PS1 1000 years after question/speculation

[Daren]

Hello everyone
As many of you know by now, I'm making a fan game set on Palma (Mainly) and at the same time as PS2 is starting.
I'll use this topic to ask you fans questions and ask to speculate on what you think is happening a 1000 years after the original game because I know you know more about every aspects of the games then me.

Someone here told me about some towers close to caminet where the elites are living, what are those towers and who are these elites and while you're at it, what do they do?

[BenoitRen]

Not much is known about PSII Palma. There's this excerpt from the manual:

Closest to Algo is Palm, the economic and intellectual stronghold of the system. Thinkers and rulers live here, high in ivory towers, away from the
hubbub of everyday life.

Then again, the manual acts as if only Motavia has the history of Alis defeating Lassic to rid the planet of him.

In Phantasy Star II itself, Palma comes up several times. When Rolf volunteers to open the dams, what the Commander responds with suggests that the central government is indeed on Palma:

Well..., but..., I'm sorry to say this, but the government of Palm has announced your names as the ones who made Mother Brain go crazy.

In the past, people from Palma came to Dezolis to mine laconia, according to this Dezolisian:

The Palm people came to Dezo to mine Laconia.

Tyler came from Palma:

I'm Tyler, a space pirate. I left Palm long ago; life under the Mother Brain was not to my liking.

The Espers came from Palma:

Long dern time ago, I heard that someone run away from Palm to this planet.

The other mentions in the game do not teach us anything relating to Palma.

In the Compendium, there's one timeline entry of interest:

The "Conjunction", the alignment of the three planets, occurs. Due to gravitational interference, the orbits of Parma and Motabia are shifted, and cities are annihilated. Thanks to the Earthmen, the escape shuttle containing the remaining members of the ruling class is destroyed, and the Landeel bloodline appears to be wiped out.

[Mono]

The orbit swith may have turned Palma into a more hostile planet, like Motavia was in PSI. Motavia seemed to be its main source of food, since there are lots of domed farms and channel systems and all that, but it seems to be too much for the relatively sparse population we find there. I see Palma as an overpopulated, ultramodern, but environmentally decadent planet, surviving at the costs of the two other planets.

[Edless]

maybe we could think of Parma as a polluted planet.
Like they had the best technologies out of the 3 planets in PSI.
Keeping on developping their environment might have led them to urbanise the whole planet and exploit it.
In the end, only the well off would have expartiate themselves on motavia (created like a Dubai) leaving all the thinkers and real workers on parma.
That'd be why in PSII nobody has the courage to make decision or to do something of their life.

[Daren]

So you're both saying that the planet must be polluted? And that the climate is becoming harsh? Hmmm this gives me an idea... I must create three things; two new terrain chipset, one a green but becoming harsher like the one in PS 4's Mota and 2 a more desert like one and thirdly, a chipset for the Ivory Towers.

During the time of PS 2, is there a Dezo government? I honestly don't remember.
Also, the years before Palma explodes, was there trading between the planets? Spaceflight was possible or blocked by the government?

Thanks guys

[Danny]

I'm not entirely sure since I haven't played PSII in well over a year, but as I remember, Dezo had no government so to say. The Musk Cats said that the Palmans left and abandoned them there after mining most of the resources off the planet (most likely Laconia and maybe those Laerma nuts too).

Of course, like Mota, Dezo is also under Palm's jurisdiction. I don't think that there were any government buildings there like on Mota since they left after mining the place clean. Not to mention that it's harder to live on a colder ice world planet than a warmer, mostly desert planet. That's most likely why they didn't build any bio-domes or farms on Dezo as they did on Mota.

I'm also not entirely sure if Palm is polluted though. To me, it seemed like the most advanced planet where mostly elites lived (the central govenment). From there they issue orders to their colonies on Mota and Dezo (before they left from that planet). I suppose that Palm would be a somewhat to moderately polluted planet from all the technological advancements.

[Black Waltz 0]

Perhaps it had areas that were heavily polluted, like landfills and dumping grounds where all the world's garbage were thrown, and other areas that were truly utopian in elegance. That would definitely be where the Palman elite would live.

I hope there were at least a few areas of natural Palma beauty, though.

[BenoitRen]

What I quoted clearly shows they were mining Laconia on Dezolis. They didn't leave after mining it dry; they left because of a gas leak.

I doubt Palma would be that polluted. They must have technology to prevent that, like Climatrol. Motavia wasn't polluted, but did have a garbage dump.

[CelestOrion]

If things were to get out of hand on Parma(Palma), they could just set up Climatrol and reverse the effects so that hundreds of years of natural world healing would only take about a year or two. Have some utopian paradises, but slums as well. If you remember, Gothic was pretty much slums in PSI.

[Mono]

I don't see Palma necessarily as a poluted planet. But its population may have exceeded the planet's natural resources over time, so they were forced to terraform Motavia and mine on Dezoris to keep things in order, since Palma couldn't suply enough for everybody anymore. They should even have invented some kind control systems to keep their air and water clean. Life in Palma could have been as confortable as, let's say, in Tokyo or Chicago - but not self sustainable at all.

[CelestOrion]

I think your version of Parma is best.
One thing to note, though, is you need low-end communities, as well. Not everyone wanted to live under the rule of Mother Brain, so they would choose to live a life of either low-end technology, or none whatsoever, thus creating your slums. Tyler himself mentioned he left Parma simply because of Mother Brain.

[Ome_Joop]

What happened to the king/queen of Palma/Parma?
Did the people got rid of them or did the humans (evil guys i know) simply replace them with Motherbrain?
Were the parents of Rolf/Eusis King/Queen when they got killed?
Somehow that part of Alis's decendents history is not known.

[Daren]

Instead of just starting a new topic, I'll resume this one.

Only thing I'm not to clear about are the "great thinkers" Are they known as the main government or are they a separate part of it?

[Tanith]

My personal theory is that any human (Palman) members of the government at the time of PSII were mostly figureheads and lackeys of Ma Brain and the earthmen. I think the lines in the game about Palm indicting the cast of PSII and later sentencing them to death are just cover-ups for the earthmen wanting Rolf & Co. out of the way, after all, the network ended up destroying Palm, anyway.

After Palm is annihilated, the Commander tells Rolf that "the Palm incident has made them desperate." Who is "them"? Palm is gone, and if Palm was the center of Algol's government, who is continuing to seek Rolf & Co besides the Mother Brain network? The Commander (also called the Governor at one point in the game) is still helping Rolf out and knows he's innocent, so... there's another body of government out there? Basically, who is the Commander reporting to now?

Anyway, to answer your question, I think the "thinkers" of Palm were different than the gov't, since the script makes a distinction between "thinkers and rulers." I always considered Palm to be a place of academia and residence of the super elite by PSII's time, and Mota had been transformed into the commercial and agricultural center of Algol. I think this was done on purpose to separate the people most likely to oppose earthmen/Mother Brain rule and turn Mota not only into a more agricultural planet but also one full of apathetic morons who practically worship Mother Brain as a god.

I also think that a lot of crappy things happened to Palm in the ten years since the ban on space travel, so that by the time Rolf's quest starts, things might have looked pretty grim for Palm. Since those that were on the other two planets were effectively cut off from Palm, the network could feed the media and people of both planets whatever BS story they wanted about what was happening on Palm.