Assuming any Islanders survived but those already living on land.

Profound Silence, Mandated Silence

In "Forgotten Lighthouse", Blue Poison asks her about the 'disasters' that befell the country.

Glaucus: "We... don't talk about that. That's not allowed in Iberia."

Blue Poison: "You're all used to avoiding the subject."

Glaucus: "It's hard to kick your habits. We don't talk much about... our homeland at Rhodes Island. Besides, each of us has a different impression of that incident, and sometimes even about that whole area. I've talked to Weedy about it. Both of us are Ægirs who grew up in Iberia, and I've come to realize the Iberia in her eyes is totally different from the one I see."

Blue Poison: "That's nothing strange, no? If you are not allowed to discuss the incident, then the only thing you will remember of it is the small fragment that you saw with your own eyes. They... are taking the chance to piece the fragments together, from the people."

Glaucus: "Hm, there's only the two of us now. I could talk about it, but... I'm afraid to do that. It's like something has my throat blocked. I'm worried that as soon as I talk, the shadows cast on the path here will charge toward me. And I say that even though I know it's just shadows cast by the Originium lamp."

Blue Poison: "Shadows... What a fine analogy. They skillfully redirect everyone's attention away, such that they fear the shadows rather than the enormous truth that lies behind."

Glaucus: "It's so cold... but I'm sweating. In the past, I would never even imagine that I could stand here and talk to you about this."

The Iberia in Weedy's eyes is the country that allowed her to grow up learning bio-engineering from her beloved grandfather. The country that did not 'disappear' her grandfather like so many other Aegir, the ones suspected of colluding with the Sea Monsters. Yet they forbade the research into which he poured his life, effectively cursing him to a living death.

Glaucus says her childhood in Iberia was different from that. She lived in fear of speaking of things not allowed, but she apparently lost no family members to the Inquisition, in body or spirit. And she presumably also received her advanced education within her family.

But her childhood included her own particular curse.

Failing Legs

As Glaucus herself tells it, her muscular atrophy is due to a hereditary disease passed down in her family. Even in a special ecological environment such as the Ægir Region, incidence of such hereditary disease is rare and there is currently no treatment available.

According to some quick Google research, and assuming the translation is accurate, and that the original Chinese was accurate... then the intended meaning of "incidence" is that her family's disease is rarely found among her people. Rarity of the disease occurring within her lineage would instead be labeled "penetrance" or "disease expression".

But on top of that rarity, her module lore also reveals that the condition "was only serious for a tiny fraction of her family". So, perhaps both low incidence and low penetrance.

As an infant, Glaucus developed sufficient leg-strength that she learned to stand, walk, and even run. She could still run after she was old enough to begin retaining memories as a child.

But at some point in her childhood, her symptoms began to manifest. Her family explained the cause, but she hoped she would be one of the lucky ones. When the symptoms continued to worsen, she hoped it could be cured.

Her hopes went unfulfilled.

In "Forgotten Lighthouse", Glaucus tells Blue Poison, "...I never wanted to look at my legs when I was a kid. No matter how much I tried, they just couldn't run."

And it's only gotten worse from there, and it hasn't stopped getting worse since. Rhodes Island's current records state: "Glaucus's lower body only has half the strength of a normal adult and her muscles continue to atrophy."

Little Mermaid

Back when Glaucus first released, with her "Aegir Region" birthplace attribution and her voiceline expressing wonder at standing on dry land, we could at least imagine that losing leg-strength didn't matter so much to her family. If everyone breathed and swam through water, you don't need to stand on your feet. And at least you could rely more on your arms for swimming.

But Specter later informed us that few Aegir outside the Abyssal Hunters can breathe water, and we have no evidence that Glaucus is one of the exceptions.

The other things we've learned about Aegir have left us with various questions. Given Aegir's bloodless and industrialized rearing of children by government employees rather than parents, would this cursed lineage have been allowed to continue? Given Aegir's ability to create the Abyssal Hunters through biological engineering, why could this disease not be treated?

It at least makes sense than her parents, living in Iberia after the Profound Silence, cut off from Aegir, would not be able to offer her more than a wheelchair.

Which is why she left Iberia and became a different sort of 'Islander'.

Rhodes Island

[Talk after Promotion 1] "Why did I come to Rhodes Island? If I could run as I pleased on these legs, I wouldn't have left my homeland."

We don't know how Glaucus learned about Rhodes Island, or whether she did so before or after leaving Iberia. But given that she doesn't have Oripathy, and given the obvious markers of the company on her exoskeleton, I'm confident she sought them out specifically to find a solution to her legs.

