Theories & Thoughts

[Amare]

[Warning: this thread will be discussing major plot points and developments for E6 and I haven't spoilered them.]

 

It's been a few months since E6's release, so I figured we could do with a thread to discuss certain plot points and where we think they might be heading in the future, as well as our own theories regarding the plot. I'll start off with a couple:

 

1: We know the Black Foxes threw Eden into the Grid, but I don't think she's there anymore. I think there's a fairly decent chance that Artem stumbled upon her in his travels and either brought her into Crescent or took her out of the Grid and left her somewhere safe.

 

2. The end cutscene seemed to be implying that the entity in the mirror is Darkrai's trainer. I'm not sure whether they're the same person who wrote all the journals in the underground base or not, but I do have a different theory: whoever and whatever they are, they were somehow stuck in/bound to the mirror, and they were specifically antagonising Waldenhall so he'd smash the mirror and free them.

 

3. The Elite Four are either part of the gangs (hell, maybe they've formed their own villain team) or are being held prisoner so they can't intervene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aside from that, I have some questions to discuss/theorise about:

 

1. Who is the player, really?

 

2. Are Ava and Amelia sisters? If yes, why didn't they recognise each other on the cruise ship? If no, what's Amelia's connection to Darkroot?

 

3. What the hell is Jarred?

 

4. If Lilith's Umbreon obtained Perfection naturally, how come she wrote that it seems to always be sick and moody? In fact, why didn't Lilith attain Perfection alongside her Umbreon?

 

5. What will all the Pieces of the islands do when collected?

 

[Luri]

Man, there feels like a ton to cover. I may be late putting my two cents in but hey, least I’m fashionably late!  

 

1. I wouldn’t be surprised if Artem was able to spring Eden from her Grid imprisonment as well. If Artem did find her in the Grid she’d have enough motive to join them considering her circumstances. I’d be very interested in seeing Eden slinking out of the shadows and joining the fight if that’s the case. If our merry band of heroes can play nicely with Crescent at some point maybe we can see Garret and Eden take on Waldenhall together. I’d be rooting for that!

2. There are quite a few implications that the entity is Darkrai’s trainer. I am of the mind it really is the trainer. If it isn’t then it’s at least someone with connections to them.

   It does seem highly likely the intent was to rattle Waldenhall enough to have him lash out at the mirror. He took the bait hook line and sinker. Which begs the question, how did the entity end up bound to that mirror in the first place?

3. The Elite Four situation is quite interesting. The tidbits we have are few and far between currently. My initial thought was imprisonment or manipulation considering who the Champion is.

   It hadn’t crossed my mind that they could be aiding the gangs. It doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that they could be involved although without knowing more about them it’s hard to say which gang they’d aid. Heck there could even be a schism in the ranks, some aiding the Black Foxes and others Crescent which could have resulted in Hendrick’s disappearance.

   One NPC mentions that she had heard that Azura is slated to make a visit to Central this coming month. If she does end up appearing in public at some point, then that could give us some insight into the Elite Four situation. If she doesn’t…well…I suppose that says a lot in of itself. 

Regarding the questions –

1. Laying out the facts we know that Ava found the protag on the shore near Darkroot. They have no recollection of anything prior. They have a strong affinity to the dream, enough to actually release Darkrai and upon subsequent visits are able to use energy wells to teleport. We know from Reeve that, despite having a Perfection fragment stuck to the protag like glue, it doesn’t seem to be affecting them in the same way it has the experiments. And lastly the entity from the mirror, I’m sticking with the assumption that it’s Darkrai’s trainer since it seems most likely to me, has been able to talk to them since they washed ashore after the cruise ship incident. Well before encountering the dream, Darkrai, or Perfection later in the game. This particular entity says something curious after our sewer excursion. The voice states the protagonist has no purpose. In its absence they were but a shell. Is the word shell to be taken literally? Could the player have a sort of artificial body that was meant for the entity to inhibit? The player would indeed not have a purpose for existence without the entity. Or is a sort of separation of soul and body? Maybe the protagonist is actually Darkrai’s trainer or something of a reincarnation at the very least. Or maybe it’s more of a shell of a former self, someone who has lost their purpose. Maybe the protagonist was someone from the past, maybe one of the first trainers on Ayrith. They lost what they cared about as the curse spread and their one motivation was to bind the one responsible for the loss of countless lives? Afterwards they’d have no purpose. Whatever the case that is a lot of major ties to this entity, the events of the past, and Perfection as a whole. They are no longer the ordinary tourist they started out as.

2. We don’t have direct confirmation that Ava and Amelia are sisters but there does seem to be a few implications that they might be. If they are then it is a bit strange neither of them has alluded to their familial bond. Though there could be potential reasons as to why they haven’t. Maybe Ava dyed her hair and changed up her look enough Amelia hasn’t recognized her yet. It stands to reason that Ava would indeed recognize Amelia upon first glance but maybe she’s keeping her relations with her a secret.

   Or whatever went down between them was so dreadful that they refuse to acknowledge their familial bond at all. Although, considering Amelia’s overall personality I don’t see this being the case.

   If they aren’t siblings, then I’m not one hundred percent sure what her ties to Darkroot may be. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Amelia’s connections to Darkroot coulddddd still be familial in nature. Maybe she has family there and something happened there while growing up that started her on her path, independent of Ava’s presence there.

3. I’ll admit Jarred caught me off-guard a few times…especially while I was trying to hunt down my fire bird xD. Jarred’s case feels incredibly strange. He’s everywhere. He leaves in his wake a ripple of people obsessed with him or water. No other character seems to elicit such a response from others. His behavior and manner of speech is peculiar, but he still seems to possess some uncanny knowledge and potentially some information on the player as well. He is also the only person that we know of that has officially been removed from a position as a gym leader.  

   I’ve just been throwing ideas at a wall and hoping they’d stick.

   Some thoughts on who he is includes but aren’t limited to:

   He was a gym leader whose curiosity and circumstances led him to coming into contact with some form of Perfection. One of journals in the Crescent mentions that when Waldenhall’s experiments saw the past of others they went completely mad. If he did come into contact with it maybe this could explain his odd behavior, assuming he wasn’t always a bit eccentric.

   A very outlandish idea but…what if Jarred is Majira, or more accurately was Majira. From the sounds of it Majira thought he was nearing his end and set up a trial of sorts for anyone worthy of being his successor. It stands to reason he scattered the three orbs and metal relic as well. For some reason Majira’s end didn’t come to pass the way he thought it would. Maybe he lost touch of who he was instead of shuffling off this mortal coil as implied. His sense of identity and sanity sort of shattered and thus he was reborn as Jarred? Lugia didn’t recognize Jarred as Majira and peaced out, leaving Jarred to hunt for the relic and orbs so he can be reunited with Lugia.

   Maybe the entity from the mirror is somehow in contact with Jarred as well. He could have a similar destiny to the protagonist? In Vejyr Jarred rambles on about how he thought they were all alone. That the protagonist wasn’t meant to be. A fleeting sprout, far from home…Those lines give me similar vibes to what the entity says. That the protagonist has no purpose, they are but a shell. Although I’m not sure why it would be searching for the relic and Lugia in this case.

   Maybe he’s in contact with another entity entirely. Another entity we don’t know about could be at play here. Or he is said entity. His title is peculiar being when we go to fight him after all.

   I dunno if any of these are even remotely true, maybe Jarred is just beyond our mortal understanding.

4. Lilith does indeed mention that her Umbreon is conflicted, angry, impatient, and perpetually sick. It is possible that at least the conflicted, angry, and impatient nature could be a result of Perfection. Ava comments that this Darkrai seems unusually malicious compared to other instances of Darkrais, and we learn later on that it has achieved a Perfection state at one point. It seems that whatever this state is seems to invoke a level of negative emotions for some reason. If Hardy’s Zoroark achieves Perfection and displays similar traits, then it’s safe to assume this is true.

   The perpetual sickness and the reason Lilith didn’t obtain Perfection is a bit harder to pin down with the information we currently have.

   This state of being is supposed to manifest when at a point of desolation. If that’s the case, it is strange that only Umbreon achieved this state when confronting Nova. Shouldn’t Lilith count in such an instance as well?

   What if the sickness is because Lilith hasn’t attained Perfection too. Like a Perfection bond between trainer and pokemon is required to avoid the inevitable demise.

5. Maybe the tokens could be separate pieces that can be used in a variety of ways. They could be exchanged for something once we collect them all. Or each act as a key of sorts to unlock something. Although we haven’t found any places where the pieces could be used. No places with tiny square-shaped indents that open a door or secret passage or vendors that accept specific currency, like little colorful tokens for instance. And none of the places that have ties with Shiv seem to have any correlation with the colorful Lego pieces either. However, it is possible we just haven’t discovered it yet.

   It could be possible that the tokens are a fragment of a whole. What could combining several colored pieces result in? Perhaps the act of gathering and combining them will create a helpful key item.

   To be honest I have no definitive idea yet.

   So far it feels easier to gauge the intent of the scavenger hunt rather than what happens when we collect them all ™. Despite stating he’s forsaking Nova and our band of quirky misfits Shiv’s still going around placing those little tokens and leaving notes for us to uncover. Dude’s existential conflict is strong.

   This line of thinking may be wayyyyy out there, but I can’t stop myself from thinking about it. Maybe finding them all could be one deciding factor to Shiv fighting back against Darkrai’s control or something akin to that.

   Only time will tell.

That being said here’s some of my manyyyy questions -

• What’s behind those locked doors at Majira’s rest? If we are to believe Jarred the relic leads to Lugia. If Lugia is tied to the relic what could possibly be behind those doors that require five keys to unlock? Ho-oh?
• There seems to be a correlation between Perfection, the darkness field, and dark type pokemon. So far, the only pokemon that we know that has obtained such a state happens to be of a dark typing. And if the Black Foxes succeed with Hardy’s Zoroark then that’s another. Can other pokemon outside the range of the dark typing achieve that state?
• Why was the entity bound in a mirror of all things in the Settler’s Ruins?
• Who’s the author of that strange book residing in the Waterscape temple?
• There is a gravestone in the Weeping Hills that has the letters Si and the rest is scratched off. The surrounding gravestones are connected to those who are being manipulated by Darkrai. Could that scuffed gravestone be either Darkrai’s or Darkrai’s trainer’s name?

• What’s communicating with the player from the Quest Log? I kind of assumed it’s the entity from the mirror considering they ask the same “Who are you?” questions. If it isn’t the entity, then who is it? How is it possible? Why is it only when we are in the Dreamscape?

[Amare]

On 4/26/2023 at 10:34 AM, Luri said:

Man, there feels like a ton to cover. I may be late putting my two cents in but hey, least I’m fashionably late!  

 

1. I wouldn’t be surprised if Artem was able to spring Eden from her Grid imprisonment as well. If Artem did find her in the Grid she’d have enough motive to join them considering her circumstances. I’d be very interested in seeing Eden slinking out of the shadows and joining the fight if that’s the case. If our merry band of heroes can play nicely with Crescent at some point maybe we can see Garret and Eden take on Waldenhall together. I’d be rooting for that!

2. There are quite a few implications that the entity is Darkrai’s trainer. I am of the mind it really is the trainer. If it isn’t then it’s at least someone with connections to them.

   It does seem highly likely the intent was to rattle Waldenhall enough to have him lash out at the mirror. He took the bait hook line and sinker. Which begs the question, how did the entity end up bound to that mirror in the first place?

