Lin, and the "alternative" story. (Spoilers, obv.)

[Antilegend]

I'm currently on a third playthrough of the game, and in this instance, I've decided to make decisions for the character that would otherwise be... poor, I guess? Pretty much anything that you would normally answer in the game, I answer to the contrary. For the sake of time, I'm going to start where the story branches into an interesting path.

When you're at the old Yureyu building trying to save Heather, when Connal asks you in you're going to save her; If you choose "No", it actually sets in motion an interesting series of events throughout the game. You won't battle Connal here, but rather you'll fight Sirius upstairs while Connal tends to Heather. After you make your way through the railnet, the story progesses as normal as possible.

After the gym battle with Serra, and you bring the medicine back to Anna, you get prepared for the Meteor attack at the Belrose manner. This is where things start to get interesting.

When you're told to hold the fort while the other children fight, the encounter you have is not with Sirius (as what most of us have experienced), rather a one-on-one battle with Connal. After the battle, Sirius enters the house, and tells the player that he can't watch both men and that you'll have to choose which one you're going to hold in place. I don't know what happens when you choose to watch Sirius, but I chose Connal, and boy, I wasn't at all disappointed.

You see Dr. Connal's vestiges of sanity beginning to slip and slide all over the place. He talks to his dead sister constantly; something I wasn't aware of until I took this route with the story. While he's looking in the living room for Charlotte, Saphira shows up and fucks his world right up. As in, she used Hyper Beam on Connal and blasts him through the side of the house, which results in Saphira getting captured and Laura helps you raid the meteor base. Initially I thought he was dead, until he shows up at the Meteor hideout with different dialouge with Saphira. Afterwards, you and Laura are teleported away by Abra, and need to make your way back to the base.

It's this dialouge that really raises some questions here. While talking, Laura talked about how she hates the number seven, and basically shows symptoms of severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She also explains that while she was at the orphanage, there was a girl, named Lin, who was younger than Anna, that would torment her and exploit other peoples fears and secrets. Laura also explains how Lin put Connal into his own circuit, which drew the ire of the doctor. Connal locked up all of the children that night, took a hold of Lin, and she was never heard from again. Laura speculates she either escaped or was killed by the doctor.

Which brings us back to Lin's appearance in the game so far. She's not a little girl younger than Anna, she's a fully grown adult. Connal, who looks directly at her and even briefly interacts with her, remarks how she's familiar, but doesn't seem to recognize her. Speaking from a person like Connal's perspective, would you not remember a sociopathic girl who electrocuted less than a year ago? I'm almost certain you would. Unless I'm missing something, Lin's age would put her as very young. Too young to run an entire team, too young to manipulate and start the PULSEs, too young to earthquake Yureyu into dust. Nobody seems to recognize her, either. Saphira had no idea who she was, Sigmund remarked on a similarity, but things aren't adding up.

It's very likely this Lin woman who we've met in the Meteor base isn't the same girl that was at the orphanage. If it were, it looks as though she's warped and manipulated by some sort of celestial Pokemon bent on destruction. Darkrai? Deoxys? It's an explanation why nobody from the orphanage seems to even know who she is, even though they were together for an extended period of time, and how a girl that was around Anna's age is now currently hellbent on destroying Reborn City as a whole.

I don't know why I regurgitated all of this this, I guess I was excited to see an alternative story with Lin getting more background. She's a very mysterious character.

TL;DR: Sigmund Connal hyperbeamed through Belrose Manner (BOOM), Laura and you discuss girl named Lin at the orphanage, which would make Lin a teenager at the oldest. I find it hard to believe a teenager seizing control of an organization like Team Meteor without assistance. Lin at the orphanage and the Lin at the meteor base possibly not the same person, or is the same person being manipulated/posessed by some celestial force.

[BIGJRA]

I've played through this path of the story before and it's certainly quite an interesting story. I'm not the first to suggest this, but most likely what happened is Lin was trapped in Citae Arc D'Astrae, where she somehow became friends with Baby Arceus and maybe had her soul split from her body. If this was the case, it would explain a few things: Lins age relative to everyone else (if she was stuck in time like Adrienn it would make sense that she's a lot older), her physical form is cold and heartless, and of course that childish voice that you can hear when leaving the arc for the first time. This could also explain how when Lin 'dies' it is just her body (her soul remains) and that's why Shades prophecy is fulfilled.

[Chilibunny]

Somebody said this before, but I -think- it has something to do with the time warp under the Grand Stairway. When you leave there the first time, you get this short dialogue from presumably a little kid who wants to play with all of you again. It would fit that this was Lin, but its still impossible to say how all this would have happened and why was she there.

I actually got some shivers from reading your text. I, myself, saved Laura from the Tanzan Base, so I never read this dialogue of a young girl tormenting others and humiliating Doctor Connal. When Lin enters the Abra-room, she is actually the first one recognizing the Doctor. She asks "who might this be" and everyone is hastily introducing the player character as their new ally, but after that she corrects them and says that he meant "this other guy", after which Sigmund talks.