Perhaps she hoped for a medical cure. Her module lore tells the story of how dubiously she regarded the exoskeleton. Despite her Aegirian heritage, as part of her Iberian childhood, she'd "never touched this sort of technology before."

When she decided to give it a try, she didn't have "any particularly great expectations".

She imagines it'll just enable her to walk a bit faster, stand a bit longer, give her a few more days in her life of feeling the sensation of the ground with her own two legs.

She's not all too clear on what kind of change it can bring into her life, but she's sure it beats a wheelchair, and it'll give her a bare minimum sort of comfort during the times she can use it—she'd like to be able to stand as long as she wishes, after all.

Her tune changed the moment the power kicked on.

But today, abruptly, with an unwavering power, the exoskeleton braces her body. Hurriedly, Glaucus seizes on this force and stands up, nervousness overcoming her, the bloodrush as her heart violently pounds causing her to take a tiny step forward.

Then comes a second.

A third.

A fourth.

Glaucus walks through the door, this physically choking emotion surging through her head, squeezing all her reason out. She has a sudden urge to run that defies everything. Even though she still hasn't gotten a hold of her balance, she feels she's gotten a miraculous hold of everything.

The metal is ice-cold, steel-solid, and it braces her frail legs. She runs like the wind, runs for the endless world outside.

Brings a tear to my eye.

Professional Career

When Rhodes Island's current records talk about Glaucus' physical condition, they say: "she does not seem dispirited by her situation. On the contrary, her passion for technology seems to come from the exoskeletal equipment designed to help her overcome these hardships."

We do not know precisely why Glaucus chose to remain with Rhodes Island. Gratitude seems to be a part of it, give her Anniversary voiceline:

Being able to run again is such a blessing—I'll never forget what Rhodes Island has done for me. Now I want to help everyone by my own power too, but it still seems like I get in the way more than anything... I'll keep on trying, though. So that someday, I really can be of help to you all.

We also know that, at the time, Iberia did not allow many people to enter its territory, not even those who had originated from it. And Elysium opines that no one who leaves voluntarily would want to return, especially not Aegirians. So, perhaps Glaucus simply had no where else to go.

How fortunate that Rhodes Island proved to be a welcome environment to her. She found kindred spirits among engineers like Vulcan, Mayer, and Closure, who found her talent for electronics and electromagnetism 'astonishing'.

Once, when Glaucus left the landship to seek outside resources for overhauling her exoskeleton, she found an abandoned Raytheon electronic-warfare device, and bought it for cheap.

The original engineer only intended for the device to disrupt enemy electronic communications. They gave up when they found the pulse would uncontrollably damage electronics around the device; such as the cellphone in their own pocket.

Glaucus doubled down on the 'defective' product's destructive power, turning the EMP emitter into a weapon that outright destroys all electronic components in the area. She renamed it "the Raythean Franker".

With her new weapon, Glaucus became a natural choice for missions where Rhodes Island expected the opposition force to make significant use of mechanical drones and other electronic equipment. "She personally doesn't seem to do much. Instead, those vexing enemy drones just drop to the ground wherever she goes, it is unclear how this was achieved."

(The lore connected to Glaucus' Paradox Simulation informs us that Glaucus has a personal antipathy for 'illegally flown drones', because she resents how they scare birds. Glaucus had long watched birds flying through the sky, envying their freedom of movement. She wants to 'win the skies back for them'.)

[In Battle 4] "Time to fall!"

However, the aimless destruction of her weapon means that Glaucus tends to destroy allied equipment along with enemy equipment.

Initially, this might have stemmed from lack of familiarity with her own weapon's capabilities, and her fellow operators' lack of understanding or respect for the same despite her warnings. But at some point, a little collateral damage becomes the known and acceptable cost of victory.

[In Battle 2] "Can't worry about accidents now...!"

Unfortunately, Glaucus has to pay for the considerable allied damages out of her own pocket. According to her New Year's voiceline, she'd like to ask Rhodes Island to foot the bill, or at least give her a "fair allowance for battle damage", but she's too scared of Kal'tsit.

However, Kal'tsit is not without sympathy for Glaucus' tactical situation. Glaucus' promotion record includes Kal'tsit's administrative reminder that Rhodes Island should ignore recommendations from Silence and Mayer that Glaucus "should work on her own". Kal'tsit firmly ordered that Glaucus be chosen for missions and projects based on whether or not she can do the job, not on personal factors like 'she fried my equipment once'.