3. The Elite Four situation is quite interesting. The tidbits we have are few and far between currently. My initial thought was imprisonment or manipulation considering who the Champion is.

   It hadn’t crossed my mind that they could be aiding the gangs. It doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that they could be involved although without knowing more about them it’s hard to say which gang they’d aid. Heck there could even be a schism in the ranks, some aiding the Black Foxes and others Crescent which could have resulted in Hendrick’s disappearance.

   One NPC mentions that she had heard that Azura is slated to make a visit to Central this coming month. If she does end up appearing in public at some point, then that could give us some insight into the Elite Four situation. If she doesn’t…well…I suppose that says a lot in of itself. 

Regarding the questions –

1. Laying out the facts we know that Ava found the protag on the shore near Darkroot. They have no recollection of anything prior. They have a strong affinity to the dream, enough to actually release Darkrai and upon subsequent visits are able to use energy wells to teleport. We know from Reeve that, despite having a Perfection fragment stuck to the protag like glue, it doesn’t seem to be affecting them in the same way it has the experiments. And lastly the entity from the mirror, I’m sticking with the assumption that it’s Darkrai’s trainer since it seems most likely to me, has been able to talk to them since they washed ashore after the cruise ship incident. Well before encountering the dream, Darkrai, or Perfection later in the game. This particular entity says something curious after our sewer excursion. The voice states the protagonist has no purpose. In its absence they were but a shell. Is the word shell to be taken literally? Could the player have a sort of artificial body that was meant for the entity to inhibit? The player would indeed not have a purpose for existence without the entity. Or is a sort of separation of soul and body? Maybe the protagonist is actually Darkrai’s trainer or something of a reincarnation at the very least. Or maybe it’s more of a shell of a former self, someone who has lost their purpose. Maybe the protagonist was someone from the past, maybe one of the first trainers on Ayrith. They lost what they cared about as the curse spread and their one motivation was to bind the one responsible for the loss of countless lives? Afterwards they’d have no purpose. Whatever the case that is a lot of major ties to this entity, the events of the past, and Perfection as a whole. They are no longer the ordinary tourist they started out as.

2. We don’t have direct confirmation that Ava and Amelia are sisters but there does seem to be a few implications that they might be. If they are then it is a bit strange neither of them has alluded to their familial bond. Though there could be potential reasons as to why they haven’t. Maybe Ava dyed her hair and changed up her look enough Amelia hasn’t recognized her yet. It stands to reason that Ava would indeed recognize Amelia upon first glance but maybe she’s keeping her relations with her a secret.

   Or whatever went down between them was so dreadful that they refuse to acknowledge their familial bond at all. Although, considering Amelia’s overall personality I don’t see this being the case.

   If they aren’t siblings, then I’m not one hundred percent sure what her ties to Darkroot may be. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Amelia’s connections to Darkroot coulddddd still be familial in nature. Maybe she has family there and something happened there while growing up that started her on her path, independent of Ava’s presence there.

3. I’ll admit Jarred caught me off-guard a few times…especially while I was trying to hunt down my fire bird xD. Jarred’s case feels incredibly strange. He’s everywhere. He leaves in his wake a ripple of people obsessed with him or water. No other character seems to elicit such a response from others. His behavior and manner of speech is peculiar, but he still seems to possess some uncanny knowledge and potentially some information on the player as well. He is also the only person that we know of that has officially been removed from a position as a gym leader.  

   I’ve just been throwing ideas at a wall and hoping they’d stick.

   Some thoughts on who he is includes but aren’t limited to:

   He was a gym leader whose curiosity and circumstances led him to coming into contact with some form of Perfection. One of journals in the Crescent mentions that when Waldenhall’s experiments saw the past of others they went completely mad. If he did come into contact with it maybe this could explain his odd behavior, assuming he wasn’t always a bit eccentric.

   A very outlandish idea but…what if Jarred is Majira, or more accurately was Majira. From the sounds of it Majira thought he was nearing his end and set up a trial of sorts for anyone worthy of being his successor. It stands to reason he scattered the three orbs and metal relic as well. For some reason Majira’s end didn’t come to pass the way he thought it would. Maybe he lost touch of who he was instead of shuffling off this mortal coil as implied. His sense of identity and sanity sort of shattered and thus he was reborn as Jarred? Lugia didn’t recognize Jarred as Majira and peaced out, leaving Jarred to hunt for the relic and orbs so he can be reunited with Lugia.

   Maybe the entity from the mirror is somehow in contact with Jarred as well. He could have a similar destiny to the protagonist? In Vejyr Jarred rambles on about how he thought they were all alone. That the protagonist wasn’t meant to be. A fleeting sprout, far from home…Those lines give me similar vibes to what the entity says. That the protagonist has no purpose, they are but a shell. Although I’m not sure why it would be searching for the relic and Lugia in this case.

   Maybe he’s in contact with another entity entirely. Another entity we don’t know about could be at play here. Or he is said entity. His title is peculiar being when we go to fight him after all.

   I dunno if any of these are even remotely true, maybe Jarred is just beyond our mortal understanding.

4. Lilith does indeed mention that her Umbreon is conflicted, angry, impatient, and perpetually sick. It is possible that at least the conflicted, angry, and impatient nature could be a result of Perfection. Ava comments that this Darkrai seems unusually malicious compared to other instances of Darkrais, and we learn later on that it has achieved a Perfection state at one point. It seems that whatever this state is seems to invoke a level of negative emotions for some reason. If Hardy’s Zoroark achieves Perfection and displays similar traits, then it’s safe to assume this is true.

   The perpetual sickness and the reason Lilith didn’t obtain Perfection is a bit harder to pin down with the information we currently have.

   This state of being is supposed to manifest when at a point of desolation. If that’s the case, it is strange that only Umbreon achieved this state when confronting Nova. Shouldn’t Lilith count in such an instance as well?

   What if the sickness is because Lilith hasn’t attained Perfection too. Like a Perfection bond between trainer and pokemon is required to avoid the inevitable demise.

5. Maybe the tokens could be separate pieces that can be used in a variety of ways. They could be exchanged for something once we collect them all. Or each act as a key of sorts to unlock something. Although we haven’t found any places where the pieces could be used. No places with tiny square-shaped indents that open a door or secret passage or vendors that accept specific currency, like little colorful tokens for instance. And none of the places that have ties with Shiv seem to have any correlation with the colorful Lego pieces either. However, it is possible we just haven’t discovered it yet.

   It could be possible that the tokens are a fragment of a whole. What could combining several colored pieces result in? Perhaps the act of gathering and combining them will create a helpful key item.

   To be honest I have no definitive idea yet.

   So far it feels easier to gauge the intent of the scavenger hunt rather than what happens when we collect them all ™. Despite stating he’s forsaking Nova and our band of quirky misfits Shiv’s still going around placing those little tokens and leaving notes for us to uncover. Dude’s existential conflict is strong.

   This line of thinking may be wayyyyy out there, but I can’t stop myself from thinking about it. Maybe finding them all could be one deciding factor to Shiv fighting back against Darkrai’s control or something akin to that.

   Only time will tell.

That being said here’s some of my manyyyy questions -

• What’s behind those locked doors at Majira’s rest? If we are to believe Jarred the relic leads to Lugia. If Lugia is tied to the relic what could possibly be behind those doors that require five keys to unlock? Ho-oh?
• There seems to be a correlation between Perfection, the darkness field, and dark type pokemon. So far, the only pokemon that we know that has obtained such a state happens to be of a dark typing. And if the Black Foxes succeed with Hardy’s Zoroark then that’s another. Can other pokemon outside the range of the dark typing achieve that state?
• Why was the entity bound in a mirror of all things in the Settler’s Ruins?
• Who’s the author of that strange book residing in the Waterscape temple?
• There is a gravestone in the Weeping Hills that has the letters Si and the rest is scratched off. The surrounding gravestones are connected to those who are being manipulated by Darkrai. Could that scuffed gravestone be either Darkrai’s or Darkrai’s trainer’s name?

• What’s communicating with the player from the Quest Log? I kind of assumed it’s the entity from the mirror considering they ask the same “Who are you?” questions. If it isn’t the entity, then who is it? How is it possible? Why is it only when we are in the Dreamscape?

Hey, if it helps, I completely forgot about this thread, so I'm just as late.

 

First, a few comments on your comments:

 

1. I absolutely want to see Eden and Garret teaming up together. I guess there's also another question there- Waldenhall said something about Eden having some kind of Grid-related power, so what can she do? Can she teleport? Is it possible that she's already managed to escape?

3. It feels like there's some weird shit going on with the Elite Four. Azura used to make visits to Celeste City, but then she just stopped. Has she really abandoned her roots, or is someone or something stopping her from going back? Why is Hendrick the only member who doesn't specialise in two Types, and why has he vanished?

 

And some replies to your replies:

 

1. Also, if you choose not to team up with Shiv against Baron at Bountilia Island, Baron says something about how 'knowing what you are, you two should hate each other'. So obviously Baron and Crescent know something about the player that we don't. And the player should be opposed to Shiv, which is interesting.

 

2. I suppose there's a third option: maybe Ava's sister wasn't Amelia, but they could be cousins or something who haven't seen each other in a while. Or, maybe Amelia had something to do with Ava's sister dying or disappearing.

 

3. Honestly, Jarred is so frigging bizarre that I think there's a fairly strong possibility that we're completely off the mark and whatever he is, we'll never guess.

 

4. I think you might be on the money with the theory that Lilith's Umbreon being sick is because Lilith didn't attain Perfection with it. As to why she didn't... no clue.

 

And as to your questions...

 

1. I have a theory that since it's called 'Majira's Rest', Majira himself is behind those doors. He might be dead- IIRC, nobody seems to know where he is or what happened to him- so it could be a tomb, or maybe he's frozen in time or in an artificial coma or something.

2. Holy shit, I never even noticed that. Good question. I wonder if we'll get answers in the 'Dark Zone' in the Dreamscape?

3. The obvious answer would be that it's some kind of Perfection fuckup, but I have another theory. Assuming that the entity in the mirror is the same person who wrote all the diaries in the ruins, they wrote about having enemies who were looking for them and trying to stop them. It's possible that those enemies hunted them down, and either trapped them in the mirror or they bound themself to the mirror to escape them.

4. No clue, but the Waterscape is seriously weird and there's some very intriguing stuff going on there (for a dream, I mean).

5. I completely missed that all the gravestones are of people who were being manipulated by Darkrai, great catch. I'm not sure who 'Si--' is, honestly. Shiv said they were a friend, but that might have been a lie.

6. See 4. Although, it's possible that the entity can reach into the Dreamscape.

 

I actually thought up one more question while I was writing this: what happened to the original Tristan, the one who died? From his grandfather's diaries, the only theory I have is a murder-suicide, but that feels way too dark even for Desolation.

 

[Luri]

On 5/18/2023 at 9:48 PM, Amare said:

Hey, if it helps, I completely forgot about this thread, so I'm just as late.

 

First, a few comments on your comments:

 

1. I absolutely want to see Eden and Garret teaming up together. I guess there's also another question there- Waldenhall said something about Eden having some kind of Grid-related power, so what can she do? Can she teleport? Is it possible that she's already managed to escape?

3. It feels like there's some weird shit going on with the Elite Four. Azura used to make visits to Celeste City, but then she just stopped. Has she really abandoned her roots, or is someone or something stopping her from going back? Why is Hendrick the only member who doesn't specialise in two Types, and why has he vanished?

