Would you like to partake in some recreative brainstorming?

^ OMG, I'd love to hear more of your headcanons. :>

Richard and Hermann are awesome and it's sad they weren't in the games more. They have such interesting backstories and a lot of potential as characters.

Well, I have yet to tackle all the extra materials to a satisfactory degree, so I know even less about the subject, but here are some spitballing off the top of my head:

*tinfoil hat on*

1). The accident with Richard's family was staged, but wiping out his bloodline completely was not the aim.

*du-dun-dun-DUN!*

From what little there is shown about Richard in the games themselves, we can assume that Richard could've been a heir to some kind of inherited post high up in Immigrant Fleet's hierarchy or inherited a genetcal predisposition to being able to work with a Vessel of Anima and/or other 'artifacts of the Zohar' without the thing going inert on him or getting immediately om-nom-nomed in the process. Possibly both.

Thus, when he was completely orphaned in 'an unfortunate accident' at a young age, he got vulnerable to the influence of people seeking to mould his beliefs in what was of the most benifit to them. After all, when the young prince / pilot in charge of the best weapon system you have is a proponent of your political course even before he comes into power / gets into the mech's seat, the legislation process / killing off your opposition directly goes through much smoother!

2). How come Hermann got to serve in Federation's Navy and somehow got to pilot one of the Immigrant Fleet's super secret prototype mechas after that? There is of course Margulis, who apparently defected from the Federation along with a whole planet's worth of military and U-Tic itself (from what I understood from the plot, at least), so maybe it's not so strange after all.

Although, if I remember right, them all being descendants of one of Immigrant's Fleet splinter groups was not the last reason they were accepted, to put it mildly.

So the question is, was Matthews also one of the 'people of the Zohar'? If so, why he didn't follow Hermann and others?

Or better yet (if you are willing to rewrite known backstory elements completely), maybe he wasn't on the Federation's side of the barricades in that conflict?

*du-du-dun-DUNN!*

A recent post by QuiteBrilliantIndeed about RP sessions in Xenosaga universe has got me thinking. I'd like to share the result with anyone interested.

XXX

If one were to run a game or write a story with something other than purely dialogue, the authour will have to determine what is 'possible' for the purposes of this particular plot, right? Protagonists being able to teleport their uber mechs to their position via an application on their IPhone may look cool but will inevitably cause problems down the line when the player/reader will ask why they couldn't just use this function to get their bacon out of the current predicament. In interest of not spending an inconsiderable amount time and effort to explain away why your party can't use the trick in question this time for the rest of your story/quest wouldn't it be easier to clearly define this sort of stuff beforehand?

And the bits and pieces of the translated parts of the ODM I've been slowly familiarising myself with have just happened to provide this nice description:

...there also exists things like combat-use garments that included a
reception system for the substance transmission wave;

the people who wore those
clothes invoked them on the verge of death;

and it was considered that all of
the weaponry, along with the corpse, was transmitted and recovered by their own
army. Not leaving a corpse behind on the battlefront like this is a scheme for
the sake of not handing over information to the enemy's side....

That strange but cool 'melting away' animation Xenosaga games employ when you defeat an enemy of 'B' type? That's their gear triggering mass-transfer mechanism on their squishy bodies with the intent of using the usual horrific consequences of such an attempt to leave no identifiable remains. Hopefully after their life signs dropped to zero.

Of course my mind was unable to stop itself from going off on yet another tangent after such a wonderful stimulation, so please excuse me while I disgorge the jumbled mass of my thought process in this post.

XXX

So, what do you think should be within the realm of 'possible'? My first thought defaults on 'nope on the ethers outside of plot-relevant super-powers unique to each character that was mentioned to possess them' and 'no hyperdimensional man-portable inventory for everyone', but that seems kinda... draconian, does it not?

XXX

EDIT: I should really explain that last paragraph in more detail, shouldn't I?