We are offered no explanation why the electronics of Glaucus' exoskeleton remain unaffected, let alone the terminal (smart tablet) she holds in her combat animations. If we ignore the tablet, we can guess that she took the effort to build EMP shielding into her exoskeleton.

It seems likely that Glaucus designed her Franker to achieve the original engineer's intent of merely disrupting enemy communications temporarily, while leaving total electronic destruction to higher settings. At the end of "Forgotten Lighthouse", she disables her EMP field, after which Elysium makes radio contact with Blue Poison. Though it's also possible that Blue Poison simply left her radio outside the lighthouse, and thus outside the Franker's range.

Also, the Franker seems to have Directed Energy Projectile capability. Even leaving aside how that's what she uses it for in combat gameplay, when Glaucus thought she saw a ghost, she discharged her Franker in that direction. She also prepared to fire it at Aria ("Indigo") before they achieved a truce.

Raythean's Regard

Either as an underhanded way of getting rid of Glaucus, or a well-meaning gesture, or both, Closure referred Glaucus to Raythean Industries and gave them her recommendation to interview her for the position of 'equipment designer'.

We see this episode take place in her Operator Record.

A number of Raythean's senior designers were particularly 'inspired' by the Franker she had made of one of the company's 'failures'. (If Mechanist heard this, I imagine he'd give her an earful about giving away such ideas to a megacorp for free. Something about popcorn.)

Raythean ultimately turned her down for the position of equipment designer. Her focus on personalizing equipment for specific users didn't fit with Raythean's preferred business model of mass-producing generalized equipment for a wide customer base.

But because they highly valued her talents, they offered Glaucus a signed 'cooperation agreement' as an 'advanced weapon evaluator'.

"She will be in charge of tuning the latest weapons, and all the company's most innovative research will be made available to her."

Glaucus Alter as a Sniper with a railgun? Or would Glaucus rather upgrade Melanite's weapon and grant her the alter position instead?

Practical Philosophy

[Player's Birthday] "Doctor, happy birthday. I have a compass here from my collection. It's for you. Technology keeps marching on, but some stuff still keeps a classic form factor. Isn't that wonderful...? Oh, sorry, I got a little off-track. Anyway, may you never lose your way, on your forward course."

[Talk after Promotion 2] "Vulcan and I have a similar distaste for 'old things,' but I still think we have fundamentally different philosophies."

These two data points suggest that Glaucus only values old, classical forms of technology that continue to serve a purpose. As exemplified by a simple compass that has retained its basic form because no one has found a way to improve upon the design.

Vulcan seems the same, for the most part. Her forge is filled with modern machining tools and robotic instruments, of those most advanced kinds that Rhodes Island can provide her.

But what apparently made an impression upon Glaucus is the old-fashioned furnace and anvil that Vulcan not only keeps, but uses. Not for making or repairing any weapons, but apparently as a matter of personal ritual and spiritual tradition.

Perhaps to her, those who can't keep up with times should become obsolete, but those who completely forsake tradition should not be called blacksmiths.

Glaucus cares little for the origins or traditions of her practice. She seeks function, utility, and applicability. As mentioned before, she focuses on bespoke design; customizing tools for the special needs of specific individuals.

When Raythean's interviewer asked her how she sees 'the relationship between technology and people', she answered:

"Technology may have forged my legs, but it's only when I run that they have meaning."

Suspicious Behavior

[Second Archive File] Glaucus's internal evaluation is very interesting. It is unknown if this is just her nature or if she's just used to going with the flow, but as a newcomer, Glaucus does not speak much. Though she has quickly integrated herself with other operators, in the majority of situations, she prefers to listen and not speak. When speaking is required of her, she is smooth and evasive, and reveals very little of her actual thinking. She has also been admonished for repeatedly spacing out during meetings. According to the results of her current observation, it is only when discussing technology and machinery with Vulcan, Mayer, and Closure that Glaucus expresses her opinions with any enthusiasm.

As the file states, Glaucus "quickly integrated with other operators" through her willingness to "go with the flow" and "listen rather than speak". She follows orders and tries to contribute to the group activity without becoming obtrusive. In this way, Glaucus forms a positive first impression, which naturally prompts most other people to try learning more about her.

Whereupon they run into one of the many problems with understanding Glaucus: She does not trust easily.

And worse, she doesn't seem to know that about herself.

[Promotion 2] Trust in others... Well, I don't know what to do to make them feel trusted, but I'll keep trying.