 

And some replies to your replies:

 

1. Also, if you choose not to team up with Shiv against Baron at Bountilia Island, Baron says something about how 'knowing what you are, you two should hate each other'. So obviously Baron and Crescent know something about the player that we don't. And the player should be opposed to Shiv, which is interesting.

 

2. I suppose there's a third option: maybe Ava's sister wasn't Amelia, but they could be cousins or something who haven't seen each other in a while. Or, maybe Amelia had something to do with Ava's sister dying or disappearing.

 

3. Honestly, Jarred is so frigging bizarre that I think there's a fairly strong possibility that we're completely off the mark and whatever he is, we'll never guess.

 

4. I think you might be on the money with the theory that Lilith's Umbreon being sick is because Lilith didn't attain Perfection with it. As to why she didn't... no clue.

 

And as to your questions...

 

1. I have a theory that since it's called 'Majira's Rest', Majira himself is behind those doors. He might be dead- IIRC, nobody seems to know where he is or what happened to him- so it could be a tomb, or maybe he's frozen in time or in an artificial coma or something.

2. Holy shit, I never even noticed that. Good question. I wonder if we'll get answers in the 'Dark Zone' in the Dreamscape?

3. The obvious answer would be that it's some kind of Perfection fuckup, but I have another theory. Assuming that the entity in the mirror is the same person who wrote all the diaries in the ruins, they wrote about having enemies who were looking for them and trying to stop them. It's possible that those enemies hunted them down, and either trapped them in the mirror or they bound themself to the mirror to escape them.

4. No clue, but the Waterscape is seriously weird and there's some very intriguing stuff going on there (for a dream, I mean).

5. I completely missed that all the gravestones are of people who were being manipulated by Darkrai, great catch. I'm not sure who 'Si--' is, honestly. Shiv said they were a friend, but that might have been a lie.

6. See 4. Although, it's possible that the entity can reach into the Dreamscape.

 

I actually thought up one more question while I was writing this: what happened to the original Tristan, the one who died? From his grandfather's diaries, the only theory I have is a murder-suicide, but that feels way too dark even for Desolation.

 

 

We do have quite a bit of time before we get some more answers so I suppose we can be as late as we want xD

 

1)

Especially after seeing Garret trying to teach Eden how to battle, I think that would be quite wholesome seeing them team up later. The Grid and teleportation go hand in hand at this point, so I’d say teleportation seems to be a pretty good guess. It’s not unreasonable to think that she has been searching for a way out, assuming she knows how to control this power of hers. Whether or not she freed herself, if she bumped into Artem while trying to free herself or is still in the Grid remains to be seen.

One thing I didn’t think of before is that we don’t know how deep in the Grid Waldenhall sent Eden. If she happened to be in a part of the Grid where the flow of time is different, kinda like poor Keegan, Eden could be older when we finally meet her.

2)

Absolutely! That’s quite a good point. Why would Azura stop visiting the town she hails from? If Azura does care for her roots, then I’m of the mind something is preventing her from returning. Whatever it is may also be the reason none of them have been seen in public for years.

Another Hendrick oddity is that he uses normal types. A normal specialist? That is pretty unprecedented for someone of the Elite Four. So not only is he the only member that uses one type, but he also uses a type that isn’t typical of an Elite Four member. And he happens to be the one out of the four of them to vanish. Something is definitely up with Hendrick.  

Not only am I curious as to why he has vanished, but when he vanished as well. How recent is his disappearance? This disappearance must have happened anywhere from when the Elite Four stopped visiting to sometime during our adventures in Ayrith. Did he vanish prior to the start of the game or sometime within the timespan that the game takes place in?

 

More replies to the replies:

 

1)

Now that you mention it that’s quite a curious thing for Baron to say.

I went back to check the scene again and Baron does say that when you side with Shiv, but refusing to fight with him results in a slightly different scene. Leaving Shiv results in Baron going on about Shiv being lost and a monster and once he’s out of the picture, he turns his sights on the protagonist, mentioning we don’t understand yet what we are and that he shouldn’t have let this go on for so long.

No matter which option, however, Baron alludes to the protagonist being much more than they appear.

Could Baron be alluding to the fact that our protagonist is one of the few that has the appropriate power or abilities or whatever to release Darkrai? Baron could have heard about Darkrai’s plans from Artem prior to Shiv’s visit.

With this perspective I’d say it stands to reason that Baron would say something like that if we side with Shiv. In this sense he is right, the player should be opposed to Shiv as he has been one of our manipulators from the very beginning. There are clear signs that something is amiss with the twins. It’s baffling to Baron that we still aid Shiv despite this. Although I’m not quite sure why Baron says the feeling should be mutual on Shiv’s end.  

And on the flip side Baron either knows or has an inkling of what can happen if the protagonist ends up on Darkrai’s doorstep so he takes it upon himself to make sure that doesn’t happen, akin to Lilith’s confrontation just before things go down in the Dreamscape.

Either that or there really is still some stuff Crescent and Baron are keeping from the player about our protagonist. Which isn’t out of the realm of possibilities. Artem seems to have gleaned quite a bit of information during his excursion. If this is the case, it could be something that Darkrai and twins don’t know about. Something that can pose a serious problem for them. Who knows?

2)

Not immediate family but still related, this could be possibility as well. If Amelia did harm or abduct her sister, it is odd that Ava hasn’t at least alluded to this by now. The protagonist has known Ava for a much longer period of time and yet Garret opens up about his missing sister before Ava does. If something has happened to her sister because of Amelia, she must have quite a reason not to mention anything about it.

Another idea could be that Ava’s sister was persuaded by Amelia or needed power to enact change or something and joined the Black Foxes. Ava could have tried to get her sister to change her mind, but she didn’t listen so she cut ties with her.

3)

Yeah, I’d bet that we are completely off the mark at this point in time. There are so many curious bits and pieces about him but none of them seem to fit together quite yet. Fitting for someone like him I’ll say. Jarred is an enigma, one that I look forward to seeing more of in the future.

4)

If that is the case, that pokemon can become sickly if their trainers don’t attain Perfection along with them… I wonder how that will affect Hardy’s Zoroark who is already plagued with some sort of illness if the experiments do eventually succeed.

 

Regarding the many questions…

 

1)

I initially interpreted Majira’s Rest as a sort of vault to keep his legacy, whatever that may be, safe until his successor is chosen. I skimmed over the name of it for some reason XD. If it is a tomb or place he holed up in would explain why he kinda fell off the face of the Earth. If he is somehow alive and able to talk maybe he has some key information for us that can help in the long run, and if we are lucky a  rundown of what drove him to seal himself on a remote island.  

2)

That’s quite an interesting idea. Darkness seems to be quite a prevalent factor in the grand scheme of things so I’d be surprised if a place called ‘Dark Zone’ doesn’t have some ties to this seemingly Dark theme going on. I wonder if the Darkness field will take center stage in that area of the dream.

3)

To screw up so bad you end up in a mirror for at least a century. Great example as to why you shouldn’t play with fire. Yeah, whatever they were trying to do down there probably backfired on them. I can see either of those events as interesting alternatives. The entity sealing themselves to escape their pursuers is an especially appealing theory. Whomever they are knew that if their pursuers reached them that’s the end of the line. In the end they didn’t unearth the full answer so in a last-ditch effort to avoid the inevitable they bind themselves to a mirror. Seeing that they still have some influence to a certain degree it isn’t the worst plan they could have come up with.

4)

The Waterscape is quite intriguing indeed. The Lake Guardian spirits predating the awakening, the shrines, that strange book in the main shrine, the strange group of people talking about being remnants of Darkrai or whatever’s going on there, Shiv’s journal entry, the Dark Zone, that one cave…there are so many of mysteries in the dream. 

5)

Haha one thing I’ve learned to do in these fangames is to check every gravestone or suspicious nook I can. I dunno whether Shiv’s statement was about the scuffed gravestone that he happened to be hanging around, Keegan’s gravestone that is nestled in the Weeping Depths, or is just a lie. Curse those lies. I have no idea either. The letters Si doesn’t match with any name we’ve heard so far. It could be the name of someone we have yet to meet. Whoever they are might be another pawn or someone caught in the web of deception. One more thing to note about those gravestones is that among them is one that reads “Naught but flesh and faith”. Although I have yet to see the connection between it and the others.

6)

Fair enough, there’s still lots to uncover about the dream.

 

Honestly that’s quite a good question. The journal entries from Tristan’s father give you just enough to get the imagination jumping to some pretty dark conclusions. Initially that was my thought too while playing the game although I’m not so sure now.

If what Ava mentions is true, I don’t think it was a murder-suicide. In the current day and age Tristan should be around the same age that his father was when he first started writing that journal. If the Tristan that died five years ago is indeed the same Tristan from the journals it is possible his father may have already passed away, or at the very least is quite elderly now. It doesn’t seem too likely his father was a part of his death.

Which makes Tristan’s death stranger. Without any more information my current line of thinking would be blaming Darkrai for his death. Tristan’s spirit, or whatever he may be, was eventually used by Darkrai. His death may have been one of the preparations needed to be done to confuse and deceive the protagonist later down the line.

If only Ava had elaborated a bit more. She needs to learn you can’t just drop that kind of information on a person without stating a cause of death my goodness lol.

 

[Amare]

On 5/22/2023 at 4:47 AM, Luri said:

 

We do have quite a bit of time before we get some more answers so I suppose we can be as late as we want xD

 

1)

Especially after seeing Garret trying to teach Eden how to battle, I think that would be quite wholesome seeing them team up later. The Grid and teleportation go hand in hand at this point, so I’d say teleportation seems to be a pretty good guess. It’s not unreasonable to think that she has been searching for a way out, assuming she knows how to control this power of hers. Whether or not she freed herself, if she bumped into Artem while trying to free herself or is still in the Grid remains to be seen.

One thing I didn’t think of before is that we don’t know how deep in the Grid Waldenhall sent Eden. If she happened to be in a part of the Grid where the flow of time is different, kinda like poor Keegan, Eden could be older when we finally meet her.

2)

Absolutely! That’s quite a good point. Why would Azura stop visiting the town she hails from? If Azura does care for her roots, then I’m of the mind something is preventing her from returning. Whatever it is may also be the reason none of them have been seen in public for years.

Another Hendrick oddity is that he uses normal types. A normal specialist? That is pretty unprecedented for someone of the Elite Four. So not only is he the only member that uses one type, but he also uses a type that isn’t typical of an Elite Four member. And he happens to be the one out of the four of them to vanish. Something is definitely up with Hendrick.  

Not only am I curious as to why he has vanished, but when he vanished as well. How recent is his disappearance? This disappearance must have happened anywhere from when the Elite Four stopped visiting to sometime during our adventures in Ayrith. Did he vanish prior to the start of the game or sometime within the timespan that the game takes place in?

 

More replies to the replies:

 

1)

Now that you mention it that’s quite a curious thing for Baron to say.

I went back to check the scene again and Baron does say that when you side with Shiv, but refusing to fight with him results in a slightly different scene. Leaving Shiv results in Baron going on about Shiv being lost and a monster and once he’s out of the picture, he turns his sights on the protagonist, mentioning we don’t understand yet what we are and that he shouldn’t have let this go on for so long.

No matter which option, however, Baron alludes to the protagonist being much more than they appear.

Could Baron be alluding to the fact that our protagonist is one of the few that has the appropriate power or abilities or whatever to release Darkrai? Baron could have heard about Darkrai’s plans from Artem prior to Shiv’s visit.

