Rei

— Rei

* Portrait
* In-game

**Rei** (pronounced /ɹeɪ/ [RAY]) is a biotic lifeform of an unknown species and the protagonist and player character of *Solar Ash*. She is a Voidrunner who went on a quest with her other Voidrunner teammates to save their home world from the Ultravoid.

After starting up the technological artifact known as the Starseed, which the team has theorized could collapse black holes, Rei inadvertently began a time-loop only localized to the Ultravoid while her planet was destroyed, and inadvertently killed her teammates by trapping them in a looping cycle of their last remaining moments, and this loop was perpetuated both by the loop itself to an extent but mostly by her own stubbornness to not not want to face the truth that her planet was gone. When she activated the Starseed, her body and mind also split in two halves, the one being separated from her called Echo.

Throughout Rei’s mission to starting the Starseed and destroying the anomalies called the Remnants that we’re blocking the signal between the void energy conduits and the Starseed, she was aided by the AI construct C.Y.D., created by the Voidrunner Tufte, who was Rei’s only true friend and one of very few people she was able to communicate with within the void.

Throughout her many repetitions of the time-loop, Rei unknowingly created the Remnants, which might be the grief of her other teammates come to life, their very bodies transformed, or Rei's own feelings or bodies but past versions. The decomposing sludge nomalies that she would clear out in every region of the Ultravoid to wake the Remnants are possibly also residue from past Remnants she has encountered and destroyed in every past repetition of the loop.

Echo was in pain throughout the entire time-loop, and her pain only became worse throughout any given loop as Rei went through the events, which she would repeat for thousands of years until she finally managed to let go of her grief and accept the truth and deactivate the Starseed. Deactivating the Starseed transformed Rei into Wretched Rei, a giant Remnant anomaly. Echo managed to defeat Wretched Rei and pulled Rei out of the Remnant, merging with her and becoming the original Rei once more. After this, the Ultravoid turned out to have become stable, no longer consuming worlds. Rei then decided it was time to rebuild and start anew and that although she wasn’t fully fine yet, she would be.

Other than the Voidrunner Erving's dog, Darb, Rei is the only remaining survivor of her planet aside from the people that were off to explore uncharted parts of their planet's galaxies in spacecraft, unless you count C.Y.D. as a life form and one that heralds from their planet. Those space-daring people that didn’t die on the planet or in the void eventually found new homes and settled there and are now thriving in new civilizations.

Rei is voiced by Fryda Wolff in *Solar Ash*.

## Biography

Not much is known of Rei's story so far other than the fact that she will journey into a ravenous world-swallowing rift in space known as the Ultravoid in order to save her own home world. Inside the massive black hole, Rei will encounter incredible dangers and surreal spaces that feel like a dream none can escape from. It is familiar, though alien, beautiful, peaceful at times and supremely violent in others, and the gravity is wild. Rei will meet other endearing friends along the way, battle giant enemies and unravel a sort of mystery, all while bewaring "the remnants that loom and bristle with hunger".

## Personality

Rei is a daring person, however she is also stubborn and seems have difficulties changing her mind once it is completely made up on a subject. This is evident when she was within the ultravoid for what might have been hundreds of years, rewinding time every single time she found out it was too late to aave her planet. It is possible this was out of pure stubbornness or that it either was fully or partially a way for her to cope with the fact that her home world was either doomed or already gone. Only at the very end did she finally manage to change her mind and deactivated the starseed, when Echo, one half of her that had been created by its first activation, was able to get through to her, although she had tried to do so across all the time loops beforehand.

Rei's stubborn nature extrnded to how ahe viewed and interacted with the denizens and ofher people she met who were stuck in the Ultravoid, such as when she tried to convince Lyra that the right thing to do was not to die but move on, and come live on her planet, which she then believed was still existing and possible to save, even though Lyra had lost all will to go on with her people and husband's death. Lyra, however, was in a sense also an individual who needed to overcome her grief and move on from this mindset, which she did when Rei finally deactivated the Starseed.

## Physical appearance

Rei is a slender female humanoid of an unknown alien species. Most of her body is a very bright, pale violet, with the bottom part of her limbs being a continously bluish-dark hue with a gradient in-between. Her face seems to be made of a harder material, making it reminiscent of a mask, with three glowing white eyes, two of which are on the sides like on a human with the third being in the forehead. From the back of her head, a glowing flame or smoke-like trail that could be described as a form of "hair", stream and flow. This flame-like "hair" is white with undertones of violet and pink.

Rei's arms and legs, and presumably feet and hands, are the darker areas of her body and also seem to have pinpoints of light that shift position depending on the perspective the limbs are viewed from, sort of like the warped space around black holes.

Her "hair" is long and glowing, mostly white but with violet-pink undertones, and looks like a form of flame or smoke.

As a Voidrunner, she wears a Voidtech Suits#Absolution suit, which is mostly white with glowing parts around the ribcage area, the hips and the thighs. She wears wears metallic bracelets around her wrists which seem to float around the wrists, and which are made up of three parts that are not fully attached together. These are special Voidtech bracelets, and the one around her right hand acts as her multi-tool. In her "shadow Rei" form, her Voidtech suit covers all of her body except her head, while in her original form, her arms safe for her hands, and her shins and calves, are uncovered.