I could be misreading this voiceline, but it seems to me that (1) the Doctor tried to advise Glaucus to put more trust in her fellow operators and (2) Glaucus misunderstood the advice, and focused on how she could make other operators feel that she trusts them more, rather than on whether she simply isn't trusting them enough herself.

As Glaucus does start to trust the Doctor, she seeks them out for advice about the trust she's losing from others.

[Talk after Trust Increase 1] "So, Doctor, Blue Poison says I always seem to be hiding something. Do I really give people that impression? Sometimes? How...?"

Only when Glaucus trusts the Doctor even more does she open up a little more about her vulnerabilities.

[Talk after Trust Increase 2] It's not that I don't want to talk, it's just that I never got my way much before. So I'm not used to speaking up. Hope you won't take it the wrong way, Doctor.

Connect this confession to another confession she makes in her Operator Record, "On My Own Two Legs". When asked why she doesn't use a wheelchair for simplicity and comfort:

"I was thrilled by all the sensations throughout my body when I first walked on the ground with my own two feet. It made me truly realize that, instead of floating powerlessly at the mercy of the wind, I'm... actually connected to the land."

So the crippling weakness of her legs robbed Glaucus of a feeling of "connection to the land".

This doubtless combined with the mandated silence of Iberia, to impress upon her the feeling of "floating powerlessly at the mercy of the wind", an experience of rarely "getting her own way", a predisposition to "go with the flow", and an ingrained reflex to keep her thoughts to herself even when she wants to speak up...

All very critical factors to understanding her, but all of which she reflexively hides from other people. Which not only prevents understanding, but also reveals how much Glaucus reflexively distrusts others, which in turn inspires distrust in her.

At one point, some members of Rhodes Island lost so much trust in Glaucus (possibly exacerbated by her Franker's double-edged destruction) that the mind-reading Djall in charge of Human Resources had to settle the matter in her Fourth Archive file.

The file details Glaucus' few but real social connections before insisting to everyone that she's not a spy or saboteur; she's just an introvert.

"....she spends a great amount of time in her room performing weapon maintenance and adjustment. There is very little activity related to things she is [not?] personally interested in. Even more rarely does she leave her room.

In short, she is a somewhat dull and awkward child who prefers silently doing her own things.

I believe that the allegation that Glaucus and her relatives are involved in a secret heretical organization in the Ægir Region is not related to her current operational performance. I hope that the Justice Division has reservations about acting on this."

At the time of Glaucus' release, this seemed like a Suspiciously Specific Denial, because Arknights was being that coy about any information about Aegir or Iberia. And Blue Poison, Deepcolor, and Skadi (the only social contacts mentioned outside of the engineering department) were all heavily associated with those mysterious things.

But by now we can be sure the Djall was speaking the truth. Glaucus has no ties to the Cult of the Deep, and she just wants peace and quiet.

[Onboard] "Operator Glaucus reporting for onboarding. So... may I go back to my room now?"

Parallel Play

Glaucus budgets her limited social battery on the personal interactions she finds most important.

Not necessarily in ways that extroverts understand as social activity, but Glaucus very much does "spend time" with others.

[Fourth Archive] She is also friends with Deepcolor, though most of the time she just watches Deepcolor paint.

[Appointed as Assistant] "I'll be quietly modifying the Raythean Franker over here. You can focus on your work. I won't disturb you."

[Talk 2] "Anything you want to say, Doctor? No? Okay. I'll be here. You can chat with me anytime."

In her Operator Record, the Raythean interviewer asked her how she felt about performing research and development as part of a team, in a heavily team-based R&D company.

Glaucus: "That sounds pretty good to me. When I worked at Rhodes Island, I often worked as a group, so I suppose I do have experience in that area."

This work includes field assignments and live-fire combat situations, for which no one has criticized her teamwork (outside of the occasional Franker issues).

Though from personal experience, not everyone has the same definition of "team-based" work in a constructive setting. If she works on one component of a larger project by herself, possibly in her own room, and only rarely interacts with people working on other components of the same project... Well, that's technically "working as a group". Just not as much so as working shoulder-to-shoulder with someone in the same room, at the same task, without constantly bumping into each other or butting heads.

Additionally, Glaucus perhaps has a harder time picking up on unspoken messages and subtler social cues, especially when they come from a different perspective. The Raythean Interviewer picks up on this immediately when she not only tells this to him straight, she doesn't read between the lines to realize what she just confessed.

Millais: "When you worked with others before, did your team members say anything about your performance?"

Glaucus: "Oh, yes, they did. I think some of them said... uh... 'That I should work on my own.'"

Millais: ......I have no more questions.