With this perspective I’d say it stands to reason that Baron would say something like that if we side with Shiv. In this sense he is right, the player should be opposed to Shiv as he has been one of our manipulators from the very beginning. There are clear signs that something is amiss with the twins. It’s baffling to Baron that we still aid Shiv despite this. Although I’m not quite sure why Baron says the feeling should be mutual on Shiv’s end.  

And on the flip side Baron either knows or has an inkling of what can happen if the protagonist ends up on Darkrai’s doorstep so he takes it upon himself to make sure that doesn’t happen, akin to Lilith’s confrontation just before things go down in the Dreamscape.

Either that or there really is still some stuff Crescent and Baron are keeping from the player about our protagonist. Which isn’t out of the realm of possibilities. Artem seems to have gleaned quite a bit of information during his excursion. If this is the case, it could be something that Darkrai and twins don’t know about. Something that can pose a serious problem for them. Who knows?

2)

Not immediate family but still related, this could be possibility as well. If Amelia did harm or abduct her sister, it is odd that Ava hasn’t at least alluded to this by now. The protagonist has known Ava for a much longer period of time and yet Garret opens up about his missing sister before Ava does. If something has happened to her sister because of Amelia, she must have quite a reason not to mention anything about it.

Another idea could be that Ava’s sister was persuaded by Amelia or needed power to enact change or something and joined the Black Foxes. Ava could have tried to get her sister to change her mind, but she didn’t listen so she cut ties with her.

3)

Yeah, I’d bet that we are completely off the mark at this point in time. There are so many curious bits and pieces about him but none of them seem to fit together quite yet. Fitting for someone like him I’ll say. Jarred is an enigma, one that I look forward to seeing more of in the future.

4)

If that is the case, that pokemon can become sickly if their trainers don’t attain Perfection along with them… I wonder how that will affect Hardy’s Zoroark who is already plagued with some sort of illness if the experiments do eventually succeed.

 

Regarding the many questions…

 

1)

I initially interpreted Majira’s Rest as a sort of vault to keep his legacy, whatever that may be, safe until his successor is chosen. I skimmed over the name of it for some reason XD. If it is a tomb or place he holed up in would explain why he kinda fell off the face of the Earth. If he is somehow alive and able to talk maybe he has some key information for us that can help in the long run, and if we are lucky a  rundown of what drove him to seal himself on a remote island.  

2)

That’s quite an interesting idea. Darkness seems to be quite a prevalent factor in the grand scheme of things so I’d be surprised if a place called ‘Dark Zone’ doesn’t have some ties to this seemingly Dark theme going on. I wonder if the Darkness field will take center stage in that area of the dream.

3)

To screw up so bad you end up in a mirror for at least a century. Great example as to why you shouldn’t play with fire. Yeah, whatever they were trying to do down there probably backfired on them. I can see either of those events as interesting alternatives. The entity sealing themselves to escape their pursuers is an especially appealing theory. Whomever they are knew that if their pursuers reached them that’s the end of the line. In the end they didn’t unearth the full answer so in a last-ditch effort to avoid the inevitable they bind themselves to a mirror. Seeing that they still have some influence to a certain degree it isn’t the worst plan they could have come up with.

4)

The Waterscape is quite intriguing indeed. The Lake Guardian spirits predating the awakening, the shrines, that strange book in the main shrine, the strange group of people talking about being remnants of Darkrai or whatever’s going on there, Shiv’s journal entry, the Dark Zone, that one cave…there are so many of mysteries in the dream. 

5)

Haha one thing I’ve learned to do in these fangames is to check every gravestone or suspicious nook I can. I dunno whether Shiv’s statement was about the scuffed gravestone that he happened to be hanging around, Keegan’s gravestone that is nestled in the Weeping Depths, or is just a lie. Curse those lies. I have no idea either. The letters Si doesn’t match with any name we’ve heard so far. It could be the name of someone we have yet to meet. Whoever they are might be another pawn or someone caught in the web of deception. One more thing to note about those gravestones is that among them is one that reads “Naught but flesh and faith”. Although I have yet to see the connection between it and the others.

6)

Fair enough, there’s still lots to uncover about the dream.

 

Honestly that’s quite a good question. The journal entries from Tristan’s father give you just enough to get the imagination jumping to some pretty dark conclusions. Initially that was my thought too while playing the game although I’m not so sure now.

If what Ava mentions is true, I don’t think it was a murder-suicide. In the current day and age Tristan should be around the same age that his father was when he first started writing that journal. If the Tristan that died five years ago is indeed the same Tristan from the journals it is possible his father may have already passed away, or at the very least is quite elderly now. It doesn’t seem too likely his father was a part of his death.

Which makes Tristan’s death stranger. Without any more information my current line of thinking would be blaming Darkrai for his death. Tristan’s spirit, or whatever he may be, was eventually used by Darkrai. His death may have been one of the preparations needed to be done to confuse and deceive the protagonist later down the line.

If only Ava had elaborated a bit more. She needs to learn you can’t just drop that kind of information on a person without stating a cause of death my goodness lol.

 

 

 

1. I'd also considered Eden being older. I guess we could go for the crazy theories like 'Eden is actually Nova, she got aged up and then sent back in time', etc.

 

2. I went back and reread the dev blog posts (more on that a bit later), and I found this bit about the Elite Four: 'While only three members exist on the walls of buildings and promotions, a fourth exists purely by word of mouth... the fate of this other member, however, is unclear. '

 

So... is Hendrick a real person? Is he a fabrication? Was he made up to fill out the Elite Four? Is he a Ditto? Who knows? But I feel like that leads into another question: what the hell is going on with the Championship and the Elite Four? Like, we're told that Shiv is the Champion, but is he *still* the Champion? He doesn't seem to have any actual interest in being the Champion. Why is nobody trying to find out what the fuck is going on with the Elite Four, or whether Hendrick actually exists? Is this one of those cases like in Reborn, where people undertake the Gym Challenge all the time but nobody ever completes it because half the Leaders are travelling, absent, dead or just don't feel like doing their jobs? Has *nobody* reached the Elite Four lately?

 

Other replies (to the replies, to the replies):

 

1. One thing that's bugged me about Crescent for a while is that we don't really have any idea what their goal is now. Before, their goal was explicitly to summon Darkrai and put everyone into the dream. After Blackview, they sort of just fell off the map. The team didn't collapse, they're still trying to do *something*, but we have no idea what their goals are now. They seem to have abandoned going after Darkrai, so what do they want? A guy in the lab on Bountilia Island was studying Perfection too- why is Crescent interested in it? What gives?

 

4. Yeah, I somehow doubt that Hardy's getting a happy ending. It feels like the only 'good' ending is his Zoroark ascending to Perfection, but I doubt Hardy would get there with it.

 

 

It's a really irritating mystery, because Ava never actually tells us what she knows (and neither does anyone in Addenfall). I really hope we get to find out soon.

 

Like I said up above, I went back and reread the dev blog, and I found a couple of weird bits of dialogue that don't seem to relate to anything else. The first says:

 

 

%&*$&#$*#*#

> It's time for you to return... I suspect I am almost out of time.

%&*$&#$*#*#

> Is that so? You wish for me to leave my work, despite my progress? I am closer than you think.

%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> The grid can wait... with what they have discovered, it would seem that we are looking in the wrong direction.

$$%%#%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> Meaning?

%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> It's not what lies beneath that matters... but what HE has discovered above.

$$%%#%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> Are his intentions so maleficent as you believe? Or is it simply the unknown that you fear?

%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> We don't have time to find out.

%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

 

 

 

I'm going to guess that this is between Baron and Artem, and takes place before Artem came back from the Grid (aka Bountilia Island). But it leads to the obvious question- who is 'he', and what did he discover? Waldenhall and the Ruins? Shiv, having located the lab and wanting to find Nova? Who knows?

 

 

The second is as follows:

 

> Are you sure, really sure? We can't afford to mess this up again.
> I have never been more so. This is our destiny, after all. 
> And can we control it? 
> Of course. Why would you ever doubt me?
> Something that powerful can't come for free. At the very least, she taught me that.
> I don't play with chance, not anymore. You have nothing to fear.
> And if you're wrong?
> Hmph... when have I ever been wrong?

 

I have no idea who this is. The second speaker's arrogance and talking about destiny makes me think it could be Waldenhall, but I don't know who the first speaker would be. Waldenhall doesn't really consider anyone on his level- the only theory I can come up with is that the first speaker is Reeve and this took place back when he was Waldenhall's student, but then who is 'she'?

 

 

 

 

 

[Luri]

On 5/28/2023 at 5:29 AM, Amare said:

 

 

1. I'd also considered Eden being older. I guess we could go for the crazy theories like 'Eden is actually Nova, she got aged up and then sent back in time', etc.

 

2. I went back and reread the dev blog posts (more on that a bit later), and I found this bit about the Elite Four: 'While only three members exist on the walls of buildings and promotions, a fourth exists purely by word of mouth... the fate of this other member, however, is unclear. '

 

So... is Hendrick a real person? Is he a fabrication? Was he made up to fill out the Elite Four? Is he a Ditto? Who knows? But I feel like that leads into another question: what the hell is going on with the Championship and the Elite Four? Like, we're told that Shiv is the Champion, but is he *still* the Champion? He doesn't seem to have any actual interest in being the Champion. Why is nobody trying to find out what the fuck is going on with the Elite Four, or whether Hendrick actually exists? Is this one of those cases like in Reborn, where people undertake the Gym Challenge all the time but nobody ever completes it because half the Leaders are travelling, absent, dead or just don't feel like doing their jobs? Has *nobody* reached the Elite Four lately?

 

Other replies (to the replies, to the replies):

 

1. One thing that's bugged me about Crescent for a while is that we don't really have any idea what their goal is now. Before, their goal was explicitly to summon Darkrai and put everyone into the dream. After Blackview, they sort of just fell off the map. The team didn't collapse, they're still trying to do *something*, but we have no idea what their goals are now. They seem to have abandoned going after Darkrai, so what do they want? A guy in the lab on Bountilia Island was studying Perfection too- why is Crescent interested in it? What gives?

 

4. Yeah, I somehow doubt that Hardy's getting a happy ending. It feels like the only 'good' ending is his Zoroark ascending to Perfection, but I doubt Hardy would get there with it.

 

 

It's a really irritating mystery, because Ava never actually tells us what she knows (and neither does anyone in Addenfall). I really hope we get to find out soon.

 

Like I said up above, I went back and reread the dev blog, and I found a couple of weird bits of dialogue that don't seem to relate to anything else. The first says:

 

 

%&*$&#$*#*#

> It's time for you to return... I suspect I am almost out of time.

%&*$&#$*#*#

> Is that so? You wish for me to leave my work, despite my progress? I am closer than you think.

%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> The grid can wait... with what they have discovered, it would seem that we are looking in the wrong direction.

$$%%#%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> Meaning?

%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> It's not what lies beneath that matters... but what HE has discovered above.

$$%%#%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> Are his intentions so maleficent as you believe? Or is it simply the unknown that you fear?

%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

> We don't have time to find out.

%&*$&%&*$&#$*#*#

 

 

 

I'm going to guess that this is between Baron and Artem, and takes place before Artem came back from the Grid (aka Bountilia Island). But it leads to the obvious question- who is 'he', and what did he discover? Waldenhall and the Ruins? Shiv, having located the lab and wanting to find Nova? Who knows?