So many questions, so little answers. I'm super excited to see how it all gets tied up in the end.

Edit. BIGJRA talks about some of the same things above.

Edited June 30, 2015 by Chilibunny

[Guest]

To quote what I said in a previous thread about Lin dying;

Everything about Lin is still a bit fuzzy, even at this length of the game, so it's really hard to speculate. :V

But, based on what the screens showed and what Shade said,

Lin's not going to die. Though, that event that was shown in the background might mean that she might die, but not in the way we're expecting her to.

It could be body doubles, or it might be her past self, or it might actually be Fern wearing a Lin costume to die, etc etc.

The only thing I really have in mind is the theory where the girl that Adrienn saw in the Citae is actually a young version of Lin trapped in the past.

Possibly, the Lin in the present might "die", but the past Lin's still alive and does some hullaballoo and becomes the present Lin.

This is all just random sayings in a few seconds though, so who knows?

Expanding from that, yeah, Lin's definitely not a normal person. Maybe perhaps she has tapped some sort of power while trapped in the Citae?

And maybe that's why she connects to Terra. Remember how Terra mentioned a baby Arceus in the Glitch World?

Could this be the power they both have contacted with? And they are both heralds to Arceus' power?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Who knows. All we know for now is that she's hiding something.

[Antilegend]

Very exciting stuff. At the same time, I can't help but feel confused and/or frustrated. Like I need another piece of a puzzle to complete it. It begs the question: Why would she be at the Citrae? Who would she be to befriend the baby Arceus? Why is there a malevolence to the person we know, who has the vast majority of her team trembling in fear, even if she did spend time in the Citrae?

Terra's glitch world, while full of humour, has some unsettling references to the outside world, so it isn't unheard of that some of the suggestions made there could be given credence. Such as Eclipse's real name on a tombstone in leet speak in Lavender Town.

[Guest]

Very exciting stuff. At the same time, I can't help but feel confused and/or frustrated. Like I need another piece of a puzzle to complete it. It begs the question: Why would she be at the Citrae? Who would she be to befriend the baby Arceus? Why is there a malevolence to the person we know, who has the vast majority of her team trembling in fear, even if she did spend time in the Citrae?

Terra's glitch world, while full of humour, has some unsettling references to the outside world, so it isn't unheard of that some of the suggestions made there could be given credence. Such as Eclipse's real name on a tombstone in leet speak in Lavender Town.

That's very true. It's extremely hard to speculate for now, and no one really has the answer yet.

We'll find it out though, and that's very soon, as the curtain falls on the tale that is Reborn.

Perhaps when she escaped the orphanage, she accidentally fell into the Citae, and something of sorts happened there? Like her "good" and "bad" side split. Then, they'll become one, and she's "Reborn". That's just random stuff though. Could also explain the whole animation we saw of her in Shade's gym.

Whatever that is that happened in the Citae, it's definitely supernatural, at least.

And about Terra.. she's definitely hiding something as well. She's not as shallow or reckless as everyone thinks she is.

She didn't always start so wild and energetic. She was just a loner kind of girl who would spend days in one of the wards, locked into her room with her computer.

Suddenly, she just left and became a clown in the circus.

Honestly, a lot more can be said, but theorizing isn't my thing, and we'll find the answer soon enough anyway.

[Antilegend]

And about Terra.. she's definitely hiding something as well. She's not as shallow or reckless as everyone thinks she is.

She didn't always start so wild and energetic. She was just a loner kind of girl who would spend days in one of the wards, locked into her room with her computer.

Suddenly, she just left and became a clown in the circus.

Honestly, a lot more can be said, but theorizing isn't my thing, and we'll find the answer soon enough anyway.

Whoa, see, this is why sometimes multiple playthroughs of the game is necessary! Especially when the lore is as interesting as this. Where does it say she was a loner kid who would spend days on the computer? I'd love to have a closer look at that when I come to it.

I'll be honest, I dismissed Terra the moment she made a reference to The Price is Right, thinking she was comic relief. The references to pop culture, the leet speak, the hypersexual dialouge she has with friends: all of it, now that you mention that, seems like misdirection. Not to mention the flimsy reason for her joining Team Meteor in the first place.

[Guest]

I saw it in some thread or post here in the forums before.
There's no info of it anywhere in game, but it's been mentioned here all around the forums for some time. Mostly because of the league stuff.

Other than that, she also has an account here. But I haven't seen it in a long time.

And don't worry, that's alright, considering she IS Terra. Predicting what she'll do is just irrelevant.
And yeah, it's all a misdirection, in my perspective at least. I mean, look, she was able to divert our attention and fool us into thinking that there's a machine sending signals from Ametrine to the PULSE in Agate, even though there wasn't. She didn't do that just because willy-nilly. She was planning something too.