Spacy But Sharp

Even when Glaucus is only technically present by being in the same room, she's not always mentally present either.

[Second Archive File] She has also been admonished for repeatedly spacing out during meetings.

Appointed as Squad Leader: "What? I'm the captain? Did I sign up without realizing it?"

Promotion 1: "I named the weapon, actually. Maybe it represents what I really want in life... Huh? Did they just announce my name for promotion?"

Selecting Operator 1: "Hm? You call for me?"

Tap: "Oh... sorry, my mind was wandering."

This is one of the least factors for people considering her unreliable and less of a good listener or team-player than she initially appears to be.

However, her Operator Record provides some insight into why this happens, with two separate cases. In both cases, she doesn't check out of a conversation because she became bored or lacked respect. Only because someone hit her with an unexpected logical puzzle.

In the first case, she just finished the practical test Raythean gave her in less than a third of the time demanded of her. A stranger walked into the testing facility that only authorized personnel and visitors could access, but he didn't seem to belong there, and he acted strangely. After sharply observing her present situation, Glaucus then turned inward to puzzle out what it meant. Instead of concluding that the man was an intruder, she concocted the theory that he was an employee acting like a random stranger as part of Raythean's test, to see how she handled his demands. Why else did she have so much time left?

In the second case, during a critical conversation with Raythean's interviewer, Glaucus spaces out again. Because the interviewer mentioned the practical test, Glaucus immediately flashed back to her weird encounter with the stranger. Though she had justified the odd event with a plausible explanation, something about it didn't sit right with her.

This specific case does show that bringing Glaucus back to the present situation doesn't always recapture her interest in the conversation; she got distracted by the snacks on the table. But after the interviewer gets her back on track, she remains fully present and engaged.

The rest of the Operator Record shows how Glaucus keeps noticing details and putting them together to recognize an assassination attempt is about to happen. She also gains sufficient understanding of the situation to neutralize the assassination attempt without firing a shot.

Again, Glaucus has participated in live-fire field missions and combat situations. She's perfectly capable of remaining alert to her present situation.

When she gets distracted, she's distracted for good reasons.

Medical Department

Glaucus' crippling disease isn't the only thing about her that fascinates Rhodes Island's medical department. Her third Archive File states:

Something worth mentioning is that Glaucus was born with antibodies that fight against irritants and poisons. Apart from conventional poisons, nerve paralyzers and hallucinogens are essentially ineffective.

Glaucus is eager to accompany the medics' research. To put it more precisely, she pretends to understand what they're saying and nods along. Sometimes they are concerned whether she is even really following along with what they're saying...

While the text says definitively that Glaucus only "pretends" to understand, this conflicts with the uncertainty in the following sentence.

My interpretation is that Glaucus sincerely wants to learn more about the positive aspects of her biology, not just her genetic curse. However, medical science already isn't her field of expertise, so even when she does fully understand the explanations they give her, she's refusing to speak or answer questions, as per her usual custom. She may also be periodically spacing out whenever they say something that triggers her Problem-Solving Response.

Blue Poison

Speaking of Glaucus' special immune system...

I've spoken extensively about the relationship between Glaucus and Blue Poison in my deep dive into Blue Poison. So I'd like to cover only new details here.

Such as Glaucus' [Talk 1] voiceline, which suggests that Glaucus was the one to approach the Anura woman.

"Why does everyone always keep their distance from Blue Poison? I don't get it... She and I are both special? Umm, alright."

This question addresses the Doctor and requires no Trust from Glaucus. Introverted, spacy Glaucus has observed enough about her environment to notice that other operators avoided Blue Poison for no clear reason. And this bothers Glaucus enough to stop merely listening and start speaking her mind to find answers.

What the Doctor means by "both special" is highly ambiguous. It could refer to anything from our Year 1 suspicion about their connections to Sea Monsters and the Abyssal Hunters, or it could simply have been the Doctor drawing a parallel between everything about Glaucus that inspired distrust, and people's fear about Blue Poison's toxins.

I'm reasonably sure that the Doctor already knew how Glaucus' biology would interact with Blue Poison's, but also that the Doctor was not referring to that. People were not avoiding Glaucus because of her special immunity.

The extent to which the Doctor arranged for Glaucus and Blue Poison to meet is an interesting mystery. I'm more confident that the Doctor, in the act of framing an answer to Glaucus' question, fully intended to nudge the woman to seek Blue Poison out, and hope something positive happened.

