maiji

Me: *seeing all the Chinese zodiac horoscope articles floating around with Lunar New Year coming up*

My brain: Hey, let's calculate the SO2 characters' Chinese zodiac signs! We can do it since they have actual years in their birth dates that can be converted into our years!

This is based on the Star Ocean timeline shown here: https://starocean.fandom.com/wiki/Series_timeline#2087_A.D._/_S.D._1

Where Space Date 1 = our year of 2087

(Disclaimer: I am bad at math, do not expect accuracy)

#StarOcean2

Series timeline

The following is a chronological list of events that take place in the universe of the Star Ocean series. History is divided into the anno Domini dating system (B.C and A.D.) and the Space Date method (S.D.) which was adopted by the Pangalactic Federation on the four year anniversary of the development of subspace technology. It also lists the events of Universe-2 and 4D Space, which are both separate dimensions from the Eternal Sphere. In Fourth-Dimensional Space, Luther Lansfeld develops...

Star Ocean Wiki
Feb 4 at 6:57pmWeb
Show threadmaijiFeb 4

Based on this:

Ernest (SD 331 / 2417 CE) is an ox
Bowman (SD 339 / 2425) a rooster
Dias (SD 341 / 2427) is a pig
Noel (SD 342 / 2428) is a rat
Celine and Opera (SD 343 / 2429) are ox
Chisato (SD 344 / 2430) is a tiger
Ashton (SD 346 / 2432) is a dragon
Claude (SD 347 / 2433) is a snake, but he's born so close to the end of January that he could actually be the tail of a dragon
Precis (SD 350 / 2436) is a monkey
Leon (SD 354 / 2440) is a rat

#StarOcean2

Show threadmaijiFeb 4

I can't calculate her Chinese zodiac sign because it takes more math than I have the brain/processing power for to calculate for 699,997,563 B.C.

#StarOcean2

Show threadmaijiFeb 4

It was a fun and interesting little exercise! If I put in a bit more effort I could calculate the elements too, but that's enough random derailment for today, haha.

I wonder how much the developers thought about this during the design process (pretty sure they did it for the western zodiac). They all actually line up quite well, have neat or moving nods to their story, or have a fun design joke.

Then again, humans are just really good at finding meaning and pattern in just about everything.