Wait, they go BACK?!? After all of that fuss made about how the Pioneer 2 couldn't do that, Pioneer 3 just up and returns to their homeworld after an encounter with what looks like a mutated CAST? What a bunch of babies.

My theory about Pioneer 3 is that it was never completed. It was destroyed by Mother Trinity prior to the events in Phantasy Star 0

Let's see if that light novel makes things clearer once obtained.

I dunno, did having Final Fantasy X 2.5 make things clearer?

Acquantance of mine got the Light Novels detailing what happened to Pioneer 3 and is in the process of having them translated. In the meantime, an acquantance of him who got the light novels took several pictures of all the illustrations in the book, figured it would be cool to see (Credits to Lutz from the Esper Mansion Discord server for the images):

https://imgur.com/a/0R8TqBt

(Note: Images are uploaded in reverse, beginning to end goes from bottom to top)

@RedDingo7777 supposedly a dark falz managed to get on board pioneer 3 at ragol then the ship jumped away from ragol and was considered lost in space for a couple of years until it appeared again over phobu (coral). then the people at the homeworld had to deal with it.

Huh, so I guess that was how it got to Mother...