By 'no hyperdimensional man-portable inventory for everyone' I mean the more questionable cases (*cough*KOS-MOS carrying enough dakka to question why the antagonists are even a problem for the party*cough*), not the kind that were used to teleport unmanned drones on Eisa's board in Ep.I and such.

That particular example has clearly defined limitations (short range, relatively small numbers and all of the boarders being autonomous AI-controlled drones only) but can still serve as an unpleasant surprise that our heroes can overcome revealing core character traits under pressure and spawning tasty character interaction drama in the process.

Compare that to, say, loosely defined 'UMN mail delivery service' that is shown only in one scene and never mentioned again even in places it really should've been (Jin and Canaan losing that valuable data cache they were trying to get off Miltia during Ep.II's prologue without explaining why they had to rely on the overly complicated method that eneded up failing them, for example). I'm sure I'm not the only one who asked the question of 'why didn't chaos just UMN-mail a primed nuclear bomb into Wilhelm's office or something if he knew the dude would cause such trouble?' after their first Ep.III playthrough.

XXX

As for Ethers, I just find the 'fireballs for everyone!' aspect of the game system iffy and would very like to forget about it for the purpose of storytelling. Why? Because what was shown of Xenosaga's world does not look like a society of people that considers magic-slinging a common scientifically-researched phenomena (or 'nanites' or something).

Compare it to... Bioshock, for example. Now that is a game that showed what could happen if such powers - regardless of them being supernatural or mundane in nature - became available to your everyday Joe.

The way Xenosaga handles it on the other hand leaves me with a distinct feeling that all aforementioned fireballs exist strictly in the battle mode and that lonely database entry.

This of course doesn't mean you shouldn't explore the possible implications Gaignun's (supposedly existing) powers could have had on the plot (if they actually existed) or allow your players to run a party of... 'gifted' indivudals that happened to escape from yet another mass experiment of Dr. Yuriev - as long as you are being consistent.

At least, that's what I think.

Eugh. It seems that my story idea (yet again) got stuck at an early stage of development hell. I will try to throw my thoughts in one pile here and see if it will manage to spark some progress. And who knows, maybe it will give a push to one of you folks reading this and something interesting could eventually come of that, eh?

XXX

The starting point of the story in the current draft is where the players first meet Elsa's crew in the game. (There were some other options, but I have even less idea about what to do with them than this one, so off the draft they go).

There are no functional differences in what has happened since the game's start - Lt. Luis Vergil (which of those is his given name anyway?) may have been less hamtastic and antagonistic in his words and actions for the purposes of other characters remembering the events and mulling over them later, for example, but it effectively changes nothing between 'game start' and 'meet the Elsa'.

First few scenes are told from Allen's POV and are little more than a simple introduction: he has just passed the standart decontamination procedure in the airlock between one of Elsa's hangars and the actual living area along with Andrew, Shion and KOS-MOS after the latter bullied negotiated their passage to Miltia-2 and is more than a little anxious about this already very long day becoming even longer because of the agressive way KOS-MOS handled her first hitchhiking.

A short description of their surroundings and and rather terse character interaction follows. The spacecraft they find themselves on is described as what seems like a luxury yacht somebody thought would make a fine salvage ship.

There is nothing even remotely approaching 'hard' sci-fi (I don't have the knowledge to pull it off and it would get in the way of all the crazy awesome) in here, but both Allen and Shion have a spacesuit designed to enhance one's chance of survival in case of a hull breach their lifepod came with on, Andrew is dressed in one meant for work in hard vacuum and Elsa's crew operating in a debris field without any is referred to as carelessness;

it is mentioned that a ship of this small size having artificial gravity and such amenities as normal showers and kitchen (as far as a kitchen made to secure all its contents for an atmospheric reentry could be called 'normal') is quite rare.

The new passangers are met by someone we know to be chaos and are sent to the sickbay after a brief inspection.