 

 

The second is as follows:

 

> Are you sure, really sure? We can't afford to mess this up again.
> I have never been more so. This is our destiny, after all. 
> And can we control it? 
> Of course. Why would you ever doubt me?
> Something that powerful can't come for free. At the very least, she taught me that.
> I don't play with chance, not anymore. You have nothing to fear.
> And if you're wrong?
> Hmph... when have I ever been wrong?

 

I have no idea who this is. The second speaker's arrogance and talking about destiny makes me think it could be Waldenhall, but I don't know who the first speaker would be. Waldenhall doesn't really consider anyone on his level- the only theory I can come up with is that the first speaker is Reeve and this took place back when he was Waldenhall's student, but then who is 'she'?

 

 

 

 

 

 

1)

Glad I’m not the only one then xD. Treading the crazier theories is pretty enjoyable, especially when there’s only so much information to work with regarding some of these mysteries. That being said I don’t have any particularly interesting crazy theories regarding Eden…yet.

You know…we truly don’t know much about Nova despite her role in things. We know how she was involved with luring the twins to Darkrai but what about before that? At this point I’d say we know a bit more about Tristan’s past than we do about Nova’s. How’d she end up under Darkrai’s influence anyways? Who was she before? Did she have parents? Any siblings??

Given that her past prior to her manipulation is a big question mark…’Eden being Nova’…at least in that aspect it could work.

2)

Yeahhhh there are so many sketchy things revolving around the League, their administration, if they have any, and the Elite Four.

I remember reading that a while back, good idea checking out the dev blog posts! The way it is worded really brings into question Hendrick’s existence. This falls in line with what we see in the game. He’s pretty much off the grid compared to the other three. The fabrication angle is pretty interesting. People would be much more concerned if one of the Elite Four had passed away or something compared to a gym leader like Tristan, and in order to stop people from investigating they made Hendrick for the time being to fill the role. If that angle isn’t to cover something up, then what could be gained by fabricating the existence of an Elite Four member?

The Ditto though…imagine finally making it to Hendrick and he’s just wearing one of those cute, silly ditto faces xD. But yeah, who knows?

We are told Shiv is the Champion, his memories confirm he once held the position, but we have no clear answer if he still is or not. Since no other character seems to refute this point at the moment, I’ve been working under the assumption he is until proven otherwise.

There could be a couple of reasons as to why he doesn’t show any interest in his position. If the information we gathered from Aurora’s diaries in the Archives does hold some truth, it seemed like during his time growing up Shiv ended up in some depressive funk, with every victory and achievement he earned he sunk deeper into this depression until Nova appeared in his life. Maybe he still has this to some degree. Or his apparent fondness of Nova is more important to him than the title. Or he holds no interest in the title because he has his own troubles keeping himself together and aiding Darkrai at the moment.

What I find strange about Shiv being Champion is that a majority of our friends and allies hold titles in the league. Yet they only ever seem to know him from his reputation as one of the twins that tend to cause havoc. You’d think at least one of them would know who the active Champion is. And if it is Shiv they would point out the fact that the Champion is working against us. It really feels like the upper ranks of the League are cut off from the rest of them.

You know, I was wondering that myself.

We don’t know if there is an active administration running the league like Reborn or Rejuvenation so it’s possible they don’t have any officials that could go check in on the Elite Four. Most of the gym leaders seem to think seeking them out is a pointless endeavor since they never answer in the first place. Granted I don’t see why Kairo, who’s probably closest to them, can’t just knock on their door and check to see if any of them are alive at this point. Ava or someone should shoot him a text and ask about that lol.

Which leaves standard trainers. There seems to be at least a few people actively participating in the league challenge besides Hardy and us so it’s probably a mixture of the Reborn problem and the fact some of these leaders have other responsibilities (like running several businesses or being an idol for instance). It’s most likely difficult for aspiring trainers to track down leaders or schedule a fight. Let alone get enough badges to make it to the Elite Four.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that no one has made it to the Elite Four but still…not a single person has gotten close to the Elite Four?
Perhaps anyone who has made it that far is chilling on Hydreilius Island waiting for their opportunity to duke it out with them.

 

Replies to the replies (so many replies!):

1)

Yeah, it’s obvious what the Black Foxes and Waldenhall are trying to achieve but Crescent is in a weird position. It was definitely after Blackview that their goals started to change. My guess is that Artem entered the picture and was either the cause or a partial cause of this shift.

In regard to their research into Perfection Baron mentioned that Nova swung by before Shiv arrived on Bountilia Island and insisted on the shift to Perfection evolution because she was afraid of something. Despite ousting her as the head of the group, she could have the catalyst for the idea of researching Perfection. Or it could have been Artem. I suppose either work and it doesn’t change the outcome too much.

That being said, we don’t explicitly know what they are trying to achieve, especially in regard to their research into Perfection but seems like Crescent is worried about Waldenhall and his research.

Baron even mentions during our jail-break confrontation that we have our priorities wrong, that if Waldenhall found what he was searching for on Arcanius that it’d spell danger everyone (which leads me to think at some point we can see eye to eye with Crescent, maybe form a temporary truce to take down Waldenhall).

I mean if their goal is to stop Waldenhall from achieving his goals then I’d say it sorta falls in line with their original motives. Crescent wasn’t inherently an “evil” team, just majorly misguided in their pursuit of peace. Waldenhall is clearly a huge threat to Ayrith now and they probably think it’s up to them to stop him.

Maybe the shift to Perfection research is to fight fire with fire, to be able to contend with the Black Foxes and Waldenhall in case they fail to stop them from achieving Perfection.

2)

Unless something happens to him in Chryseum Canyon. Since that canyon could become a hot bed of conflict when we roll up to the party, what with the twins ordered to distract our group and Hardy skulking around there for some reason… Besides that, I doubt it as well. Poor Hardy man, he can’t catch a break.

 

Tell me about it, I’m quite invested in the Tristan mystery. It shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to give us some information Ava. As much as I like giving Ava grief about it, I’m honestly starting to wonder if that’s really all she knows about the matter. I have no clue. And any potential information from Tristan about the subject is now a no-go thanks to Darkrai.

Now that you mention it is strange no one in Adenfall mentions the death either. It could be that most of the town just wants to move on, bringing up a death can be a touchy topic for some. It’d be nice to have some more answers soon. Maybe we’ll dig up more information about Tristan in the Dreamscape since at least he had a presence there. You know…Tristan and Hendrick are kinda in the same boat. They don’t seem to have a presence in Ayrith. No one seems to know what happened to either of them. Being a normal type specialist seems like a pretty cursed job honestly.

 

Regarding the dev blog dialogue:

I completely agree with you on both points.

Assuming one of the speakers is Baron then I’d say it’s Waldenhall and the Ruins. Although Baron does view Shiv as a threat on the island, his reaction to Shiv’s arrival doesn’t sound nearly as worried as he did back in Cellia East when talking about Waldenhall and his plans. So, my money is on Waldenhall.

Although that makes me question what exactly was Artem’s work? I mean we know he has somehow gained information from the Grid, but we don’t know if that was his main objective in the Grid or if it was a byproduct stemming from his actual work.

 

Pertaining to the second one...I’m not sure myself.

I do agree that at least the second speaker is definitely Waldenhall. Since it’s from the version 6 dev blog I’d assume “she” is at least in reference to someone we know. The line “she” is referenced in is all about the cost of power and how she is an example of that. Possible candidates could be Nova, Amelia, or Lilith. Nova has some funky powers but at the cost of her free will. Amelia is chasing power but has yet to reap what she’s sown. And Lilith’s umbreon has reached Perfection but that state is causing her Pokémon a great deal of anguish.

If the first speaker is indeed Reeve, then I suppose Lilith could possibly fit. After all he was one of the first to delve into Perfection research and Lilith’s umbreon is a prime example of how Perfection can come at a cost.

If it isn’t Reeve, then who? We only know of a few people Waldenhall has had contact with. I doubt he’s talking with Amelia; she so far hasn’t been one to shy away from chasing power and she hasn’t been shown to be this cautious. Maybe Lilith could be the first speaker. She has been trying to decipher her umbreon’s new state and Waldenhall could have presented her potential new findings on this subject (maybe this convo was when they shifted their search away from the Grid and more on Perfection). I wouldn’t be surprised if she had some reservations on whether or not these findings would prove fruitful. And she is smart enough to know that Waldenhall is in it for his goals alone, hence a bit of caution is warranted.

Since Lilith can’t be referencing herself in this scenario then the “she” could be Nova. She knows enough about Nova’s situation and there’s also the fact that the situation with Nova was the catalyst for umbreon to reach a Perfection state which has been both a blessing and a curse.

All that being said I’m gonna go with Reeve and Waldenhall, with Reeve referencing Lilith.

 

Just gonna tag this on at the end here: while parsing through dialogue I kinda ended up wondering about the Great Tree of Visinite. It’s a pretty unique, and mysterious tree and so far, we don’t know much about it. According to Waldenhall that the roots of the tree is producing a supercharged energy that permeates throughout the entire island. Besides that, we know Raikou visits to recharge himself.  

Could that energy be charging or powering something besides Raikou on the island? For the energy to seep across the entirety of the island…that has to be at least influencing something in a major way, yeah?

[Amare]

On 5/30/2023 at 1:03 PM, Luri said:

 

1)

Glad I’m not the only one then xD. Treading the crazier theories is pretty enjoyable, especially when there’s only so much information to work with regarding some of these mysteries. That being said I don’t have any particularly interesting crazy theories regarding Eden…yet.

You know…we truly don’t know much about Nova despite her role in things. We know how she was involved with luring the twins to Darkrai but what about before that? At this point I’d say we know a bit more about Tristan’s past than we do about Nova’s. How’d she end up under Darkrai’s influence anyways? Who was she before? Did she have parents? Any siblings??

Given that her past prior to her manipulation is a big question mark…’Eden being Nova’…at least in that aspect it could work.

2)

Yeahhhh there are so many sketchy things revolving around the League, their administration, if they have any, and the Elite Four.

I remember reading that a while back, good idea checking out the dev blog posts! The way it is worded really brings into question Hendrick’s existence. This falls in line with what we see in the game. He’s pretty much off the grid compared to the other three. The fabrication angle is pretty interesting. People would be much more concerned if one of the Elite Four had passed away or something compared to a gym leader like Tristan, and in order to stop people from investigating they made Hendrick for the time being to fill the role. If that angle isn’t to cover something up, then what could be gained by fabricating the existence of an Elite Four member?

The Ditto though…imagine finally making it to Hendrick and he’s just wearing one of those cute, silly ditto faces xD. But yeah, who knows?

We are told Shiv is the Champion, his memories confirm he once held the position, but we have no clear answer if he still is or not. Since no other character seems to refute this point at the moment, I’ve been working under the assumption he is until proven otherwise.

There could be a couple of reasons as to why he doesn’t show any interest in his position. If the information we gathered from Aurora’s diaries in the Archives does hold some truth, it seemed like during his time growing up Shiv ended up in some depressive funk, with every victory and achievement he earned he sunk deeper into this depression until Nova appeared in his life. Maybe he still has this to some degree. Or his apparent fondness of Nova is more important to him than the title. Or he holds no interest in the title because he has his own troubles keeping himself together and aiding Darkrai at the moment.

