Theory Crafting Thread

[Aphelli]

8 hours ago, Tikkit said:

Anyway, it would be weird for us to go back in time to sign up for the tournament if we say we don't want to participate, and if we don't really have a reason to sign up for it. It seems especially odd to do something like that, when most time travel we've done does little but explain past events. Like some of Indriad's words in Chrysalis Manor, or the stuff with Aelita or Storm 9.

Clearly, a lot of parties are interested in the tournament. We could be sent back in time to register once we realize how important it is. 
 

I understand your point about time travel being (in the game) mostly a glorified way for exposition of past events. But I don’t quite agree – we make a lot of ripples in the past.

 

Saving the officer (if so), the Rift book, interfering with Indriad’s bomb, stealing a file from Rejuv. Co, killing Gardevoir (at last!), helping Vivian make the protection spell and helping Cella and Anju figure out what is happening... 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Mindlack

[Magus543]

5 hours ago, Mindlack said:

Clearly, a lot of parties are interested in the tournament. We could be sent back in time to register once we realize how important it is. 
 

I understand your point about time travel being (in the game) mostly a glorified way for exposition of past events. But I don’t quite agree – we make a lot of ripples in the past.

 

Saving the officer (if so), the Rift book, interfering with Indriad’s bomb, stealing a file from Rejuv. Co, killing Gardevoir (at last!), helping Vivian make the protection spell and helping Cella and Anju figure out what is happening... 

Why exactly is this tournament so important? Assuming Risa Raider is Surfer Lady(Which i'm still somewhat doubtful.) she beat Melia in that tournament so what's the point? Is it like a nudge to get Melia in a certain emotional state or to get her to train to become stronger? So under this train of thought, perhaps the tournament is a way to divide our group? I don't think the Surfer people are behind it, i'm certain we were impersonated, which the likely suspects are Cosmia and Cosmet since they can shapeshift. If i had to guess another reason for the tournament setup, perhaps it's a way to gauge how powerful the group is?  

[Tikkit]

Maybe the tournament has no importance, and whoever made us sign up just wanted to divert our attention away from them. Can't focus on team Xen or whatever if you're busy in the tournament.

 

5 hours ago, Mindlack said:

Clearly, a lot of parties are interested in the tournament. We could be sent back in time to register once we realize how important it is. 
 

I understand your point about time travel being (in the game) mostly a glorified way for exposition of past events. But I don’t quite agree – we make a lot of ripples in the past.

 

Saving the officer (if so), the Rift book, interfering with Indriad’s bomb, stealing a file from Rejuv. Co, killing Gardevoir (at last!), helping Vivian make the protection spell and helping Cella and Anju figure out what is happening... 

The Rift book has no effect on the past, and only really does stuff in the future, and Vivian would have made the protection spell anyway, in fact we probably just made things more difficult for her by getting everyone to interfere.

[Aphelli]

Just now, Magus543 said:

Why exactly is this tournament so important? 

I wish we knew.

What we do know is that it is important. If it weren't, then it's just a plot device to get us/someone else to the 18 Badges and that sounds too lazy. 

Other indices of its importance include: 

1) the fact that someone took the bother to circumvent the (heavy) procedures to register us.

2) the fact that these procedures were very paranoid in itself -- especially when time travel is involved, any mildly relevant background (such as the tournament's former fiasco and Cassandra's former decisions) event can and should be treated as deliberate interference.

3) That weird programming glitch to shift brackets (if it was just a retcon, then it would have been retconned -- or perhaps that's what Jan wants us to think )  

4) Aelita and Venam being impersonated

 

Given 3), one can wonder if the goal wasn't to force the cast's best Trainer (ie the MC) to become as strong as possible when facing Risa. It would cement Risa as a bad guy, of course... Or maybe it's a setup for Risa to know as much as possible about us and thus be able to wreck us. 

4) is, at least for Venam, really, really strange though. Venam is supposed to be turned to stone (a perfectly acceptable excuse for failing to show up and battle, imo), and somehow nobody, not even Amber, noticed?  