Shion tries to insist there is no real need for that;

after a simple pat on a shoulder sends her hissing and flinching in pain (apparently shooting a gun meant to be used by combat realians when you are an unaugmented human can be bad for your health, who knew?), they all go anyway.
_____________________________________________________

Andrew completely fails to behave in an overtly suspicious manner here;

he simply states that the treatment prescribed for his medical condition precludes him from making use of a good chunk of automated procedures because of the nanomachines involved. (He is not even lying).
_____________________________________________________

KOS-MOS deems it fit to remind everyone that she is, in fact, in need of maintenance, recharge, communication uplink with Vector HQ and all that jazz. chaos calmly informs her that he will get right on that as soon as he makes sure her squishier companions are not going to die of an internal bleeding or some such nastiness;

the sooner they get this over with, the sooner they could adress the AI's own needs. And if she could operate the machinery in there, the basic diagnostic required could be done even quicker.

(She can't. In the haste to get KOS-MOS operational the project team had to heavily prioritize her qualities in open combat and put on the back burner almost everything else. That includes giving medical assistance beyond guesstimating a person's physical and mental condition with whatever sensors she is equipped with and getting qualified personnel on the scene).
_____________________________________________________

Allen is busy siliently working himself into a minor panic attack during all this. He starts to suspect that people that have picked them up are not an exactly law-abiding lot (not without reason as he will lately discover) and worries how 'hardened criminals' would react to such heavy-handed threats. Their destination is quite far, they all will need to sleep eventually - even KOS-MOS - and what will happen then?!

Moreover, while Allen mostly had to work on the software side of things during his tenure in the project, even he could discern that KOS-MOS had nowhere near enough power left to carry through her promise of destroying the ship (and would have to keep the crew alive and well regardless - to pass through the various customs on the way without additional problems, if nothing else). She bluffed her metal arse off!

Well, since this was possibly the only reason Allen was not currently trying to outsuck the void with his lungs, it probably wasn't that bad, but still! Here he was working his guts out, helping to develop a technological breakthrough that would (hopefully) help humanity to fight back against alien starfish ghosts from the outer space, and what she does on the first day of independent function?! Friendly fire incident to lethal effect!! Commandeering a private vessel with threats of death!!!

Aaagh, he was going to have a head full of grey hair by the end of the week at this rate...
_____________________________________________________

And so this newly formed bunch of misfits sets sail towards the wonderful adventures that await them.

For whatever reason, the Gnosis encounter on the bridge fails to materialise and Andrew remains 'unsalted'. At this time, at least.

XXX

I'm not trying to imply that even this little snippet from the very beginning is planned to be canon-compliant, but so far the first major change beyond some... frivolities in interpretations is chaos.

In this story chaos is actively trying to not draw attention to his... 'otherness', so he has an actual name (currently William Henderson) and an official story with the paper trail to back this identity up.

He is a an old acquaintance of Helmer's;

they have helped each other in a number of delicate matters over the years (as suggested by his appearance in Ep.II's prologue) and generally try to work together towards mutual interests. He has served with Matthews the Federation's Marines Corps during the Miltian Conflict (he had to assume the role of the commanding officer when their previous superior got killed). 'William' has a long (if not wholly official) track record of mercenary work: he has managed to find a job as a security officer, bodyguard, combat personnel instructor and ground troops' guide in hazardous environments - to name a few things - for various private and national interests on both sides of the border. Thus a good deal of characters in the business know of (some of) his reputation, if not always the name and the face (both of which could be changed with a careful application of technology of the day and age they live in anyway) attached to it.

I did not decide what is exactly the reason for why chaos came to be this way, but regardless of what would be the final version, he is visibly aging with time, even if noticeably slower than the widely available medical expertise can provide. There are quite a few wild theories flying about how a man of 147 years old (that's the most reliable number in his biography intelligence agencies can provide) can remain this healthy in body and mind - and, more importantly, where one could get some of that for themselves.

One other major detail is his characterisation. Whatever other bits of backstory for him I decide to go with, one thing is certain: even if the cycle of rebirth referred to in Ep.III gets into the story, chaos has no personal recollection or second-hand knowledge of such. He simply lived for way longer than anyone (to his knowledge) ever did and has some... supernatural qualities to go with that. A good deal of personal conflict has happened in that time;

when compared to other characters he has mostly worked through his uncertainties and has simply resolved to live out his days however long he manages to. No giving up, no rolling over when the Death comes knocking - he would fight for his life as fiercely as he did the first time and each and every time after that.

