Photon Moving-
Planet Halpha (whatever it may be) clearly is super-duper photon-rich somehow and everyone there clearly has a huge affinity for the stuff because they can concentrate it into their feet to produce double jumps/high-jumps, propelled-super-fast running and also indefinite gliding through the air. Everyone takes it for granted that your character can do this too, despite it being technically 'some type of alien'. Interestingly, even though these people are different (been there for probably 10 generations) you CAN do the photon movements they can, right out of the gate. Sooooo that shows it's the PLANET that's allowing for it, not the people-type. (Remember, not all ARKS people could use photons much at all, remember Ulc? The whole point of her was that she couldn't do it and was an illustration for the ARKS-species of people. Would Ulc be able to do anything here? Your character in PSO2 was always "said to be very photon-affinity" so it isn't out of left-field that it could do all the things here.)

Signs
They don't seem to use dimate/trimate/moon atomizers here. There are things called Reversasign & Restasign that look like glowing stems that grow up out of the ground randomly. You can pick them up like any object and upon 'using' the stem it does the same as what it's named after. They have no explanation for how/why the planet produces these.

On the way to town:
Dolls appear and you have to fight them. Defeating a few will bring out a ton more so a cut-scene has to happen where Aina's dad Garou has to come in and bash them all with his giant rare axe weapon to help out. Her dad is the same color she is, with blue hair, no shirt and a somewhat tropical look. His hair has a white stripe through the front of it. The father, after beating the Dolls encourages you to go to town too, to meet him and see the town.
After using Photon Glide you can see their sea-side village. This shows you the unusual mix of high tech stuff like cube shaped cement buildings with glow-lines in them mixed with low-tech where they've built like...tiki-roofs over various things and log-buildings. There's some small-plot farming going on and people's clothes are a mix of the metal/plastic stuff and clearly things they've made out of natural cloth and materials.

It turns out Garou is the mayor or leader of the town.
He lives in a huge house toward the back of town with colored ribbons all around it. Inside is mostly an office of some sort with chairs and screens set up at tables. He invites you to stay at town and learn from the residents. This lets you loose in the town to talk to the people who have various simple requests like hitting targets to help train or getting rid of ALTERS like Oodans and such who tear up the crop fields.

After spending the day doing that, Garou wants to throw a welcome BBQ party for you at sunset, like they do with all the Meteorn they find. The people of the town do like to party, so it works out well. You also learn from Garou that Mannon is also a Meteorn, but she remembered a few things. (Unhelpfully, no one mentions what) Aina and her father are obviously pretty close despite him being busy. He's always trying to train her to get better at being a Dolls-fighter/hunter/whatever they're going to call it here. She wants to make him proud / live up to expectations but she's a bit wishy-washy, though she tries hard and is an earnest person.

However, a Dolls attack happens right in the middle of the BBQ party, and you have to fight them off with Aina and Mannon. All doesn't go well though, because defeating the small-fry brings out a gigantic space ship. Like, skyscraper sized or so, that hovers in the air somewhat out to sea. This thing works up a huge blast and ruins the general area. Garou tells everyone to literally head for the hills, he's going to try to do something about it with his axe. Aina doesn't want to go, but Mannon persuades her and everybody gets out of dodge.

Her dad assumes and yells to everyone that this must be "Dark Falz", so it's got everybody talking that way.
He has literally no proof of this, it's just a big geometric shaped space ship that hovers, there's no way to tell what it really is, other than 'the biggest Dolls anyone has ever seen'. It winds up for a huge beam-blast so he mega-jumps to swat the blaster with his axe and is caught up in it. The trio had made it far enough away in time but, by the time you get up again the entire coastline is now missing and Aina was med-lifted to the city for her injuries. Mannon waited for you to get up.