 

5 minutes ago, Tikkit said:

Maybe the tournament has no importance, and whoever made us sign up just wanted to divert our attention away from them. Can't focus on team Xen or whatever if you're busy in the tournament.

Good idea. Showing us a prize to keep our attention focused... Given how the plot works, it makes sense, and sounds plausible. Then again, it seriously backfires, does it not? It doesn't explain why somebody bothered to impersonate Venam. Perhaps it was the original attempt and some other parties are trying to profit off the opportunity. 

 

19 minutes ago, Magus543 said:

 If i had to guess another reason for the tournament setup, perhaps it's a way to gauge how powerful the group is?  

 I don't know. If it's not of serious significance, then it's probably Cassandra or Team Xen higher-ups registering us, and honestly there are easier ways to gauge our strength -- make a fake Xen ambush (like, get Florin kidnapped by Team Xen grunts that you want to be rid of anyway) and nudge the cast in the right direction while feeding the rest of the world misinformation.  

 

24 minutes ago, Magus543 said:

Is it like a nudge to get Melia in a certain emotional state or to get her to train to become stronger? So under this train of thought, perhaps the tournament is a way to divide our group?

It's also an interesting theory, but it would sound like a pretty clumsy attempt to get us to train, wouldn't it? (and we'd do it anyway)

Melia is a weirdness magnet enough, and Team Xen has her DNA, so she could be easily impersonated and registered; however, if the goal is Melia-related, why involve everyone else? 

Emotional reasons or attempts to divide the group are good ideas, but I don't really believe them. If you want to unbalance Melia, just fetch Stormchaser files (or, I suppose, forge a Xen file about why they want her light and make it as gruesome as possible)... If you want to divide the group, there's no chance a mundane tournament is going to do the trick (the cast is supposed to be a group of fire-forged friends, isn't it?). You'd need to pull off something worse than a Reborn!Lin to do that. 

 

21 minutes ago, Tikkit said:

Vivian would have made the protection spell anyway, in fact we probably just made things more difficult for her by getting everyone to interfere.

 I agree to a certain extent. But if we hadn't been there, I wonder what would have happened? I think Vivian would have done the ritual anyway, because she knew she had to, and neither Cella nor Anju would have been aware of it. Sounds like a worse outcome to me.

I also forgot one very measurable example of effect from the past on the future -- when we first meet him, Indriad has no Gardevoir to make us disappear... I don't know if it's a good thing or not though.  

[Tikkit]

Sounds like a better outcome, since that way her ritual probably would have went through perfectly, and we wouldn't have gotten the half measures we have now.

 

And again, that's just the past explaining stuff in the present, since he also mentions that two people in the room had witnessed Anathea's death, and that gets explained by the time travel.

[Magus543]

The reason Indriad doesn't have Gardevoir the first time we meet him is probably because it's AFTER Gardevoir dies in V 12, remember there is a line about Indriad saying two people saw his wife dying, referring to the MC and himself since he didn't recognize Venam due to the hair. It's not in chronological order. 

[Aphelli]

2 hours ago, Magus543 said:

The reason Indriad doesn't have Gardevoir the first time we meet him is probably because it's AFTER Gardevoir dies in V 12, remember there is a line about Indriad saying two people saw his wife dying, referring to the MC and himself since he didn't recognize Venam due to the hair. It's not in chronological order. 

I am aware of that. I was using this fact to argue that in the game, the sequences in the past were plot-moving instead of mostly expository. In other words, I was arguing for the first choice of the following alternative: is Rejuv a huge, ramified and intricate stable time loop, or is it rather a linear (timeline-wise) adventure with very “vivid” history lessons?

Of course, to draw a conclusion we'd need to consider the entirety of the plot...

 

Random question about Crescent -- does anyone have the impression, looking back into the game, that in her interactions with the cast all she's doing is drive the flow of information away? Attacking first whoever could provide it instead of the main threat? 