In other words, if human minds' reluctance to disperse themslves into collective unconscious upon death is as big trouble in this story as is it is in canon, chaos would fall square into the group of people who bring the Gnosis catastrophe closer with each passing moment, however involuntary.

His power set is mostly geared towards destruction. There are some creative applications he uses from time to time, but for the most part things like protecting Elsa in Ep.I's ending are straight out. Which can be a problem somtimes considering there are no widely available Medica spells (or any spells, really) in this story.
_____________________________________________________

There are some changes (or should I say additions, because there is really not much to change there) in most characters' backstories, but they don't come into play until later.

XXX

Well, this is currently the gist of what I've managed to think up. There are bits and pieces pertaining to later parts, but concrete plans as of today end here. " title="Sad" /> I hope this was not a complete waste of time and bandwidth.

Clarification about that "on both sides of the border" bit above: by this I mean the border between The Federation and whatever the descendants of the other Migrant Fleet have for government. Current plans place chaos (and a hefty chunk of other plot-relevant characters with 'unusual' qualities for that matter) hail from that part of humanity.

Spoiler:

I'll be using spoiler tags to try and contain some of the more rambling commentaries more compressed this time.

XXX

While I am stuck on actual plot events, there are some points from the later parts I think should be adressed in the course of this story idea - even if I'm not yet sure exactly how that should be done.

Let's start with URTV subplots.

XXX

First: Albedo seems completely and thoroughly obsessed with Rubedo. A huge chunk of that is for personal reasons as shown in Ep.II's flashbacks - Albedo was psychologically dependant on his brother long before the game's events came along and him going crazy(-ier?) did not change that. The other thing he seems to be obsessed with is finding a way to die for good, ideally before Rubedo does. Everything else he does could be said to stem from this (and his total disregard for the lives of others). At least, that's what I think the ending scene of Ep.II suggests. It also suggests that it was important for Albedo to be killed by Rubedo either strictly on a personal level or/and because anything else but the 'Red Dragon' ability (which does... something; honestly I've caught only 'unusually destructive' and 'lots of red' from canon) possessed by the latter would simply not do the trick.

So, a question occured to me: what would Albedo do if Rubedo (or just his unique ablility) becomes unavailable for whatever reason? Besides freaking out (possibly in a violent manner), I mean?

There are at least two characters capable of destruction on a... deeper level (for the lack of a better word) in the main characters' party alone (chaos and KOS-MOS), a few 'employed' by Wilhelm (Testaments, possibly T-elos and that one mech with super broken information field cutting weaponry that didn't make it into the game) and a number of even stranger entities just out there. If Albedo was willing to dive into whatever the heck U-DO is (supposedly, if I remember it right, to make himself more vulnerable to the Red Dragon), what's to say he wouldn't try to get 'salted' by one of the Gnosis? Or try to do something even more extreme? Either way, it promises fun for everyone involved.

Second: Dr. Yuriev's plans for the endgame do not sit well with me. The moment things go 'MWA-HA-HA, I am now a god', I generally stop paying attention. I think limiting them just to 'eradicate U-DO whatever the cost' and (maybe) 'I have a functional prototype of what could allow me to live much, much longer than I would have otherwise, why not to make use of it?' would be better for the story.

In an ideal world, he would've been shown before his fateful contact with U-DO first, then a little after that and only then take us to the scenes we've seen in the game proper. Who was Dr. Yuriev before all this? Simply a young man gifted with a great mind that enjoyed exercising it in pursuit of scientific progress, for betterment of all and satisfaction of his own curiosity? If so, how things came to this? How much such a mundane, everyday thing as fear - something that plagues and haunts us on a daily basis - can change the nature of a man?