You have to go with Mannon on foot to make the trek to the Central City to get to Aina and see if she's ok.
The town is literally gone and the coastline altered and blackened into an inlet, so there's nothing left to do there. Upon reaching Central City, a day's trek away, you're summoned by the current king-of-town / the mayor/leader guy Crawford. He's a soft-spoken, nice newman man in a fancy long white coat with glitter accents. He's a light beige color with a light purple-ish-blue to paler-blue fade short hair. He resides in a command-center type room with map globe, supporting technicians, surround-screens and a chair.
He explains that Aina is going to be fine, so she shows up about a second later looking for her father. Crawford has to tell her that they rescued some survivors, but he wasn't among them so he is now listed as missing. And.......she doesn't react. She's basically like 'oh well'.

Aside:
I have absolutely NO IDEA why this bit is so apparently poorly done. The characters' faces don't change expressions much (in any circumstance) but they don't even narrow her eyes for this. Also, her reaction seems really badly scripted? And, it's not like they appear to be going for "She's in level 10 denial", because they DIDNT write her like she is. Even to someone who has to inspect humans for their emotions (or their apparent cover-ups of emotions) this whole thing reads wrong and badly done. It makes the entire interaction very confusing. It doesn't even go with the rest of the game, it's not like they're trying to make Aina a 'secret drone' with no emotions here, she emotes plenty later on about similar things so none of it makes sense. Hence, this aside.

He basically asks you to look around the city, learn about it, take a rest, and then decide if you want to be on the anti-Dolls squad. Once out of the command room, Mannon brings up the commitment to fighting Dolls and asks if Aina is ok, but she's like 'nah I'm fine' (which feels a liiiiitttle more like a denial/cover up) to which Mannon reacts that she's "always bad at reading people or knowing their emotions". Mannon is one of these sorta 'deadpan' type girls, so that's fitting for her to react that way. Are they trying to code her as a tad on the spectrum? Or is something amiss with her (and she knows it) because she's a Meteorn?

Basically all 3 of you commit to fighting Dolls, so you're assigned to help a cast named DOZER (Japan may have had the character named Bruder (which would be pronounced "brooder", but that appears to be the only changed-name in the entire game...which is fine.) on Mt. Magnus, a place known for hostile things and also Dolls.
On the mountain you have to fight your way up through various Alters, Lores and Dolls. Mt. Magnus is made of reddish rock and has various scrub vegetation that one might expect. There are rocky outcroppings and mini-plateau type areas. At the end of this journey is the main Dolls-badguy of the area, the Nogleth which is a quadroped type 'dragon' looking thing with no tail. It races around quickly and is probably about the size of a city bus. The limbs are the noodly gel. It has a heavily armored head. When it is badly damaged, it can go into a rampage mode where crystals come out of it and it does bigger attacks and goes wild with punching fist attacks. This causes Aina to freeze up, because it makes her have a flashback of the beam-shooting thing.
Dozer saves the day and the Nogleth is defeated. She gets super upset that she froze up, and recalls how her dad sent her away from the beach attack 'because she'd be in the way'. Dozer has good advice though which is that it's ok to be afraid of the Dolls but you have to attack them anyway, like he does. (Bravery is, by it's definition, being afraid but acting anyway for the greater good or saving people--even if the one you save is yourself.)

Later, she thinks about quitting, and summons you and Mannon to talk about it.
She is talked out of this fairly quickly though. So, shortly after, (the next day) a call goes out to help at the Vanford Labratory Ruin, which is a place that the Dolls destroyed maybe 30 years ago or so and nobody ever re built it. The trio (you, Mannon, Aina) agree to go, which inspires others to do so as well. There, Dolls are of course on the rampage but they are backed up by a big energy glob that blocks communication. This turns out to fall down and form into the Daityl Sword, a very tall and lanky biped / somewhat humanoid thing. It's probably 3 or 4 stories tall, so, building height. Beating him in the toes is something he hates, so you can defeat him.
Once the Daityl Sword is defeated, another call comes in that Dozer's squad went into the Resol Forest Area and now appears to be in trouble, so you are urged to rush there next.