1) When Crescent gets him, Jenner is busted as a Team Xen operative (on our side) and a traitor (on Team Xen's side), and he's probably desperate enough to regain some sort of esteem to spill most of the beans to anyone. She vanishes him.

2) Same thing with Zetta in Amethyst Grotto, plus the lie to the cast about Melia being dead

3) Crescent chose to chime in Carotos at the very last moment, when the base was already collapsing. From her own admission, Mewtwo woudn't have served Madelis for long. Madelis doesn't get captured and doesn't reveal any kind of information. (I may be a bit harsh -- Crescent needs her own credibility after all, and that also means not fighting battles you don't have reasonable odds of success). 

4) Crescent and Ren... well. 

5) For all her big talk, Crescent does nothing whatsoever at Blacksteeple. Even though "at this point" (timey, wimey notwithstanding) she's not with the Stormchasers anymore. 

6) Crescent and Sharon -- that's the most obvious one. Sharon is at her lowest point, trying to convey into words how come she can't quit Team Xen, finds herself facing a cliff... only to be pushed. Again, we could have got a whole lot of useful information from her, but for Crescent (no matter about Saki & co appearing afterwards).

7) Crescent and Zetta & Geara -- She traps Zetta and breaks Geara. Note how Geara is the main threat (the one with intent) but she goes after Zetta (who iirc is freaking out and on the verge of defection). 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Mindlack

[Magus543]

Yeah Crescent is a shifty lady, she does help maintain the mystery box by not letting us interrogate Team Xen members. I would guess it's not intentional but who knows? 

 

As for the time thing, well the rules of time travel haven't been established clearly yet or ever, but judging by dialouge from Erin about fate's passage and everything being preordained i would guess some sort of time loop is happening and that our presence is throwing things out of whack as the Surfer Dude alludes to, like he mentions he used to know his fate implying something has gone wrong with the timeline.  

 

If it's multiverse theory then is everytime we use a time splicer crystal creating an alternate future?

 

 

[Tikkit]

Well, the interceptor is supposed to be immune to fate's whims, so I'd say that everything being predetermined except for stuff we impact makes sense.

[Magus543]

5 hours ago, Tikkit said:

Well, the interceptor is supposed to be immune to fate's whims, so I'd say that everything being predetermined except for stuff we impact makes sense.

I guess the reason why we are immune to fate is simple, we weren't around the first time, so it's logical everything would have been thrown out of whack because of us and our player abilities. I guess the writers had to give us cool anime abilities in insurance fraud because let's be real, people like Melia, Madam X, surfer people, Aelita and her past incarnations belong in a fantasy game, maybe Zelda, not Pokemon. And like Pokemon battles have been rendered nearly meaningless because of things like Geara tossing us into the lava despite logically the Pokemon we have protecting us, Madam X trying to stab us/use lasers if we beat her Yveltal. Like Jan said he wishes he didn't add in the Pokemon Badges in the AMA for a reason, the Pokemon league has become less and less relevant and it's harder to contrive us going to a Gym, heck we haven't been to a conventional Gym since Erick and there's this crazy shit involving Robots taking over the league just to keep the premise in the plot, I think it's a bad idea to put superpowers and supernatural beings who aren't Pokemon in the setting of a pokemon game (or rather to give them so much focus) because the gameplay will never let you engage with those on any significant level unless the plot bends backwards to make it work (aelita's dimensional rift for example) since, y'know, we're playing a POKEMON game. When Melia defeats Melanie's Yveltal with her light powers with no help from her Pokemon, it really hammers home the plot really doesn't need Pokemon, and if you replace pokemon battles with say Dragon Ball Z esque martial arts, replace Arceus with a generic god, Giratina with a generic demoness (which is easy because Giratina here acts nothing like game Giratina. ) nothing would change much. 

 

Reborn was quite good at keeping Pokemon relevant comparatively, unlike RIFTS, PULSE Pokemon factor into Team Meteor's plot and are a consistent threat to the Reborn Region, Gyms are still relevant, Lin may be supernatural in nature, but she's still a Pokemon trainer first unlike Madam X's weeb sword fighting skills. 