Or... maybe there was not much choice on his part at all. 'Got artificially augumented to increase mental aptitude in vitro' and 'participated in an U-DO contact experiment' parts of his short biography I seem to remember from the in-game database do not imply much space for being a volunteer. Maybe the man was brought up much in the same manner his 'children' were: no life of his own to speak of, just the purpose chosen for him by someone else, bred with momma's milk, impressed upon a young mind until it was an inherent part of him, something his thought process could no longer define as outside influence. So all the horrible mess Dr. Yuriev has managed to cause may not have been a result of an unescapable terror that dogged him for years, but of an indoctrination that set in a little too well, performed by someone long since dead, for a task no longer relevant.

I don't know which option I like more. Both present wonderful opportunities for drama. :biggrin2:  

Third: Citrine and Nigredo. There is just not enough screen time for either of them and it makes things more difficult than they should be. Both of them should be integral for a number of subplots, but I just don't know where to start, what's with canon being so full of holes. 'Gaignun is Lelouch, lawl' does not seem like an appropriate approach.

This little oneshot https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4156318/1/What-Strings-Are-Made-Of shows something like a solid place to start from, but I'm still not sure where to go with it - other than 'Citrine honestly does not find Dr. Yuriev's deeds and methods objectionable', but that was about the same idea canon gives already, so...

Spoiler:

I have no better idea on what to do with their powerset. Citrine's was shown in that one boss fight, but, to put it frankly, it looked like a U-DO-colored Force Push. I will have to rewatch that part just in case I've missed something interesting in all that excitement, but I still think it needs more 'oomph' and personality.

Even less clue about Nigredo's. Only real hint other than his database entry is that he was chosen as a first wave executioner

Spoiler:

that was on standby, ergo he should've been able to subdue each and every person participating in the actual U-DO contact, possibly all of them at once.

Spoiler:

XXX

Speaking of U-DO, there is one little thing I've noticed that could be used to help flesh out its effects beyond just 'UUUUUU-DOOOOOOOO' and that crazy-sick-awesome shade of red.

Remember how Old Miltia looked when our heroes get there in Ep.II? Bombed-out, half-sunk city, right? One question though: where is the vegetation? I may be misremembering my Xenosaga, but, as far as I can recall, there was no hint of any kind of greenery despite there being no humans in the city for what, ~15 years?

Granted, Ep.III showing the city in question surrounded by dense forests teeming with life may have been a retcon, Ep.II's own prologue didn't show neither hide nor hair of any parks within the city limits, Michtam didn't have any grass and trees to speak of too despite not having to anything with U-DO and both planets may have been simply too bombed out to have any plant life left, but one gotta start somewhere, right? :nice:

Spoiler:

XXX

A little less hare-brained observation would be that in order to deploy the Hilbert Effect necessary

Spoiler:

to fight Gnosis effectively a humanoid operator with more or less human mind is required. That 'Big Momma' AI Durandal has apparently doesn't cut it even if it is supposed to be chock full of human brains.

I find this detail interesting and will try to use it somehow somewhere related to realians and KOS-MOS/T-elos plotlines.

Sorry that I'm only replying to one part of this all, but I see you talking about Dmitri's past, and that's pretty much my favorite thing to think about, as those that know me know all too well. Anyways, in the Merkabah, Sellers specifically states that "A large number of designer children were created for the live transfer experiments of organic beings during the early stages of the U.M.N. Dmitri Yuriev was one of them. That man is the original salvator."