A particular note is that when Glaucus follows Blue Poison into field work or combat, she never has to worry about her Franker's full-power EMP blast disabling Blue Poison's most important tools. Bloopy may or may not keep a terminal or radio on her person, but there's nothing electronic about her crossbow and poisons.

When Blue Poison leads their two-woman mission into Iberia's abandoned coastal facilities, they find an old lighthouse. Bloopy notices that Glaucus seems to be 'a big fan of these technological ruins', and Glaucus loses herself in thinking how rare they've become in Iberia, and pondering the mystery of their purpose.

Either out of personal bitterness or responsible objectivity, Blue Poison pops her friend's bubble by reminding her that their purpose could have included locking people up, such as her ancestors.

Glaucus apologizes, and gingerly asks if the technology she wants to geek out about is giving Blue Poison any 'bad memories'. Apparently, she doesn't want her enthusiasm to hurt her friend.

Blue Poison dismisses the idea that an apology is necessary, declaring that she doesn't care about any past history her family might have with the lighthouse. All that matters to her is whether Rhodes Island can use it. A sentiment that Glaucus can get behind.

Deepcolor

I've already quoted the passage, but most of the time Glaucus spends with Deepcolor is simply watching her paint.

This bears repeating because Deepcolor normally has to hypnotize people who watch her paint so that they don't run screaming from the room. These people keep actively burying the memory of how she painted.

Glaucus keeps comes back for more, and not even because she's getting her portrait painted. She's not said to be modeling or paying for Deepcolor's work. Just watching. And Deepcolor lets her do it.

Does Deepcolor hypnotize her every time? Or is Glaucus cool with Deepcolor's "helpers"?

We have no details about how the two of them met, or who reached out to whom first. But since Glaucus reached out to Blue Poison, perhaps she was also the one who decided that Deepcolor needed a new friend.

Skadi

[Archive 4] "She seems to have some kind of reverence for Skadi."

Not a friendship, but a one-sided, distant regard.

For a long while, Year 1 players like myself wondered if Glaucus revered Skadi because she knew about the Abyssal Hunters, and thus recognized Skadi as one of her national superheroes.

Today, we know Glaucus doesn't know anything about the Abyssal Hunters. At most, she knows that Skadi hails directly from Aegir, a shared homeland that Glaucus has only heard fairytales about. And also that Skadi is terrifyingly strong and not to be asked questions about her grim purpose.

Indigo

Glaucus and Blue Poison found Indigo and brought her back to Rhodes Island, and the three Iberians have been friends ever since, in their home away from home.

Indigo has become familiar enough with the two friends that she knows about Blue Poison's culinary habits, and the specialty items Bloopy makes for Glaucus. Not that this knowledge helps her avoid another comedic accident.

But there's very little focus or detail about her relationship with Glaucus specifically. Instead, the writers always place more emphasis on Indigo's interactions with Blue Poison, for the sake of another comedic accident. Indigo keeps running into Blue Poison, and therefore she keeps running into Glaucus.

For her part, Glaucus continues to care about Indigo's well-being despite her hopeless clumsiness. She hasn't written the Phidia off as a lost cause, and shows no shortage of patience.

And, in her Operator Record, Indigo was ready to face the wrath of an Iberian Inquisitor to protect Blue Poison (and Glaucus, as an Aegirian involved in the incident) from being punished for Indigo's accident.

If Glaucus and Indigo have any shared interests, it might be in Glaucus' potential, as an electrical engineer and an Aegirian, to help discover a way to bring Indigo's lighthouse back to life. Though that problem might have been taken out of Glaucus' hands following the conclusion of [Path of Life].

============

In [Path of Life], BP-1 After:

Specter: "My parents took me around the home territories when I was little. There are similar structures in many cities."

Doctor: "I thought Ægir children were raised collectively."

Skadi: "I was, but Shark has a special relationship with her biological parents."

Specter: "They're more like friends than parents.

Specter: "They reached a consensus with the Institute of Incubation to bring me along whenever they worked on a new dome project.

Specter: "I spent most my time in the Institute of Incubation, but I was able to see the cities, learn, and even work alongside them."

But two years ago (real-world and fictional), in [Under Tides] SV-ST-1:

Skadi: "You killed my family. It was you who killed my mother, my grandmother, my little sister."

Before I go any deeper into that scene in [Under Tides], I want to focus on "grandmother" first.

Because while the Aegir know what grandparents are... they don't seem to care. When even one's own parents are distant and estranged, then logically society places no value in personal lineage.

BP-3 After

Avitus: "Listen, Jordi. I cannot ascertain whether you are truly bound to him by blood, though such a connection holds little significance. What matters is that there can be no doubt that you are Ægir.