 

 

Having said this, i'm still a shill for this game though, sure the plot is basically random events that are cool, but the gameplay is still great and the cast is fun. 

[Gronzak]

i'm just gonna drop a little theroy
i think that crescent is a Garufa, involved in the project interceptor, as freya and kieran are also garufans but that aren't on the interceptor side. That's why crescent is always meddling with them
About Nancy, our "mc" mom. I guess that nancy is a summoned doll (as kanon) made in the image of someone dear for Cressent (whos real name is Dhalia). Dhalia change her own name to Crescent after that dear person transforms into Cressia, by the same process that we find into the "interceptor files" in rude 8 (i guess it was?) dive spot. When crescent tried to create a "maid" to foster the MC she ended up creating someone that looks like her dear person, and by some reason that doll has the feelings of the real one, that's why they said that nancy "isn't supposed to have feels as she is just a doll", also the collors from nancy match pretty much the ones of Cressia. (as always, sorry for the sloppy english u.u)

[nhehvnukl]

51 minutes ago, Gronzak said:

i'm just gonna drop a little theroy
i think that crescent is a Garufa, involved in the project interceptor, as freya and kieran are also garufans but that aren't on the interceptor side. That's why crescent is always meddling with them
About Nancy, our "mc" mom. I guess that nancy is a summoned doll (as kanon) made in the image of someone dear for Cressent (whos real name is Dhalia). Dhalia change her own name to Crescent after that dear person transforms into Cressia, by the same process that we find into the "interceptor files" in rude 8 (i guess it was?) dive spot. When crescent tried to create a "maid" to foster the MC she ended up creating someone that looks like her dear person, and by some reason that doll has the feelings of the real one, that's why they said that nancy "isn't supposed to have feels as she is just a doll", also the collors from nancy match pretty much the ones of Cressia. (as always, sorry for the sloppy english u.u)

Interesting theory, but like, maids have feelings though. Look at angie's maids and at Indriad's. Why would anyone think they don't have feelings? 

[Gronzak]

18 minutes ago, nhehvnukl said:

Interesting theory, but like, maids have feelings though. Look at angie's maids and at Indriad's. Why would anyone think they don't have feelings? 

perhaps she was a robot like A.N.A instead?

[Tikkit]

I mean, only a few of them do in Angie's case, though it's very weird with her since she also has normal people working for her, like Patty.

[SmilodonLady]

This is a late night thought mixed with a shower rethink of it but...

 

Freya red haired bitch, who ever she is has got to be lying about Crescent's death. WLL proves her to be a pathological liar and the more I think about it, the more I realize the timeline doesn't add up. Like on valor mnt. when Crescent pushes Sharon and then goes with Saki for a bit. She presumably encountered the red haired bitch and that could be why she was delayed in comming to the player's rescue. You then meet with her in Tesla's house, and unless I'm mistaken this would be after Crescent's 'death'. And the version of Crescent in the nightmare city could be either her or perhaps the player's own nightmare about her.

 

Also, Crescent seems almost motherly in a rather roundabout way to the player. Perhaps she's your real mom... But then, who is your father? Unless you don't need one...

 

But, that's just me.

[Magus543]

Crescent is clearly in GDC since she's found in nightmare city talking to herself that there isn't much time so that means she's alive but in danger.

 

 

[TheHellHamster]

5 hours ago, Magus543 said:

Crescent is clearly in GDC since she's found in nightmare city talking to herself that there isn't much time so that means she's alive but in danger.

 

 

That doesn't necessarily mean that Crescent is the one in danger. Perhaps due to her track record of caring about the MC this means that we are the ones in danger but she isn't in a position to be able to help us?

[Aphelli]

22 minutes ago, TheHellHamster said:

That doesn't necessarily mean that Crescent is the one in danger. Perhaps due to her track record of caring about the MC this means that we are the ones in danger but she isn't in a position to be able to help us?