Though, you probably can't.
This is where the game's actual mechanics comes in, which is "Battle Power".
Anyone not totally ignoring the story to go zooming about the countryside defeating any and all things will likely not have the Battle Power to do anything yet. The Ops girls will call you and a new 'main quest' will appear which is to talk to some NPCs and raise your BP to a certain amount before the forest can even be entered at all. You basically have to run around until you get to Level 15 or so, grind whatever 2nd or 3rd teir weapon you have up past 20 or so, run every single cocoon & spend every single Skill Point (from those cocoons), as well as performing at least 1 weapon "limit break", and making your main weapon a "combo weapon". All of which is very expensive to do, so you will also need to red-box hunt (There are 113 of them in the 'chapter 1 Aelio' area that this takes place in) You do have to work at it to be able to reveal more story.

The Resol Forest
This forest has giant trees, glowing mushrooms, steep hills and twisted roots everywhere. Sunlight only filters in a little bit. There's lots of moss and rocks and some plants that glow a little. It is a nifty place to see. To start this quest, you can meet Aina outside the forest border, and go inside. Mannon then arrives and tells you that there are three signals that could be Dozer, so there's nothing to do but investigate each one. The communications in this area are blocked, just like they were at Vanford. So, you have to get in there and defeat various Oodans, Pettas Axe, Pettas Launcher, and other regular area Dolls. Running from marker to marker, you still can't find Dozer.
Eventually, there's a larger clearing where you can spot what looks like a guy standing there. Two people escape, the Techer & Ranger from Dozer's squad. The guy is metallic looking, and isn't facing you. He's perhaps 1.5 regular people tall, or a bit taller. This is not a person though, it is a new type of Dolls, the Bujin. You don't get to inspect it though, because Aina and Mannon will attack it from afar and set it off. Look carefully at the Bujin, it only has one arm. Why would they build it with only a single arm? It has a long katana that glows with energy when it is getting ready to attack. It has many powerful attacks like turning invisible, multi katana slash, shadow-clones, shadow-movement, a huge AOE dome of doom attack, airial juggles and more.

If you can defeat it...
Another signal will appear and Dozer sure won't. It was not the Bujin that was keeping Dozer from everyone. Crawford will call you, saying maybe you should retreat because there's a big signal in the sky that something's coming down. No one will leave though, so you go to the next coordinate. There, the bad Dolls dragon Nex Ailio appears. This is a rather "S" shaped winged dragon thing with a long curved torso. It has smallish wings, a long tail, and both hands/feet. It can breathe fire, slash the tail, spin attack and fly around. As you fight it, Dozer shows up to help out, but tries to scold everyone for going into the dangerous Resol Forest. He clams up though once Aina yells how determined everyone is to save him.

Dozer says there's no point in running away from it now (as it flies and is fast/it won't do any good) we've got to try and defeat it. It's turning radius isn't that great, so trying to stay under/at the back feet works pretty well. Eventually Dozer can blast its tail off. When it gets low on health though, watch out! Just like the Nogleth, the Nex Ailio will turn red and go into a rampage mode. This mode includes growing 2 more heads for a total of 3 attacking heads. It can also do ground/flame attacks, falling fire meteors, area burn, energy blasting and pillars of fire from the ground.
The characters will mention that it has "Cores" in it, and, indeed it does there are two yellow glowing round....disks? Embedded in the torso area that are especially vulnerable to attacks. In this case, the NPCs are actually pretty helpful in battle. They never die of attacks, and they are able to do ok damage.

Of course, this freaks Aina out, so you can say

Remember What Dozer Said
We've Got This Aina

If you say We've Got This Aina, she looks around to see that you, Mannon & Dozer are really there to back her up and has a vision of her father too, (a flash) and is able to stand and fight even though the thing is going wild. There's a cinematic type that shows each character doing a cool attack against it, and the dragon is defeated. She tells Dozer that his advice really did help, Mannon is clearly proud of her, and everyone is happy/relieved. The Nex Ailio was what was blocking communications too, so as soon as it's gone, Central City's calling you. He's amazed you could beat it, super happy to see Dozer again and that everyone's fine. Everyone agrees to go right back to the city.