Other than that, I think she's not fully aligned with Meteor. I only think that she's there because of the whole Arceus-jigamajig with her.
She did say she wants to kind of repay the Baby Arceus for giving her that "power", which might be the whole PHYSICS thing.

That only makes her relationship with Lin all the more ambiguous.
Also, she used to have green hair, although a yellow-greenish one. Lin also has green hair too, but it's more of a dark minty one.

That was kinda irrelevant, but hey. Info is info. XD

[foovy10]

This is interesting especially that in shades gym i believe lin is one of the people that die in the scenes you need to watch. What I think is that lin ether went under the grand stairway, Dialga/Palkia because of time/space, or a pulse with a pokemon that has to do with ageing or time went wrong. Also, the reason i believe no one recognizes her is because she electrifys everyone like she did to dr. geezer which messed with their memory a bit.

My speculation is finished bye have a great time.

[BIGJRA]

Just one more thing I should probably mention, Citae Arc would be a logical place for Lin to end up when escaping from the orphanage, since she would run out of Lapis and a safe place away from the city would be the Grand Gates

[Antilegend]

Just one more thing I should probably mention, Citae Arc would be a logical place for Lin to end up when escaping from the orphanage, since she would run out of Lapis and a safe place away from the city would be the Grand Gates

To add onto this, I've just hit the playthrough part where there's dialouge to support this.

Adrienn says right at the start that he saw "a girl climbing along the cave walls", then mentioned El and Gardevior soon appeared right after. It seems like a throwaway detail to include, but it's starting to get some plausible facts behind it.

The Grand Gates didn't freeze until Adrienn stepped through them, before the earthquakes that decimated Reborn City. Adrienn suggested that there was a girl climbing the cave walls as he fell down into the cave before CItae. It's a flimsy thought the girl he's alluding to is Lin, but again, it's plausible she'd end up there escaping from the orphanage...

Time seems to be strange, however. When Lin escaped the orphanage, this would have been after the collapse of Reborn City, would it not? How did the time affect Lin and Adrienn differently? Adrienn remembers the city in it's prime, which would put his isolation for approximately a decade, even though it was only a few moments for him, whereas Lin's exposure to this was experienced differently. I'll be buggered if I could find a reason why, thouigh.

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to affect, but actually, from a non-linier, non subjective point of view it is more like a big ball of wibbily wobbly timey wimey...stuff"

[Gaunt]

But how did she get in Citae? She "supposedly" escaped from the orphanage 1 year ago right? At the time the Grand Gates were closed and there was no passage down.

[Antilegend]

But how did she get in Citae? She "supposedly" escaped from the orphanage 1 year ago right? At the time the Grand Gates were closed and there was no passage down.

A fine question left entirely up to speculation at this point, unfortunately... I'd love to know the answer to this, but unfortunately, there simply isn't enough facts in the game to confirm at this point. Who knows for sure if she even ended up there.

It seems likely that's where she ran to after she put Connal in the circuit, but where would she have ran afterwards? You're right, the Grand Gates would have been locked and the hole in the stairway wasn't made until the events of the game have already unfolded. It also wouldn't explain why she had aged, but Adrienn did not.

[Guzam]

Well, I brought this up in another thread, but I speculated that Terra actually shares some power with the baby Arceus, thus explaining why she can bend physics and warp into computers. She says in her little diary she needs to repay baby Arceus by freeing it so they can play in, "this world" (not sure if glitch, real or reborn world) forever. If Lin happened to obtain the power of the Arceus as well, maybe rather than gain the power to bend physics, she got the power to manipulate her age thus making her immortal by natural means and able to torment everyone forever... However this wouldn't happen. Arceus wouldn't just do this... Or would it? As we know the game is called Reborn. The whole underlying theme is that something will be reborn. What if there are actually two Arceus? A dead one, that hates humanity for what it did to the region of Reborn... and the baby Arceus, that wants to play forever? While a child likes things fun and crazy like Terra, an older person may find the world corrupted and takes things more seriously, and develops hatred towards people like Lin. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I feel like this could be a thing. How can something be reborn if it isn't dead in the first place? Baby Arceus can't be dead if Terra met it and needs to free it. This implies it is trapped somewhere. Where? Either beneath the Grand Stairway or the Citae Arc. Hopefully this is making sense to you guys, my theories are always off the walls and just pure overthinking... Speaking of that other theory I'mma link it here :V

http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8468&page=4

[Damage]

I was going through a new playthough and came across Laura's dialogue to MC and thought of Adrienne's time prison and how Lin could have been caught in the same thing. Another thought occurs that with the introduction of pulse it could have been a pulse accident that resulted in Lin's physical aging. I think this would explain her affinity for Terra since she'd still have the mindset of a child even if she had the body of an adult. There are a number of things that could have happened. Personality splits, two Lins, a glitch in the matrix, who knows. I think a safe bet is that this is probably the same Lin but something happened in her very recent past that resulted in a different appearance. If only we could find some sort of Lin(k) to the past that solidifies what happened to her...