What I find strange about Shiv being Champion is that a majority of our friends and allies hold titles in the league. Yet they only ever seem to know him from his reputation as one of the twins that tend to cause havoc. You’d think at least one of them would know who the active Champion is. And if it is Shiv they would point out the fact that the Champion is working against us. It really feels like the upper ranks of the League are cut off from the rest of them.

You know, I was wondering that myself.

We don’t know if there is an active administration running the league like Reborn or Rejuvenation so it’s possible they don’t have any officials that could go check in on the Elite Four. Most of the gym leaders seem to think seeking them out is a pointless endeavor since they never answer in the first place. Granted I don’t see why Kairo, who’s probably closest to them, can’t just knock on their door and check to see if any of them are alive at this point. Ava or someone should shoot him a text and ask about that lol.

Which leaves standard trainers. There seems to be at least a few people actively participating in the league challenge besides Hardy and us so it’s probably a mixture of the Reborn problem and the fact some of these leaders have other responsibilities (like running several businesses or being an idol for instance). It’s most likely difficult for aspiring trainers to track down leaders or schedule a fight. Let alone get enough badges to make it to the Elite Four.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that no one has made it to the Elite Four but still…not a single person has gotten close to the Elite Four?
Perhaps anyone who has made it that far is chilling on Hydreilius Island waiting for their opportunity to duke it out with them.

 

Replies to the replies (so many replies!):

1)

Yeah, it’s obvious what the Black Foxes and Waldenhall are trying to achieve but Crescent is in a weird position. It was definitely after Blackview that their goals started to change. My guess is that Artem entered the picture and was either the cause or a partial cause of this shift.

In regard to their research into Perfection Baron mentioned that Nova swung by before Shiv arrived on Bountilia Island and insisted on the shift to Perfection evolution because she was afraid of something. Despite ousting her as the head of the group, she could have the catalyst for the idea of researching Perfection. Or it could have been Artem. I suppose either work and it doesn’t change the outcome too much.

That being said, we don’t explicitly know what they are trying to achieve, especially in regard to their research into Perfection but seems like Crescent is worried about Waldenhall and his research.

Baron even mentions during our jail-break confrontation that we have our priorities wrong, that if Waldenhall found what he was searching for on Arcanius that it’d spell danger everyone (which leads me to think at some point we can see eye to eye with Crescent, maybe form a temporary truce to take down Waldenhall).

I mean if their goal is to stop Waldenhall from achieving his goals then I’d say it sorta falls in line with their original motives. Crescent wasn’t inherently an “evil” team, just majorly misguided in their pursuit of peace. Waldenhall is clearly a huge threat to Ayrith now and they probably think it’s up to them to stop him.

Maybe the shift to Perfection research is to fight fire with fire, to be able to contend with the Black Foxes and Waldenhall in case they fail to stop them from achieving Perfection.

2)

Unless something happens to him in Chryseum Canyon. Since that canyon could become a hot bed of conflict when we roll up to the party, what with the twins ordered to distract our group and Hardy skulking around there for some reason… Besides that, I doubt it as well. Poor Hardy man, he can’t catch a break.

 

Tell me about it, I’m quite invested in the Tristan mystery. It shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to give us some information Ava. As much as I like giving Ava grief about it, I’m honestly starting to wonder if that’s really all she knows about the matter. I have no clue. And any potential information from Tristan about the subject is now a no-go thanks to Darkrai.

Now that you mention it is strange no one in Adenfall mentions the death either. It could be that most of the town just wants to move on, bringing up a death can be a touchy topic for some. It’d be nice to have some more answers soon. Maybe we’ll dig up more information about Tristan in the Dreamscape since at least he had a presence there. You know…Tristan and Hendrick are kinda in the same boat. They don’t seem to have a presence in Ayrith. No one seems to know what happened to either of them. Being a normal type specialist seems like a pretty cursed job honestly.

 

Regarding the dev blog dialogue:

I completely agree with you on both points.

Assuming one of the speakers is Baron then I’d say it’s Waldenhall and the Ruins. Although Baron does view Shiv as a threat on the island, his reaction to Shiv’s arrival doesn’t sound nearly as worried as he did back in Cellia East when talking about Waldenhall and his plans. So, my money is on Waldenhall.

Although that makes me question what exactly was Artem’s work? I mean we know he has somehow gained information from the Grid, but we don’t know if that was his main objective in the Grid or if it was a byproduct stemming from his actual work.

 

Pertaining to the second one...I’m not sure myself.

I do agree that at least the second speaker is definitely Waldenhall. Since it’s from the version 6 dev blog I’d assume “she” is at least in reference to someone we know. The line “she” is referenced in is all about the cost of power and how she is an example of that. Possible candidates could be Nova, Amelia, or Lilith. Nova has some funky powers but at the cost of her free will. Amelia is chasing power but has yet to reap what she’s sown. And Lilith’s umbreon has reached Perfection but that state is causing her Pokémon a great deal of anguish.

If the first speaker is indeed Reeve, then I suppose Lilith could possibly fit. After all he was one of the first to delve into Perfection research and Lilith’s umbreon is a prime example of how Perfection can come at a cost.

If it isn’t Reeve, then who? We only know of a few people Waldenhall has had contact with. I doubt he’s talking with Amelia; she so far hasn’t been one to shy away from chasing power and she hasn’t been shown to be this cautious. Maybe Lilith could be the first speaker. She has been trying to decipher her umbreon’s new state and Waldenhall could have presented her potential new findings on this subject (maybe this convo was when they shifted their search away from the Grid and more on Perfection). I wouldn’t be surprised if she had some reservations on whether or not these findings would prove fruitful. And she is smart enough to know that Waldenhall is in it for his goals alone, hence a bit of caution is warranted.

Since Lilith can’t be referencing herself in this scenario then the “she” could be Nova. She knows enough about Nova’s situation and there’s also the fact that the situation with Nova was the catalyst for umbreon to reach a Perfection state which has been both a blessing and a curse.

All that being said I’m gonna go with Reeve and Waldenhall, with Reeve referencing Lilith.

 

Just gonna tag this on at the end here: while parsing through dialogue I kinda ended up wondering about the Great Tree of Visinite. It’s a pretty unique, and mysterious tree and so far, we don’t know much about it. According to Waldenhall that the roots of the tree is producing a supercharged energy that permeates throughout the entire island. Besides that, we know Raikou visits to recharge himself.  

Could that energy be charging or powering something besides Raikou on the island? For the energy to seep across the entirety of the island…that has to be at least influencing something in a major way, yeah?

 

 

1. It's never too late to come up with crazy theories. And yeah, now that I think about it, you're right- we really know nothing about Nova. Hopefully we'll learn more about her in future episodes.

 

2. Come to think of it, in the Cellia Library, there's an NPC who brings up that nobody seems to know anything about Shiv, and even says that it makes no sense considering that he's a champion, if not *the* champion. And you're right, despite knowing a bunch of Gym Leaders, nobody's ever mentioned the champion. Ava mentioned that the Elite Four never respond to her messages, but it's almost like there is no champion. 

 

Replies squared:

 

1. I agree that the situation does seem primed for a team-up with Crescent. At the end of the day, the good guys don't really have enough firepower for this (especially since there's at least two Gym Leaders who could be recruited into the fight but haven't been for some reason) and even after Garret wiped out like thirty Foxes by himself, they've got the numbers and between the Foxes and Darkrai, things are escalating rapidly.

 

2. It's off-topic, but the Chryseum Canyon thing feels a bit weird to me because it's coming in the seventh of ten episodes, but it feels like end-game territory. We've got all three bad guy teams in or heading for the same place at the same time, and the good guys are chasing them. IDK what's going to happen, but it feels like something's going to explode. 

 

...come to think about it, what exactly were Darkrai and the twins doing for all of E6? I know it probably wasn't more than a few days, but were they really just twiddling their thumbs on top of the canyon, waiting for Darkrai to spontaneously re-attain Perfection?

 

 

 

Or maybe... Tristan and Hendrick are the same person! *dun dun dun* He faked his death and ran off to be the Normal-type Elite Four guy, and then after the cruise ship happened, he was possessed by Darkrai and made to befriend us!

 

...yeah, probably not.

 

Fuck it, maybe they were both Dittos.

 

 

I went back and looked at the dev blog again, and here's what we're told about Artem:

 

'While being a significant part of Team Crescent, Artem is equally ambitious to his own causes, that is, his research on the Grid, a mysterious and poorly understood plane of existence outside of Ayrith, and Perfection, a state of being that is currently understood to be related to evolution. Prior to E6, Artem has been in the deeper regions of the Grid, researching the area and trying to better understand it.'

 

So I'm guessing he's been wandering around the Grid, getting really sick of the colour purple for a few months, if he hasn't been rescuing lost children in the process.

 

 

 

I agree that it's likely Reeve. It occurs to me that he could be talking about their Perfection experiments, saying that they can't fuck it up again. But given that their experiments ended with the test subjects dying, it seems an awfully callous way to talk about it, and Reeve doesn't seem that callous.

 

Your idea that 'she' refers to Lilith did give me an idea, though. Here's what we know:

 

-Reeve and Waldenhall worked together on Perfection for years, some time ago.

-Their experiments had a 100% fatality rate. Reeve told the Council, which got them fired; Waldenhall saw this as an unforgivable betrayal.

-Some years later, Reeve publicly hasn't touched Perfection in years, but privately, he has a lab in the nightclub he owns and is still carrying out research.

-Despite presumably having not seen or talked to Waldenhall since they got fired (going by the dialogue in the end cutscene), Reeve was able to contact him and set up a meeting.

-Garret says Reeve came from nothing and at one point was on the streets; I can't remember when, but I think at one point a Crescent grunt says Reeve spent some time on the wrong side of the law.

-Despite that, Reeve somehow became the city's top fashion designer and Cellia East's Gym Leader.

-Reeve says that he made the serum he and Waldenhall used in their experiments from energy he found below the city, but the Foxes were long gone.

-Except, we know for a fact that the Foxes were still using their Undercity base up until the player stormed it.

-We only get to East after Amelia pulled the Foxes out of Cellia and went to Arcanius, but nobody in East ever mentions having a problem with the Foxes, IIRC. And Reeve doesn't mention them as being a problem, just Crescent.

 

 

So, here's my theory: I think that Reeve is either a Black Fox or that the Black Foxes have some kind of hold over him, probably the latter. It's possible that they've been funding his pursuits in exchange for his continued work on Perfection- I imagine they didn't tell him that Waldenhall was working for them as well, but given that Reeve managed to discover and make things that he kept secret from Waldenhall, I can see the Foxes wanting Reeve on their side. It's possible that they either stayed out of East or made sure not to make any problems in East so Reeve wouldn't have a reason to stomp them down. And it's possible that he made a connection with Lilith and that's how he got the energy from Umbreon- after all, he was just a researcher at the time, not an enemy, and that would have given Lilith a connection to Waldenhall for later. (It also supports my theory that Reeve is an alcoholic who drinks because of all the myriad fuckups in his past, one of which would be his ties to the Foxes.) I don't think that Reeve is actively working against the good guys- he may now be working for Lilith as a double agent- but he's definitely got more secrets that he hasn't told us.

 

 

I actually like that theory a lot! It's true that there's some weird stuff going on with Arcanius- Chryseum's got some weird stuff as well, as I recall, and Astraciel Forest supposedly feels enchanted or sapient. We'll probably find out more in episode 7.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Amare

[Luri]

On 5/31/2023 at 11:39 AM, Amare said:

 

 

1. It's never too late to come up with crazy theories. And yeah, now that I think about it, you're right- we really know nothing about Nova. Hopefully we'll learn more about her in future episodes.