Once there Crawford tells the ops people that "The Materials were gathered successfully." Aina asks what about that? This forces him to explain what Dozer was there to do. (He's embarassed she caught him out on this, he clearly didn't want to explain his ideas to 'the newbies in town', but.....he's no seasoned politician! Embarassing him/calling him out actually DOES work, and he feels bad about it enough that he'll explain...nice) It's that they need items from the dolls themselves, and various areas of the planet. As you know, people are rich in photons, but what's richer is the planet itself AND the atmosphere. The Garou vs Falz attack has been studied, and it's determined that the photons of the people/place harm the Dolls. Garou had the right idea, but Falz was just too big (giant metal space ship) for his photon attack to strike the core.
So...what if the atmosphere's photons could be collected instead for a giant attack to defeat a giant thing? The idea for that is called "Central Cannon", but it can't be completed without more items from far and near. Do you want to be part of the item gathering force that goes and contacts other Arks/people far away? Aina assumes this means we'll be his gophers/liasons to try and persuade strangers to help Central City. He says that's about right, and all three are signed up to the job.

Preview: A sandy area is shown, where a menacing Dolls sand-worm is obviously lurking

Questions:
1. Why does nobody ask about the Bujin? It is the only Dolls that looks like it is trying to be a person in both look & actions.
2. WHO is building the Dolls? They are obviously artificial constructs, not 'wacky animals Falz is making' like every other time.
3. Some Dolls are apparently very old, when you see "Veteran" Dollsname", they'll have moss and dirt accumulations on them. Where were these hiding that nobody stumbled onto them? You always encounter Dolls while they are wandering around, and if an area is empty they 'appear in a flash' which suggests teleportation.
4. The expensive item "Alpha Reactor" looks suspiciously like something that's sometimes embedded in some Dolls.
5. The "Guarded/Boosted" Dolls have a glowing yellow cylender embedded in a sharp/twisted 'barb' that is stuck in them. It looks like they have been stabbed/pierced with this to injure them. (Ex. in a Doltz it's jabbed through the joint of a back leg) Breaking the cylender makes the Dollz vulnerable to attack....but then why was it stabbed into them in an injuring way?
6. What causes "silver and gold"?
Dolls, Alters, Tames, and Legacy type anythings can appear in 'silver and gold' colors where it looks like they were dipped in chrome. If a Dolls is a metallic color it will be stronger than normal and have more HP. It does not seem to be the case for anything else. Of course, they drop more/better stuff but...what causes the coloration? The animals don't seem to mind.

The characters will talk about the eerie forest, but they won't remark on the cleary-person-looking-ninja?
Why don't they talk about the Dolls in general more? Nobody asks Mannon what she remembers as a Meteorn? You'd think that would be a super important thing to bring up OR make an excuse for why not.

Aina asks you to go to the watchtower, but it really is just the outer wall of the city at one of the points. She wants to make a grave for her dad, or a monument. It’s to preserve the memory of how they protected the town with their lives. So, you go with her to the Ailio Town Ruins area. She says that Crawford is keeping Mannon too busy, so she’ll just go with you. She suggests the forest for finding something to use.

You can lead her to an area that seems to have been used for Hunter/ARKS training. She confesses that she was never allowed to join it, and regrets just watching everyone else do it. She didn’t like it. She doesn’t see anything at the training ground to use for it, so suggests heading for the sea. However, pettas gun and pettas sword will spawn in the area and you have to fight those before you can leave. Going toward the ocean, she says the plains are just the same as they were before the attack.

Once at the ruins of town, you can see that there are dolls there, specifically pettax axe and pettax launcher. One of them will be guarded/boosted with the twisted spike/cylender thing stuck in them. Once you get rid of those, a Varas will appear, and it’s guarded too. Among the items/ruined things now, she’ll find a long white staff looking thing. It has a cone on one end and a half-moon sort of shape on the other, with a photonic glow in it on a round ball/orb that levitates in the half moon shape. She’ll say it’s his sword.

You ok?
It’s a Keepsake of Him

If you ask You Ok? She’ll say you’re sweet, so mind following her up the hill? You do, and reach a cliff edge. He loved looking at the world from the spot, she was so proud of him for being an inspiration, a teacher and a protector. She gets the strange white weapon out, and stabs it into the ground, laying flowers at the base. She thinks this will be proof of how hard he and the others fought for everyone.