Created FOR the purpose of the experiments, so it sounds like for sure it was not a voluntary thing. I imagine it to be something like the URTVs, and that his own treatment of them is like how he was treated as a child. I always got the feeling that he was thought of as nothing more than a disposable test subject.
But what he did was definitely caused from the fear he experienced at the time of the experiment- the perfect guide makes it clear just how deep it runs- he experiences the end of all existence, and it's such an experience that it feels like a predetermined future that can't be escaped. It's something much more extreme than the fear a normal person would ever experience. So it makes sense why something like that could cause someone to become so obsessed with escaping from that fear even after 300+ years.
I do really wish we could have seen the young Yuriev in game, it's one of the most fascinating subjects in xenosaga for me, and I have a lot of headcanons about it, but I won't get into those right now. (Except for one- I think his first vessel was one of the people in charge of the experiments. After all, 99.76% of test subjects died instantly, and Dmitri is stated to be the sole survivor, so I get the impression that the others died soon after, or were killed since they pretty much had a complete mental breakdown, so I can't imagine his body was in too good of shape- so as he's dying he transfers his consciousness to one of the people running the experiment- also such a position would be useful to him for obtaining information about U-DO, as I believe the transfer experiments are how people first became aware of U-DO.)

Personally, I like Yuriev's goal of becoming a God because its something so much more than "mwhahaha I'm a god". Becoming a god is the solution of his problem of an all-encompassing fear, rather than wanting to become a god just for the sake of being powerful or a higher being or whatever that you might see elsewhere. He realizes he can't destroy U-DO, he made contact with it, of course he'd know it's impossible, so transcending lower domain existence is the solution he arrives at in order to escape.
Him saying things like fear drives evolution, and that he will surpass god, and how great his power is.. I think it's partially his personality- 3s are image-conscious, he's going to want to look like his fear has caused him to become something like a god, that he's going to become a higher existence because of it, but all he wants to do is escape fear more so than become a god, if there was another way, he'd take it. Also, he, after 300+ years, is close to escaping (or so he thinks), so that feeling of having the power to do so makes everything he said make sense. It's so much more than a man wanting to become an all powerful god, it's that he finally has the ability to escape the terror that has plagued him for hundreds of years, and this is why I find Dmitri Yuriev such an interesting character.
(Typed this all on my phone, I hope I didn't make any mistakes!!)

No problem! First and foremost reason I've started this thread was to try and stimulate some discussion back into the section. For the most people here the fandom is old news and they must've all got most of their Xenosaga talk out of their systems by now. So I thought to throw ideas at the wall and see what would stick, so to speak.

By all means, feel free to latch on whatever part you desire or even start a tangent of your own - this thread is made for fun after all.

XXX

Yes, the first alternative for Dr. Yuriev mentioned in my previous post shamelessly flies in the face of canon. The reason it got into the post was because I've started typing before my brain caught up with me and it seemed a shame to just delete it wholesale.

After some thinking I realised that I've found something attractive in that premise even if it didn't fit what we've seen of Dmitri and URTV getting the child soldier treatment not out of any intentional negligence ('this a delicate process - the subjects need to be monitored and under strict control at all times' and 'they are not gonna live long anyway, why waste resources' come to mind), but simply because the man didn't know any better is the kind of dramatic irony a story could use.

So, here it is, written down just because it was an idea I thought could be shown to others, regardless of its feasibility in the actual story draft I'm trying to think up.

Same thing with the alternative to fear as the motivation for him: it was something I felt could be used to present a major antagonist's actions in a light that does not get used in fanfiction all that often but will likely feel out of place for the good doctor as he is shown in canon.

XXX

I see no reason why that piece of headcanon should not be entertained. It is not really a big stretch to assume Dmitri changed bodies, names and whatnot several times since that day. The same with his original body not surviving the procedure at all. Gaignun changing voice and hair color after he gets possessed is very, very likely to be just a visual/aural medium thing done solely for our benefit.

Spoiler:

Speaking of headcanons, I seem to remember the game saying that Orgulla was one of the few survivors (for a certain meaning of 'survival', of course) of those UMN human transfer experiments. Like so many things in Xenosaga, it went nowhere, but that's why we are here, are we not?

Yes, there is absolutely no reason to believe they were in the same 'batch' or even in the same Migrant Fleet - the woman is a trusted enforcer of Ormus after all - but why the hell not? We could always use a more believable explanation with Dmitri being interested in studying other people that survived like he did, if only in hopes to glean some useful data for URTVs or some other project of his and not because of some personal feelings on his part. BAM! Just like that character interactions and subplots where there were previously none to be had are ready for fleshing out and integration in the overall structure whereever you desire to put them.