Jordi: "I know I am. But how do I prove I belong here, if I can't even trace my own heritage?"

Avitus: "A true Ægir needs no proof of that."

BP-ST-2

Speaking to Ulpianus for the first time since they met in [Stultifera Navis], Jordi brings up how Ulpianus called him Breogan's descendant, and informs the Abyssal Hunter he was mistaken.

Ulpianus: "True, I did miss the mark, but I never engage in baseless speculation. There is more of a bond between you than you think."

Jordi: "A bond?"

Ulpianus: "The Profound Silence ruined Iberia. The lighthouses fell dark along the coast, and doubt and suspicion grew in their shadow."

Ulpianus: "Breogan was forced to flee the splendor he himself had designed. Gran Faro was one place he sheltered while on the run. The research notes your parents left you are undoubtedly connected to him. They were people he knew he could entrust his life's work to."

Ulpianus: "Look at what you're doing now, young one. You may not be his descendant by blood, but you have most certainly inherited a portion of his wisdom."

And then Ulpianus draws parallels between the courage Breogan showed in leaving Aegir to save the world on dry land, how Jordi showed similar courage in leaving dry land to save the world under the sea.

And he caps this lesson on Aegirian philosophy with the summation: "Conversely, if all you'd shared was just blood, then that would have been something to be ashamed of."

(Unrelatedly, Ulpianus then shows Jordi much respect by not merely calling the young man by his full name, but in doing so revealing that Ulpianus bothered to learn and remember it.)

Anyway, I hope that underscores just how strange it should be for Skadi to know who her own grandmother was, in addition to her own mother.

It's not that the Aegirian institutions would normally bother to hide that information, but that Aegirian citizens seem to not care at all. It seems that they would respond to news of a grandparent's violent demise no more passionately than that of a completely unrelated stranger.

Yet the death of Skadi's mother and grandmother were explicitly, canonically her motivation for revenge. For leaving her job as an engineer to risk her life in the Abyssal Hunter transformation process, and as a hunter at war with the Sea Monsters. (And apparently, her little sister agreed and joined her for the same purpose.)

Skadi: "You killed my family. It was you who killed my mother, my grandmother, my little sister."

Skadi wishes to know.

Seaborn (The First To Speak): "No. We wouldn't. ... Those in your territory die, by those in your territory's doing."

Skadi: "Lies!"

Seaborn: "Lies? I wish to know what lies means. 'Liar,' too, you said earlier. I wish to know."

Skadi knows. From every part of the sum of all of it, Skadi knows—The Seaborn would not lie.

...All killed by the Ægir.

My sister, my mother, my grandmother...

All my years of revenge were mistaken, from the very beginning.

I never knew. All of this, everyone, killed by the Ægir. The Church of the Deep. The Ægir.

The Seaborn does not lie.

Could Ægir be ignorant of who it was that murdered all of her family?

If there truly are Seaborn that enter cities... could it really have been only her family who were hurt?

In [Path of Life], it was certainly a 'Cultist of the Deep', rather than the Sea Monsters, who murdered the missing the data scientist.

But the investigating officer who discovered the 'cultist' culprit made no attempt to pin the crime on the Sea Monsters. Nor did the officer face any suggestion from her superiors that the Sea Monsters should serve as the scapegoat for the crimes of the murderous saboteur.

Yet apparently, Skadi was lead to believe that Sea Monsters had invaded her home city and killed her mother and grandmother. ONLY her mother and grandmother. No one else.

I'll remind you that Horatia planned from the beginning for Blandus to open the doors for the Sea Monsters to invade Millarium and consume the launch tower. Horatia gambled with the lives of an entire city and two of her nation's legions, with giving the Sea Monsters a whole new set of information to use for evolution... for the sake of advancing her own plan to extend Aegir's control over the sea and the land.

Compared to an entire city, what would be a mother and grandmother?

Ulpianus didn't want his hunters returning to Aegir for a reason.

Addressing The Whale In The Room

Ulpianus isn't without his own responsibility in Skadi's loss.

After all, he is the one who killed Skadi's little sister.

And, she sees... she has seen... That sister of hers ate Ægir, chewing the bones, corners of her mouth torn, up until the Captain had her killed.

And he lied to Skadi's face, blaming her sister's loss of identity not on the Abyssal Hunter transformation he pioneered, but on a Sea Monster's mind-breaking infection.

It's not that he hated or despised Skadi, or that he wanted to lie. But the truth about the Abyssal Hunter transformation was still a classified secret at the time.