It’s a Great Idea
I’m Sure Garoa and the Others Would Be Pleased

If you say It’s a Great Idea, you can nod, she’ll say it’s decided. She’ll give you an informal reward. But, she’s got to keep going, if she doesn’t want dad to get on her case. With this, she leaves the area. The white petals leave the flowers and blow out over the sea past the staff. The item she gives you is Honor of Aelio, which is a black woven cord and bead bracelet accessory.

The side story then ends.
There's not much to ask about or really learn in this one, other than some all right character development. It still doesn't fix her bizzarre and unfitting total lack of...any reaction at all at the start of the game but? It's better than having nothing. Do note that this Side Story was added many months after everyone finished the main story Chapter 1.

This is the desert area that Crawford mentioned at the end of chapter 1. Before Chapter 2 really starts off, you’re summoned to Crawford Command Room so he can sort of recap it. Under the desert sands of Retem are various minerals and items that they need to help with the cannon and the Dolls defense over all. So, when you arrive he tasks you, Mannon and Aina to go over there and start trying to communicate with the Retem settlement. They are having a Dolls problem too (because probably the whole entire planet is), so his thought is that if you help defeat the Dolls there, they’ll help us out with the minerals and supplies. Aina says he can count on us, and the scene ends.

This opens up 2 new things to do.
1.Cross the bridge to meet Aina to go to Retem
OR
2. Investigate a mysterious Electromagnetic Signal in the Resol forest that is affecting the Dolls and making them behave differently.

Orangie tasks you with Investigating The Signal:
To do this, you have to go to Resol Forest and defeat a set number of Dolls enemies there. If you do, she’ll show up on your communicator and barely explain much. Is the signal man-made? If so, who would do such a thing? It influences the Dolls behavior, so they’ll look at the data you gathered to try and learn more about it.

And that’s pretty much it. It was certainly a tiny side-quest. Electromagnetic Signals are not out of the question here, because the Dolls are some kind of mechanical construct so it’s very plausible that they’d be affected by such things. However, it doesn’t say WHAT it is influencing the Dolls into doing. More aggressive? Lures them somewhere? That would have been helpful to know and IT IS KNOWN (Obviously by Orangie) but she doesn’t elaborate which is annoying.

Year Later Addition to the Story:
The parts here between "and then go to Retem" were added about a year into the game when people complained too much that there wasn't enough NPC interaction or story details. So, if you read the page previously...just go over this bit for a little more. This stuff DOES belong here/this is its place in the time line.

After this, you can find Dozer again for First Mission Report
He’s standing on Central’s wall, and says ‘hey there you are’ when you approach.
What Are You Up To?
Mt. Magnus…
If you ask What Are You Up To? He’s finished a mission, but it makes him remember ‘that day’ the trio’s first mission. You’d done well for being fresh out of basic, and he decided you were ready after seeing how well everyone did in the trainia, but he’d not thought a real battle would happen so soon. He feels Crawford made the right call. He says you and Mannon are quite resilient. He hopes you keep on doing what you’re doing…even Aina who loses her father and got seriously injured. Aina did well with courage, but compared to Meteorn, she’s still a work in progress. She’ll go far, but attitude is important too and she’s clearly in a hurry to prove herself. He thinks she’s trying to put the tragedy of Aelio town to good use—without using anger to do it, anger and hate always warps the soul. But slow and steady wins the race, so you and Manon keep an eye on her.
He adds something’s weighing on Manon too, so can you lead them by example?

The scene ends.

No Rest for the Leader With: Ran
You can find Ran near a peach tree and a tent in central Aelio. She greets you by mentioning we hardly see each other outside of the command room.
What Are You Up To?
Are You On an Assignment?

If you ask Are You On An Assignment? She’s the opposite, she finished ops assignment, and Crawford said she should take a break for a while and slow down. She feels he’s the one who doesn’t take a break, though. He handles battle command and Central’s admin work too. He meets with ARKS individually too…she wonders when he sleeps because he never even looks tired.