XXX

As for Yuriev's actions in the endgame... While I am of opinion they could've done better than that, it is not my intention to diss anything here - I would not be able to present a coherent argument beyond 'I don't like it' and 'it is counterintuitive and overcomplicated for the purpose of writing fanfiction' anyway - so please forgive my choice of words.

My reasons for choosing to cut off and think up the plot from clean slate after a certain point are extremely straightforward: if I am to compose a draft for fanfiction, regardless of whether it will ever see the light of day or not, I believe I should a). actually understand what I am trying to do and b). write something I would like reading myself. In other words, in this case it is all strictly meta, with no in-universe justification from canon at all.

XXX

Oh, and I'm sure I inflict horrible, horrible torture on poor punctuation and spew out speech faults on a regular basis, but was I ever stopped by that?  :goofy:  Niether should any of you, you fine folk, you.

I seem to have forgotten to type out one interesting discovery I've had when I played Xenogears for the first time earlier this year.

Namely, how that work-in-progress profile for the cover identity chaos uses at the time Xenosaga happens that I came up by spitballing ideas at the ceiling for about fifteen minutes is named William and is supposed to look something suspiciously like Jesiah. Oh, and apparently there is concept art that makes Billy look like how chaos turned out to be.

That discovery felt downright uncanny.

XXX

The reason I am updating this thread is because I've actually had an idea about what the characters are supposed to do after the first chapter is over come to me today. It was however solely focused on a fight scene I thought could be cool (it inolves one of those yellow Alien-esque walking loaders, by the way);

silly little things like what should go in-between all the shooting and exploding and daring chasing scenes and stuff was... mostly omitted.

So what I am asking you folks is how do you think a pitstop spacestation for space truckers doing the long haul would look like in Xenosaga?

Because I think there should be something like that in there. Why? From what the game shows of hyperspace travel, that's not something I would've left for autopilot and went to sleep for a 'night' if I were in the Elsa's crew. And Elsa doesn't have enough crewmen in her crew for them to have more than one shift. So, unless the ETA for their destination is less than, say, ~16-20 hours (a random number I've pulled from what I've heard about IRL truckers), wouldn't they have to exit at some UMN column to rest up somewhere?

That small snip of a location Andrew gets to beat up some punks in may have been it, now that I think about it. In that case, how would you expand that from storyline/setting perspective?

EDIT:
I was thinking of moving the whole hyperspace tunnel confrontation outside of it. Give more options to characters, stop Ziggy and MOMO getting irradiated in that scene and all that. Such a space station floating by a 'freeway', visited by Elsa for refueling (however that goes in Xenosaga) and rest could be a good place to do that.

Could also show some interesting details on the state of affairs and just some personality in general in the space systems near the Federation border.

For example, when a small unidentified ship chased by several other unidentified ships (that's the merry chase with MOMO and Ziggy in the lead, by the way) tries to weave and rush through the queue to one of the hangars, the first response is to close the gates, eject and disperse a cloud of metal debris in their way and open fire with all defensive guns that have a clear shot on the cavalcade.

People of Miltia in this continuity do not screw around. If something looks like it is gonna threaten their home, shots are fired first and questions are asked later, be it in the center of the capital city of Second Militia or on some weigh station for space freighters at a UMN column on the very verge of the system.

And it is not merely a government policy or military protocol enforced from above - this behaviour permeates the culture that developed here on all levels to the point of it becoming an unspoken but universal rule. Life here on the very edge of the Federation was never particularly easy even before the contact with the other Migrant Fleet was made;

it didn't become easier since then either. And in the present, the scars left by the recent Miltia confilct are still fresh. So trust towards what looks like troublemakers - especially outsiders - is in rather short supply.

EDITv2:
I think I am mixing something up here. Wasn't Milita settled by people of the Zohar for the most part? So maybe the Old Miltia wasn't settled by Federation first and I am making a mistake. Ugh, I need to read up on the facts.