 

2. Come to think of it, in the Cellia Library, there's an NPC who brings up that nobody seems to know anything about Shiv, and even says that it makes no sense considering that he's a champion, if not *the* champion. And you're right, despite knowing a bunch of Gym Leaders, nobody's ever mentioned the champion. Ava mentioned that the Elite Four never respond to her messages, but it's almost like there is no champion. 

 

Replies squared:

 

1. I agree that the situation does seem primed for a team-up with Crescent. At the end of the day, the good guys don't really have enough firepower for this (especially since there's at least two Gym Leaders who could be recruited into the fight but haven't been for some reason) and even after Garret wiped out like thirty Foxes by himself, they've got the numbers and between the Foxes and Darkrai, things are escalating rapidly.

 

2. It's off-topic, but the Chryseum Canyon thing feels a bit weird to me because it's coming in the seventh of ten episodes, but it feels like end-game territory. We've got all three bad guy teams in or heading for the same place at the same time, and the good guys are chasing them. IDK what's going to happen, but it feels like something's going to explode. 

 

...come to think about it, what exactly were Darkrai and the twins doing for all of E6? I know it probably wasn't more than a few days, but were they really just twiddling their thumbs on top of the canyon, waiting for Darkrai to spontaneously re-attain Perfection?

 

 

 

Or maybe... Tristan and Hendrick are the same person! *dun dun dun* He faked his death and ran off to be the Normal-type Elite Four guy, and then after the cruise ship happened, he was possessed by Darkrai and made to befriend us!

 

...yeah, probably not.

 

Fuck it, maybe they were both Dittos.

 

 

I went back and looked at the dev blog again, and here's what we're told about Artem:

 

'While being a significant part of Team Crescent, Artem is equally ambitious to his own causes, that is, his research on the Grid, a mysterious and poorly understood plane of existence outside of Ayrith, and Perfection, a state of being that is currently understood to be related to evolution. Prior to E6, Artem has been in the deeper regions of the Grid, researching the area and trying to better understand it.'

 

So I'm guessing he's been wandering around the Grid, getting really sick of the colour purple for a few months, if he hasn't been rescuing lost children in the process.

 

 

 

I agree that it's likely Reeve. It occurs to me that he could be talking about their Perfection experiments, saying that they can't fuck it up again. But given that their experiments ended with the test subjects dying, it seems an awfully callous way to talk about it, and Reeve doesn't seem that callous.

 

Your idea that 'she' refers to Lilith did give me an idea, though. Here's what we know:

 

-Reeve and Waldenhall worked together on Perfection for years, some time ago.

-Their experiments had a 100% fatality rate. Reeve told the Council, which got them fired; Waldenhall saw this as an unforgivable betrayal.

-Some years later, Reeve publicly hasn't touched Perfection in years, but privately, he has a lab in the nightclub he owns and is still carrying out research.

-Despite presumably having not seen or talked to Waldenhall since they got fired (going by the dialogue in the end cutscene), Reeve was able to contact him and set up a meeting.

-Garret says Reeve came from nothing and at one point was on the streets; I can't remember when, but I think at one point a Crescent grunt says Reeve spent some time on the wrong side of the law.

-Despite that, Reeve somehow became the city's top fashion designer and Cellia East's Gym Leader.

-Reeve says that he made the serum he and Waldenhall used in their experiments from energy he found below the city, but the Foxes were long gone.

-Except, we know for a fact that the Foxes were still using their Undercity base up until the player stormed it.

-We only get to East after Amelia pulled the Foxes out of Cellia and went to Arcanius, but nobody in East ever mentions having a problem with the Foxes, IIRC. And Reeve doesn't mention them as being a problem, just Crescent.

 

 

So, here's my theory: I think that Reeve is either a Black Fox or that the Black Foxes have some kind of hold over him, probably the latter. It's possible that they've been funding his pursuits in exchange for his continued work on Perfection- I imagine they didn't tell him that Waldenhall was working for them as well, but given that Reeve managed to discover and make things that he kept secret from Waldenhall, I can see the Foxes wanting Reeve on their side. It's possible that they either stayed out of East or made sure not to make any problems in East so Reeve wouldn't have a reason to stomp them down. And it's possible that he made a connection with Lilith and that's how he got the energy from Umbreon- after all, he was just a researcher at the time, not an enemy, and that would have given Lilith a connection to Waldenhall for later. (It also supports my theory that Reeve is an alcoholic who drinks because of all the myriad fuckups in his past, one of which would be his ties to the Foxes.) I don't think that Reeve is actively working against the good guys- he may now be working for Lilith as a double agent- but he's definitely got more secrets that he hasn't told us.

 

 

I actually like that theory a lot! It's true that there's some weird stuff going on with Arcanius- Chryseum's got some weird stuff as well, as I recall, and Astraciel Forest supposedly feels enchanted or sapient. We'll probably find out more in episode 7.

 

 

 

 

1)

Absolutely! Also I do hope so. With the Perfection Serum at play anyone’s past seems to be at our fingertips, assuming the protagonist can get a high-five from them. If Nova doesn’t outright tell us maybe we could see a bit of her past instead. Besides Nova I’m kinda hoping we get an opportunity to high-five Jarred. I must know what he is lol.

2)

Yep, and she’s the only NPC that does so as far as I remember.

It may be intentional on his part. Shiv does seem like the type who’s more invested in the elusive and his goals rather than maintaining public appearance. It could just be he likes to keep off the grid or just doesn’t bother with duties and whatnot.  

And if I’m getting the order of events correct a good chunk of his life has been under the influence of Darkrai. I’m pretty sure it’d be hard for someone with a status like that to skulk about causing mischief to the magnitude they do so having a low profile would be beneficial. If it isn’t his intention, I have no clue why.

None of that explains why no one talks about the champion though. Like I could see something along the lines of him leaving after gaining the title, so no one really knows what he looks like, and within time everyone becomes enamored with the heroes of the Elite Four and sort of forgets about the Champion and he becomes some mysterious urban legend in Ayrith. That seems reasonable enough, I think. But seriously, not one soul besides that NPC mentions the champion XD. Like even the media seems to skew the attention towards the three Elites when you’d think the champion would be front and center. If that skew is intentional, then that seems to be even more evidence of obfuscation.

Right? It’s super peculiar. First, they are missing a member of the Elite Four and now they don’t have a Champion…man what is going on in the Ayrith region?

 

Replies cubed:

1)

Yep, with the numbers that the Foxes have, Waldenhall, and Darkrai (possibly on the verge of obtaining Perfection) and the twins…that’s a lot of adversaries even for a protagonist and several gym leaders.

True, like what’s Aaron up to at this point? Not to mention our merry band of heroes keeps stretching our numbers even thinner. Garret ran off to intercept Waldenhall if possible and Ava is in Darkroot for some reason despite none of the major threats are currently situated there. At least we do have a bit of backup going into the Canyon but still.

I have a feeling Connor may cause some problems for us in either the Canyon or at a key moment later on. He’s getting a little too heated. And what better time for him to cause problems when time is of the essence.

Chances are Crescent may team-up when things are the most dire…unless someone explains to Baron that the group is also trying to stop Waldenhall and the Foxes.

2)

Like you said it does feel weird, like that’s a prime endgame setup right there. All the pieces are set up for a major twist or conflict of some sort. With so many pieces on the board at the same time there I can think of countless ways Chryseum Canyon could go down.

That…is a good question. While we don’t know his whole itinerary for those past several days, we do know Shiv visits Nova and the protagonist, and at some point, places the Black Piece in Lilith’s old lab.  But Aurora and Darkrai? Absolutely no clue. For all we know they were catching some rays on Sunshell Beach before heading up to the mountain.

Based on the dialogue bit at the very end it seemed to me that Darkrai was waiting for the entity to be released so maybe they were just waiting around. After all our group seems to be the only ones interested in taking Darkrai down, besides maybe Lilith, and it probably knows that. And it took time to pinpoint Darkrai’s location, so they had time on their hands.

But for them to be waiting around idly doesn’t seem Darkrai’s style not to mention it’s highly unproductive. I’m going out on a limb here and say that they could have been targeting Lilith during that time.

The note with the Black piece has a peculiar line that reads as following, “Thus, by removing her from the picture entirely, we finally regained control…”.

Regained is past tense, meaning it already has happened. Could one of their objectives while waiting was to make sure Lilith doesn’t interfere? It’s obvious that they knew where she would be. And it could explain why we haven’t heard anything regarding her in a while. Whether or not they completely succeeded by removing her from the picture remains to be seen, however. Besides that, I’m not sure what they were up to.

 

Good on Tristan for following his dreams! He finally made it big…before getting possessed lol Haha yeah probably not but still…makes you wonder, what a coincidence that turned out to be. Yep, that’s my headcanon now…Tristan and Hendrick are both dittos XD

 

Completely forgot about that! So, he is also dabbling in Perfection research as well then yeah it was probably Artem who swayed Baron and most likely initiated the shift to Perfection research. Fair enough, as much as I like the color purple, I’d probably be done with it after months of never-ending glittery purple too xD.

 

Oh, good point! Yeah, despite everything he doesn’t come off as callous, especially in comparison to someone like Waldenhall who pursued the same research. To me Reeve’s dialogue could also come off as cautious which could work with their convo. Like to avoid more deaths Waldenhall would need a massive breakthrough in Perfection research to warrant another attempt. Although being callous and cautious isn’t exactly mutually exclusive. It’s a bit difficult to interpret the tone without more context.

 

I’m definitely digging your theory. That would certainly explain why there were Foxes in every part of Cellia except the East district. And I never put two and two together…the Foxes were active in several underground hideouts throughout Cellia, including the Undercity base. It wasn’t likely Reeve could find the serum without running into Foxes. Nice catch! Besides, we swept through that place pretty thoroughly and never seen anything remotely like the serum, so I don’t think it was possible for Reeve to pick through the Undercity base after the raid and find the serum either. With that line of thinking a lot of smaller details make sense.

I’d say the latter. While Waldenhall is the type who works with whomever to get steps closer to his goal I don’t see Reeve being a member of the Foxes voluntarily. Especially if he was the one who told the Council and is actively drinking himself into a stupor because of his past regrets. Reeve absolutely has some more secrets I bet, though with him saying his peace to Waldenhall he may be a bit more willing to divulge those secrets.

Having Reeve as a double agent is a neat idea, especially if he did have prior dealings with her. She wants Darkrai gone, and he needs to stop Waldenhall. Our party happens to want both of those things. Works out well. It also helps Lilith keeps tabs whatever our current party is doing as well. We have no idea what she’s doing in the Astraciel, maybe she can swoop in and aid us at some point.

 

Yeah, the Astraciel has some mysterious energy to it, and I think Shiv’s journal mentioned something about something inside him pulling away when he tried to take a closer look or something along those lines. Anddd that there’s a whole underground section to Arcanius as well. Chryseum has some weird ruins and then there’s the Kanzen Temple. It’s looking possible that the Perfection Gem was discovered on Arcanius too. Not to mention that the protagonist was washed ashore on Darkroot Shore. Certainly, there’s so much about this island, I’m sure we will get at least get a bit more in version 7.