He’s An Incredible Man
He’s Not Bad Looking Either

If you fish for more info by saying He’s An Incredible Man , she’ll agree we can all count on him. But at first glance he looks ineffectual. When she started out in ops, she was super nervous, she’s responsible for lives, so was terrified of making a mistake. He said to her with a kind smile and said if you feel like you might mess up, you can count on his support any time. So, all the other ops people are here for you too, so don’t be afraid. This made her feel better, and able to initiate conversations, he said what she needed to hear when she needed to hear it so she’ll never forget, but now she has to get back…but please don’t tell him! Good luck, and next time you’re back…please try to tell him not to work so hard.

Reflecting on Resol Forest: With Dozer
You can now find Dozer again near the river by Resol forest. He asks what you’re up to so…

Suppressing Enemies
Wandering Around This Area

If you claim you were Suppressing Enemies , he’ll say good for you, and daily patrols keep things safe, so he appreciates you being proactive even while off duty. Then, he thanks you for your help with Nex Aelio in the forest here, he was overconfident. He had been so many times that he thought he had it all mapped out, as well as knowing all there was to know about Dolls. Everything was different that day, they jammed his comms and became more powerful. Nothing could prepare him for that, killing 1 enemy made 2 take its place so everyone got surrounded. He was sure they’d be wiped out, and if the Trio hadn’t showed up, it would have been the case.

His relationship with the boss Nex Aelio goes back 10 years, he says as he turns to the forest. The same thing had happened 10 years ago, where it invaded suddenly while Central’s defenses weren’t complete so it suffered losses. He fought too but was no match for it and didn’t contribute much. He feels his inability to see the bigger picture cost the lives of a lot of friends. All the memories of that came back during the battle there, so there’s a lot for him to reflect upon…he wouldn’t be who he is now without the Trio. You helped settle the score with it, so he’s grateful, and will pay it back on the battlefield in the future, he assures you, and the scene ends.

LIMITED QUEST - Replay 10 Years Ago: Nex Aelio Fight
Limited time quests were introduced about a year in. The "Quest Counter" is introduced as a "virtual reality area" to "train the defenders" using situations from the past. So, this is the standard plot speil to justify being able to basically go anywhere and encounter anything that will make the game more fun/dispense enemies, prizes and exp at will without having it be always story based. However...this isn't always the case.

This quest lets you go as a 'virtual add on' to various NPCs who were defending Aelio/Central area 10 years ago. It is of course an 'enemy gauntlet' where you're running thru various bosses and such on a guided path to the finale fight, which is of course the Nex Aelio Dolls Dragon. However, in the big fight, Garoa appears--because he is (of course) still alive at that point. He's got his special spear/axe thing, and an absolute brick of HP so the dragon can't do much for him. As is the usual as well, the NPCs are pretty useful. (Just don't let Aina in this thing!)
So the way the Limited Quest Simulation works is that it takes the 'data' of the people who were there at the time and has them doing all their same actions they would have done, as well as the enemies. Then, it subs out 1 of the people with your character so you can "participate" in the historical happening. No NPC can react to you because they're all pre programmed with exactly what they were doing in the recording. (So it would be horrible to witness Garoa fighting and saying his catch phrases and being with his comrades but not being able to interact with him or have him be 'living again' but never knowing she was there)

At the end it is revealed by the NPC dialogue that:
The Nex Aelio acted as a beacon to other Dolls unlike anything ever before, summoning them to Central City
They were going to storm the place & breech it if the Nex wasn't defeated on basically the front lawn
Garoa was a hero here too, despite him living at Aelio Town/the beach which is not close by

These are all important things to know, like that the Dolls aren't just mindless goons who wreck all humans they see (while leaving the wild life alone), and that the Nex Aelio dragon is smart enough to know that the defenses weren't doing great during the fight so it called in back up. It's also interesting to see Garoa again/what he was up to.