It doesn't necessarily mean that Crescent is alive either. She could be Madelis's nightmare for all we know (or perhaps Zetta if you want to get meta). 

 

6 hours ago, SmilodonLady said:

Freya red haired bitch, who ever she is has got to be lying about Crescent's death. WLL proves her to be a pathological liar and the more I think about it, the more I realize the timeline doesn't add up. Like on valor mnt. when Crescent pushes Sharon and then goes with Saki for a bit. She presumably encountered the red haired bitch and that could be why she was delayed in comming to the player's rescue. You then meet with her in Tesla's house, and unless I'm mistaken this would be after Crescent's 'death'. And the version of Crescent in the nightmare city could be either her or perhaps the player's own nightmare about her.

I thought that too, but actually Freya's timeline makes sense. From Braixen's memories (which could be faked but let's assume they weren't), Crescent appears after the Surfers' attack, barely on time to rescue the downed Saki & co. Still, her saying about them "there's nothing to worry about" at Tesla's house is rather careless if so (but then again, first rule of Being A Mysterious Omniscient Figure: you can't go around and admit that some things are outside your control). 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Mindlack

[enderowl]

Has Keta been to Grand Dream City?

I've been wondering this since I founded this in the Hospital of Hope during Lavender's escape attempt.

 

Spoiler

 

[Magus543]

My first thought was that was actually Deagan, remember he was the original Dark type leader so some records must have been mixed up. 

 

 

Unless Keta is somehow still alive, he was in that screenshot of the black building after all in the V-13 hype thread. We never did see Madelis kill him, then again his ghost supports Aelita unless that was more metaphorical. 

 

Assuming Madelis actually spared him, she may have sent him to the Hospital of Hope to heal him for her own purposes. 

[Edo]

57 minutes ago, enderowl said:

Has Keta been to Grand Dream City?

I've been wondering this since I founded this in the Hospital of Hope during Lavender's escape attempt.

 

  Hide contents

 

Interesting, this might have to do with the picture Jan posted about V13 where we see Keta trapped in something. Since it implies that Keta didn't actually die, this file might imply that Madelis brought him to the Hospital to get treated after Mewto attacked him. Considering the omitted information it is likely that Isha was told to keep Keta's treatment a secret.

 

Damn Magus was faster xD

Edited May 7, 2020 by Edo

[Node15]

Hey guys remember how Isha says that "But one day my gift will rise and in the end it will be me who will be laughing."

It's seems pretty obvious that it has to do with vaccines that everyone seems to be getting when they enter Grand Dream City since it would be easy for Isha as the respected doctor to tell that it's to fight some infection but has anyone got any ideas what this gift might be?

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Node15

[Tikkit]

My dumb answer is Giratina, my probable answer is whatever the Vaccines are gonna do.

[Illumi]

7 hours ago, Edo said:

Interesting, this might have to do with the picture Jan posted about V13 where we see Keta trapped in something. Since it implies that Keta didn't actually die, this file might imply that Madelis brought him to the Hospital to get treated after Mewto attacked him. Considering the omitted information it is likely that Isha was told to keep Keta's treatment a secret.

 

Damn Magus was faster xD

Let's not forget that Keta had a brother, Deagan, who also could've been Isha's patient. Also it was rumored that he might be alive. (Supposedly died in WLL by falling onto spiked rocks from a waterfall, tho there was only blood shown, but no body)

[Magus543]

11 hours ago, Edo said:

Interesting, this might have to do with the picture Jan posted about V13 where we see Keta trapped in something. Since it implies that Keta didn't actually die, this file might imply that Madelis brought him to the Hospital to get treated after Mewto attacked him. Considering the omitted information it is likely that Isha was told to keep Keta's treatment a secret.

 

Damn Magus was faster xD

Don't worry, being in between college terms has given me a lot of free time. But i'm glad i'm not the only one theorizing Keta's return. WLL made him popular. 

 

 

Important rule of fiction, if there is no body shown then they are still alive. After all, no one's ever really gone.