More importantly, the revelation of the truth was a known, dangerous risk for a Hunter's grip on their self-identity as humans. Telling Skadi the truth about what happened to her little sister would have been the surest way for Skadi to end up just like her.

But this episode just reinforces what The First To Speak told Skadi. The Sea Monsters do not infiltrate Aegirian cities for precise murders, either random or targeted.

It is the Aegir who do that to themselves.

It was an Aegir 'cultist' who flushed the data scientist out of the city, and it was an Aegir patriot who mercy-killed the Sea Monster the poor scientist had become.

Now, The Leviathan In The Room

Skadi does accuse The First To Speak of lying on the grounds that the Sea Monsters are very much at war with Aegir. Any Aegirian cities the Sea Monsters found within their territory, they would attack and seek to destroy and consume. And the Sea Monsters constantly expand their territory.

As far as Skadi is concerned, the deaths of her mother and grandmother make perfect sense against the context of that war.

I feel the translation in [Under Tides] might have missed something, because the Speaker and Skadi clumsily trip over the distinction between direct, obvious, warlike aggression (which The First To Speak casually admits) and infiltration for the purposes of limited murder (which The First to speak categorically denies).

Seaborn: "We would not do that. Those who die in the cities are unable to provide for the many."

Translation: "Aegirians don't toss their dead out into the ocean to nourish it, and any 'assassins' we sent in would be killed and unable to return with any nutrients. We see random murders as a waste of resources. We haven't begun to understand the idea of assassinating key humans as a part of a deliberate strategy."

As more proof that something is lost in translation, at one point the Seaborn responds to Skadi's freak out by asking "Sin?"

While Skadi is indeed having a mental breakdown over her perceived sins, she never actually says or even thinks the word. Though she might have done so in a previous draft of translations.

And yet, while it is possible there was some mistranslation about "mother and grandmother"... it seems fairly inescapable that the original Chinese MUST have referred to two people who were murdered in Skadi's hometown, whose deaths were blamed on the Sea Monsters, which drove Skadi and her little sister to become Abyssal Hunters and seek revenge.

The broad shape of her narrative background reinforces the likelihood of that part of the translation being correct, inversely to how the dialogue inconsistencies in this scene cast doubt on the accuracy of word-choice for Skadi's broad accusations and the First To Speak's specific denials.

Though another, valid reason for Skadi and the First To Speak struggling to not talk past each other is that the Seaborn isn't remotely human and is trying its best to communicate via a foreign language loaded with concepts it finds completely alien.

One Last Thing

The Tumblr-user, Cerastes, believed that Skadi's grandmother and mother must have both become and died as Abyssal Hunters. Yet Ulpianus became the first Abyssal Hunter only 20 or so years ago, as of [Path of Life], and I don't think he would have accepted a woman older than him as a candidate to risk the procedure.

Even if we assume otherwise, it still runs into the problem of Skadi identifying so strongly with them, despite Aegirian child-raising culture. And it should have been very difficult for Skadi's grandmother and mother to have been significant presences in her life if they were both Abyssal Hunters after Skadi was born.

(As I imagine Hunters were not allowed to conceive children.)

But even if we assume that mother and grandmother were both Abyssal Hunters, Skadi and the Seaborn's lurching, wobbling conversation still makes it clear that the two of them died in an Aegirian city, at Aegirian hands, as surely as Skadi saw happen to her little sister.

And yet, at no point in her break-down at Sal Viento, does Skadi place any blame on Ulpianus.

Not for killing her sister, which she saw with her own eyes. Not for suspecting him of being the one to execute her mother or grandmother. Not for pioneering the technology that would have transformed Skadi and her whole family into beasts that would need to be put down.

Nor does Skadi seem to hold any resentment for Ulpianus afterwards, during their brief reunion, or any time after that.

Which, personally, would make a lot more sense if Skadi believed her mother and grandmother were just civilians who were killed by Aegirians for any other reason than being fallen Abyssal Hunters.

In Conclusion

This:

Doctor: "I thought Ægir children were raised collectively."

Skadi: "I was

Can't be anything other than a retcon.

And that's a problem because it's both blatant and unnecessary.

Okay, so they decided that Specter and Gladiia would both be exceptions to Aegir's child-raising culture. So if Skadi still had a connection to her mother and grandmother, Specter and Gladiia would seem less exceptional.

Would that really have been a problem big enough to necessitate a retcon?

Come on, Hypergryph. Haven't you done Skadi dirty enough already?

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