Following Rei's split into "shadow Rei" and "Echo" by Rei's first activation of the Starseed, before the events of *Solar Ash*, Rei is mostly dark in color, and most of her suit is of a darker color. In this form, Rei also has a pink, holographic cloak/cape combo that covers the the upper part of her chest, her clavicle and some of the back of her body. Her face-mask here is more white and her eyes bluish-white instead of completely white. Her "flame hair" in this form is also black. Her body has the warped stars-like quality in her "shadow Rei" form as well, though in this form, wearing her suit, her whole body, safe for her head, is covered up, however part of this body is visible if wearing the broken version of her Tempest Adagio suit.

In earlier builds of *Solar Ash*, Rei's hair was more of a solid-looking tangle of hair, though still moving and breaking up like flame or smoke, while in the game it is more wispy and transparent like smoke.

In both of her forms, Rei wears black gloves.

## Abilities

Rei is able to harness a form of hard light to produce a long sword-like weapon and a slashing attack. The suit also lets her attack through some sort of slashing energy or light-based weapon projected from metal bracelets that she wears around her wrists. Rei is extreme agile, able to quickly speed across the ashen clouds in the Ultravoid with abilities akin to skating and cover great distances in the rift's world. Her two weapons, of which she uses the blade to finish off large ooze anomalies, and the slashing attacks, are both produced from her multitool, a piece of voidtech which she wears like a bracelet around her right wrist.

Rei is a skilled combatant, able to move quickly and do complex movements and hit fast without immense precision.

### Grav-boosters

Rei’s voidtech suit have gravitational boosters built into the boots, allowing her to activate a brief but fast jet-like boost. The ability has a cool-down, however it can be reduced by donning Verse's suit or the Absolution Suit.

### Scanning

The multi-tool allows Rei to scan for objectives, including the path to take, C.Y.D. nodes and the locations of anomalies.

### Energy slash

A form of attack, Rei can project energy that she can slash energies with through her multi-tool.

### Grappling

Using multi-tool, Rei can grapple unto points and get to locations high in the air with ease and speed.

### Time-slip

An ability that slows down time for a moment. Time-slip can be used to close long distances between Rei and grapple points, so she doesn’t have to get closer. There is a cooldown on the ability, which can be reduced by donning the non-broken version of Rei's suit, Tempest Adagio.

### Damage-increase

Wearing the voidtech suit of Ghozam, the damage output of Rei's energy slashes double, allowing her to more quickly dispose of sludge enemies.

### Scanning for Voidrunner caches

Only available wearing the Absolution Suit, which Rei gained after merging back with Echo at the end of her quest in the Ultravoid.

## Background

The first glimpse at the game's protagonist was through the teaser trailer unveiled on March 13, 2019. On March 25, 2019, at 23:07, Alex Preston revealed a promotional painting of the game's protagonist on Twitter, and in the tweet revealed that it is in fact a female character. Preston also stated in the tweet that he will be going in-depth about her in a dev blog in a week or so.

In a PlayStation blog post, Alx Preston revealed that the character's name is Rei, that she is a "Voidrunner" and that she is on a mission to save her home world from the massive world-swallowing black hole known as the "Ultravoid." The blog also included a gameplay video, posted to Sony's own PlayStation YouTube channel and using footage of the game recorded on the PlayStation 5. the gameplay video was posted as a video by Annapurna Interactive shortly after on their YouTube channel.

## Trivia

* Pyat's nickname for Rei, "Neophyte", means "a new convert to a religion" or "a person who is new to a subject or activity," implying that Pyat believes he has managed to convert her to his religious, spiritual beliefs about the Starseed being a holy vessel sent to them by the divine, to be used to cleanse their world's people. The word is borrowed from Latin *neophytus*, from Ancient Greek νεόφυτος (neóphutos, “newly planted”), from νέος (néos, “new”) + φυτόν (phutón, “plant, child”). Surface analysis is *neo*- +‎ -*phyte*, from *neo* "new, young", and *phyte* "plant."
* In earlier drafts of the game's story, Rei's name when in her original form was "Reiko", a play on the fact that she has merged back with her other half, Echo, who was split from her by the first activation of the Starseed. An unused sound dialogue recording for the game has Cyd call her Reiko and it is further backed up by the 3D model file for the Absolution Suit, which represents her original form, being named "SK\_Reiko.uasset" in the game's files.

## References

1. ↑ Travel into the void in Solar Ash, coming to PlayStation 5, at PlayStation blog., June 11, 2020
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Preston, Alx. *Journey inside the Ultravoid with new Solar Ash gameplay*.. PlayStation blog.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 *Solar Ash* gameplay video at Annapurna Interactive's YouTube channel.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Heart Machine. *Solar Ash*. Annapurna Interactive. TBA 2021.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 *Solar Ash Kingdom* Teaser Trailer. Heart Machine. March 13, 2019.
6. ↑ *Solar Ash* Introduction Trailer. Annapurna Interactive. June 11, 2020.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 *Solar Ash* Gameplay Walkthrough, Alt Sony PlayStation 5 version Annapurna Interactive, Heart Machine, Sony PlayStation. February 25, 2021.
8. ↑ Promotional art of protagonist and reveal of protagonist as female, through Alex Preston's Twitter.
9. ↑ *Solar Ash* gemaplay video at PlayStation YouTube channel.