Aina near the Resol River
You can now find Aina further down the river also looking toward the Resol forest. She is startled when you find her. She was in there having a hard time because enemies tough and come from out of nowhere. She confesses it’s really scary then tries to cover it up by saying she’s not used to it. She does think she’s gotten better at fighting, and remembers being nervous and following you and Manon. She doesn’t remember the path they took, but learned a lot so glad she did it. She says thanks and you can say

I Told You Three of Us Were a Team
I would Worry About You On Your Own

If you say Three Of Us A Team, she knows, so thanks. She was worried about Dozer and knew she had to help, she didn’t consider Resol, or the Enemies, but you 2 agreed to go too she felt able to handle it. She feels as long as the Trio together, she didn’t need to be afraid of any enemies.
She remembers her dad getting so mad and yelling “you always act without thinking”, but tempering it with "It's better than to over think and do nothing". She thinks it could just be how she is…so do you promise to stop her if she’s about to do anything really dumb? If she knows you and Mannon are there to put the brakes on, then she can freely go full speed ahead.

Will Do!
No Dumb Stuff

If you assure her with Will Do, she appreciates it, says thanks, and the scene ends.

Manon & the Command Dolls
You can find Manon near the waterfall at the end of the river in Aelio. (near the Resol forest end) She says ‘oh you’re here too’, and you can ask

What Are You Doing Here
Are You Looking For Something

If you ask Are You Looking For Something? She’ll say she’s doing homework on Resol enemies to learn how they communicate. Because they appear to be autonomous and independent but sometimes they act like a part of a collective consciousness. She reminds you of Command Dolls like Pettas Vera, they give orders to other dolls like officers, and the Nex Aelio was an especially powerful one. She looked in the database and it’s labeled “Command Unit”.
While Dozer was MIA it was sending orders everywhere in Aelio. Every Dolls it could command started toward Central. It was a command tower, if we didn’t defeat it, Central would have been in trouble. Notice that this is the SECOND time a Nex Aelio has done this, the first was in the "Flashback Limited Quest" Also note that Manon DID NOT go on that, and would be too young or not even ON the planet yet 10 years ago anyway. She doesn't know that only Dozer has seen the effect 2 times. She’s glad we were able to put a stop to it…but maybe it was lucky too. She then shrugs about it, saying that was Crawford’s report that mentioned the luck part.
This seems to cause your character to begin to fidget a little bit, so she asks
Is this too much all at once for you?
She laughs and says that’s enough for today’s lesson, and she’ll let you know if she learns anything else.

Why does your character get fidgety?
This was an actual piece of info because it was NEVER mentioned that during the Dozer/Nex plot chapter that anything happened around the town. Command units were always there, but it never said what all they could do…it was always just “a big boss type Dolls is being bad in Area X/wherever go stop it”.

Aina and the Resol Reminisce
You can find Aina again near the Aelio river as well, but she’s toward the middle. She basically recaps what happened when everyone went to find Dozer in the Resol Forest that one time, and is very happy with how the team/her friends made it all possible. It’s basically a recap, so nothing new is revealed here.

Dozer in: All For One
Dozer has climbed to a super high point on the map, and is a bit surprised to see you there too. He wants to talk. You nod, so he mentions he’s training some rookies, and he’s waiting for them to finish a Trainia. He asks What’s Going On With Manon?

Is Something Wrong?
What Do You Mean?

If you ask Is Something Wrong? He’ll say she’s a top notch fighter engineer  and scientist…but she’s got a dark side that he feels is steering her in the wrong direction. What is the source of her sadness? She doesn’t volunteer the info so he doesn’t pry. But, he says you can’t have any baggage like that in a battle. It causes people  to make poor decisions, which affect you and everyone else. He says it’s based on personal experience. Aina is too, and trying to pass it, but Manon is keeping it locked away. It never works, and it’ll explode some day. So, if she asks for help, he needs you 2 to be there for her. You can nod at this, so he says notice subtle changes in behavior. Teams are more than  being force multipliers, it’s a real bond between the members so keep that in mind…did that sound like a lecture? The Trainia should be about done so, sorry to ambush you with such a speech. But, thanks for listening and please keep an eye on Manon.

This is probably news to anyone.
Manon just seems like a calm, reserved character. She doesn't get ruffled by Aina's big-reacting ways. She’s never excited or worked up for fretting or flying off any handles like Aina does…but some people are just like that. She wants to use science and skills to beat the dolls, she wants to make a plan and stick to it. It feels like they're foisting this "dark anger thing" onto the character when it exhibits none of it ever. (Even going forward into Retem and also Kvaris she still doesn't)

To Get To Retem:
You meet Mannon and Aina near the clearly constructed-by-whoever was ‘building’ giant things onto the planet bridge area at the edge of the Aileo map. This bridge leads into a desert canyon of stone with very high walls and a sandy/rock floor. There’s only one way to go (and any time there’s not the quest barriers it off with force-fields) so the whole thing is pretty easy ‘go forward on the path’ to beat the quest and open the area. This is called:

Sagan Mountain Road West
Mannon is waiting for you near a new teleportation stand at the start of this canyon type area. The quest to accept is “To Retem City”, where you’ll have to defeat some ‘target enemy’ to help build trust with ARKS defenders in that area. You have to complete this before you get access to the normal areas of the town/get free range of Retem region.

Now, you’ll have to fight new enemies that will stand in your way. There are more dolls, the same dolls but with doohickies stapled to them, more native nasties and more ‘lore’ type enemies which are the recycled things from Lilipa this time. As you progress through the canyon various enemies will be waiting and you can't continue without beating them.

New thing:
Mumidog- a native of the desert, it's got a long point on the front, digs in the sand and basically acts like the fish-wolves from Wopal/Vopar. Springs up/flips around, rushes you, etc. It makes similar sounds too.
Spardan A Lore
SignoGun Lore
Sparzyle Lore
Guardinane Lore
Now they're slightly yellowish but they all do the same thing they did in PSO2 on Lilipa.
Following along the canyon path, you’ll come to the Brankle. The Brankle is a pear-shaped Dolls that hovers and spawns tentacle/arms to attack. It serves as a mini-boss about mid way through. Exiting the canyon area a little bit you come to a bridge. Near the bridge is the new Dolls-Deser type enemy.
The Deser Sword, Deser Gun and Deser Launcher.  They are the Retem versions of the Pettas. They have a long flappy ‘tail’ on their heads and seem a little taller but they act really similar. The Deser Launcher does get a new attack though, which is to shoot delayed-blast bullets in a trio.

Once this set is defeated, a camo pattern brown/white/tan android guy will appear, so everyone draws down on him. He raises his hands and says don’t shoot, he’s a defender from the city. He said he thought to help, but you’re doing marvelously on our own. Aina is very happy about this, and says she’s on the way there, so would he mind showing us the way to it?
 He says head south and it’s just beyond the oasis. He’d go, but he’s on a recon mission so farewell for now. He then leaves and the scene ends. Aina doesn’t mind him, and Manon says he seems like he’s been fighting for a long time. Aina wonders if the rest of the city is like that…and Manon confirms that if they are, their battle with DOLLS is just as dire.

Next, on the way to the Oasis there will be another Brancle and the Deser crew.
Passing that, you come upon the oasis. It’s a small pond with nice clear water, convenient rocks and some interesting trees. (The trees resemble strange palms) and Aina wants to kick up for a few and replenish the water. Manon is looking like she’ll soon agree, but an earthquake happens. Aina frets about the noise and a dust cloud comes up near the city, which you can see in the distance. Now, a cut-scene shows photonic blasts setting off against the sandworm which is super long and can jump into the sky pretty high. Manon says about how big it is…and really, it is super duper long.

The ‘city’ looks like it’s built under the arch of some fallen giant piece of machinery. It’s decorated with lots of cloth banners and flags (much like how Ailio town was) but that’s about all you can see from the distance of the oasis. The worm is probably several city-blocks in length, if the cut-scene is to be believed. 100s of meters.

It fortunately doesn’t show up, or the hail of gunfire from earlier keeps it away from the city, so the next scene your character, Aina and Manon are just ‘already at’ the city. Everyone looks around and finds a white tent set up ‘indoors’ (as everything under this metal thing is sort-of inside already) where there are injured people being tended to by others. However, everyone’s interrupted by the arrival of three new people who are the authorities here.

Continue on with NGS Story Guide Page 2 .