 

This is rehashing a bit of an older topic, but I just thought of another possibility. What if it wasn’t necessarily a Perfection screwup, the pursuers, or even the trainer themselves that landed them them in the mirror, but Darkrai instead? Or at least it played a bigger role in how things went down. (I know I blame Darkrai for, like, everything XD)

I can’t see Darkrai being a passive observer in these events upon closer inspection. Especially with the possibility of the trainer trying to banish Darkrai or something and the fact that the Perfection could have already warped Darkrai’s personality.

At the start of a new save we immediately get dialogue from an unknown person many many years ago. It’s most likely that trainer that was holed up in the Settler's Ruins, possibly at the very cusp of whatever went down.

Whatever they tried must have failed and they ran out of time and started to express sorrow, not wanting to lose Darkrai, the one remaining thing in their life. One particular line stands out though:

“Wait…what’s happening?! Darkrai…what’re you… Wait!”

To me it kinda sounds like Darkrai did something. Maybe Darkrai had its own plans or knowing about the trainer wanting to cast them aside at one point, stuffed them in the mirror. Or the Perfection screw-up happened and Darkrai bounced on out of there, leaving their trainer to their fate.

 

Fun little observation I had that doesn’t have too much bearing on things:

The mirror that the entity was in has an ornate golden frame inlayed with green gemstones. Gemstones in each of the four corners and two on the left and right side of the frame. While this is probably just mere coincidence, gold and green are a motif we see associated with Arceus (the mural of Arceus’s mantle in the Temple of Arceus for instance). The Perfection Gem that was found is referred to as “Divine Light” by both the priests of Kanzen Temple and the trainer from the journals (albeit I presume the gem itself probably looks like Deso’s current icon). Both light (usually golden) and divinity are also closely associated with Arceus.

At least the mirror motif could be just my mind making mountains out of molehills of course. I don’t really think Arceus itself or its powers are connected to any of the Perfection business but it kinda got me thinking about the name Divine Light. Those who discovered it probably thought something that powerful must come from the heavens, so maybe they did think it was something from Arceus or something and dubbed it Divine Light. Little did they know of the poisonous nature it has without a complete natural bond between Pokémon and human. It perfectly (pun intended lol) plays into the irony that is Perfection.

[Amare]

On 6/2/2023 at 11:55 AM, Luri said:

1)

Absolutely! Also I do hope so. With the Perfection Serum at play anyone’s past seems to be at our fingertips, assuming the protagonist can get a high-five from them. If Nova doesn’t outright tell us maybe we could see a bit of her past instead. Besides Nova I’m kinda hoping we get an opportunity to high-five Jarred. I must know what he is lol.

2)

Yep, and she’s the only NPC that does so as far as I remember.

It may be intentional on his part. Shiv does seem like the type who’s more invested in the elusive and his goals rather than maintaining public appearance. It could just be he likes to keep off the grid or just doesn’t bother with duties and whatnot.  

And if I’m getting the order of events correct a good chunk of his life has been under the influence of Darkrai. I’m pretty sure it’d be hard for someone with a status like that to skulk about causing mischief to the magnitude they do so having a low profile would be beneficial. If it isn’t his intention, I have no clue why.

None of that explains why no one talks about the champion though. Like I could see something along the lines of him leaving after gaining the title, so no one really knows what he looks like, and within time everyone becomes enamored with the heroes of the Elite Four and sort of forgets about the Champion and he becomes some mysterious urban legend in Ayrith. That seems reasonable enough, I think. But seriously, not one soul besides that NPC mentions the champion XD. Like even the media seems to skew the attention towards the three Elites when you’d think the champion would be front and center. If that skew is intentional, then that seems to be even more evidence of obfuscation.

Right? It’s super peculiar. First, they are missing a member of the Elite Four and now they don’t have a Champion…man what is going on in the Ayrith region?

 

Replies cubed:

1)

Yep, with the numbers that the Foxes have, Waldenhall, and Darkrai (possibly on the verge of obtaining Perfection) and the twins…that’s a lot of adversaries even for a protagonist and several gym leaders.

True, like what’s Aaron up to at this point? Not to mention our merry band of heroes keeps stretching our numbers even thinner. Garret ran off to intercept Waldenhall if possible and Ava is in Darkroot for some reason despite none of the major threats are currently situated there. At least we do have a bit of backup going into the Canyon but still.

I have a feeling Connor may cause some problems for us in either the Canyon or at a key moment later on. He’s getting a little too heated. And what better time for him to cause problems when time is of the essence.

Chances are Crescent may team-up when things are the most dire…unless someone explains to Baron that the group is also trying to stop Waldenhall and the Foxes.

2)

Like you said it does feel weird, like that’s a prime endgame setup right there. All the pieces are set up for a major twist or conflict of some sort. With so many pieces on the board at the same time there I can think of countless ways Chryseum Canyon could go down.

That…is a good question. While we don’t know his whole itinerary for those past several days, we do know Shiv visits Nova and the protagonist, and at some point, places the Black Piece in Lilith’s old lab.  But Aurora and Darkrai? Absolutely no clue. For all we know they were catching some rays on Sunshell Beach before heading up to the mountain.

Based on the dialogue bit at the very end it seemed to me that Darkrai was waiting for the entity to be released so maybe they were just waiting around. After all our group seems to be the only ones interested in taking Darkrai down, besides maybe Lilith, and it probably knows that. And it took time to pinpoint Darkrai’s location, so they had time on their hands.

But for them to be waiting around idly doesn’t seem Darkrai’s style not to mention it’s highly unproductive. I’m going out on a limb here and say that they could have been targeting Lilith during that time.

The note with the Black piece has a peculiar line that reads as following, “Thus, by removing her from the picture entirely, we finally regained control…”.

Regained is past tense, meaning it already has happened. Could one of their objectives while waiting was to make sure Lilith doesn’t interfere? It’s obvious that they knew where she would be. And it could explain why we haven’t heard anything regarding her in a while. Whether or not they completely succeeded by removing her from the picture remains to be seen, however. Besides that, I’m not sure what they were up to.

 

Good on Tristan for following his dreams! He finally made it big…before getting possessed lol Haha yeah probably not but still…makes you wonder, what a coincidence that turned out to be. Yep, that’s my headcanon now…Tristan and Hendrick are both dittos XD

 

Completely forgot about that! So, he is also dabbling in Perfection research as well then yeah it was probably Artem who swayed Baron and most likely initiated the shift to Perfection research. Fair enough, as much as I like the color purple, I’d probably be done with it after months of never-ending glittery purple too xD.

 

Oh, good point! Yeah, despite everything he doesn’t come off as callous, especially in comparison to someone like Waldenhall who pursued the same research. To me Reeve’s dialogue could also come off as cautious which could work with their convo. Like to avoid more deaths Waldenhall would need a massive breakthrough in Perfection research to warrant another attempt. Although being callous and cautious isn’t exactly mutually exclusive. It’s a bit difficult to interpret the tone without more context.

 

I’m definitely digging your theory. That would certainly explain why there were Foxes in every part of Cellia except the East district. And I never put two and two together…the Foxes were active in several underground hideouts throughout Cellia, including the Undercity base. It wasn’t likely Reeve could find the serum without running into Foxes. Nice catch! Besides, we swept through that place pretty thoroughly and never seen anything remotely like the serum, so I don’t think it was possible for Reeve to pick through the Undercity base after the raid and find the serum either. With that line of thinking a lot of smaller details make sense.

I’d say the latter. While Waldenhall is the type who works with whomever to get steps closer to his goal I don’t see Reeve being a member of the Foxes voluntarily. Especially if he was the one who told the Council and is actively drinking himself into a stupor because of his past regrets. Reeve absolutely has some more secrets I bet, though with him saying his peace to Waldenhall he may be a bit more willing to divulge those secrets.

Having Reeve as a double agent is a neat idea, especially if he did have prior dealings with her. She wants Darkrai gone, and he needs to stop Waldenhall. Our party happens to want both of those things. Works out well. It also helps Lilith keeps tabs whatever our current party is doing as well. We have no idea what she’s doing in the Astraciel, maybe she can swoop in and aid us at some point.

 

Yeah, the Astraciel has some mysterious energy to it, and I think Shiv’s journal mentioned something about something inside him pulling away when he tried to take a closer look or something along those lines. Anddd that there’s a whole underground section to Arcanius as well. Chryseum has some weird ruins and then there’s the Kanzen Temple. It’s looking possible that the Perfection Gem was discovered on Arcanius too. Not to mention that the protagonist was washed ashore on Darkroot Shore. Certainly, there’s so much about this island, I’m sure we will get at least get a bit more in version 7.

 

This is rehashing a bit of an older topic, but I just thought of another possibility. What if it wasn’t necessarily a Perfection screwup, the pursuers, or even the trainer themselves that landed them them in the mirror, but Darkrai instead? Or at least it played a bigger role in how things went down. (I know I blame Darkrai for, like, everything XD)

I can’t see Darkrai being a passive observer in these events upon closer inspection. Especially with the possibility of the trainer trying to banish Darkrai or something and the fact that the Perfection could have already warped Darkrai’s personality.

At the start of a new save we immediately get dialogue from an unknown person many many years ago. It’s most likely that trainer that was holed up in the Settler's Ruins, possibly at the very cusp of whatever went down.

Whatever they tried must have failed and they ran out of time and started to express sorrow, not wanting to lose Darkrai, the one remaining thing in their life. One particular line stands out though:

“Wait…what’s happening?! Darkrai…what’re you… Wait!”

To me it kinda sounds like Darkrai did something. Maybe Darkrai had its own plans or knowing about the trainer wanting to cast them aside at one point, stuffed them in the mirror. Or the Perfection screw-up happened and Darkrai bounced on out of there, leaving their trainer to their fate.

 

Fun little observation I had that doesn’t have too much bearing on things:

The mirror that the entity was in has an ornate golden frame inlayed with green gemstones. Gemstones in each of the four corners and two on the left and right side of the frame. While this is probably just mere coincidence, gold and green are a motif we see associated with Arceus (the mural of Arceus’s mantle in the Temple of Arceus for instance). The Perfection Gem that was found is referred to as “Divine Light” by both the priests of Kanzen Temple and the trainer from the journals (albeit I presume the gem itself probably looks like Deso’s current icon). Both light (usually golden) and divinity are also closely associated with Arceus.

At least the mirror motif could be just my mind making mountains out of molehills of course. I don’t really think Arceus itself or its powers are connected to any of the Perfection business but it kinda got me thinking about the name Divine Light. Those who discovered it probably thought something that powerful must come from the heavens, so maybe they did think it was something from Arceus or something and dubbed it Divine Light. Little did they know of the poisonous nature it has without a complete natural bond between Pokémon and human. It perfectly (pun intended lol) plays into the irony that is Perfection.

 

1. I feel like if we high-fived Jarred and got a flashback, it'd just break the protagonist's brain and lead to a bad ending.

 

2. Yeah, either there's some intentional fuckery going on, or Ayrith really, really needs some better management regarding its Elite Four and Gyms, especially since it seems like nobody bothered to find a replacement for Tristan for five years. I'd say 'this is why Ayrith needs an Ame or Amanda', but considering what happened to them both... maybe not.

 

...or maybe whoever was in charge of management got taken out as well, who knows?

 

Replies ^4:

 

1. Connor definitely seems like he's either upset about something or just needs to chill the hell out already. I'm hoping we can call in Aaron, Rosetta and maybe Aderyn for help. (Or we could just throw Jarred at Waldenhall and see what happens). Of course, it'd also be the perfect time for Lilith to return and reveal that she and Nova were working together all along and unbeknownst even to their members, the Black Foxes and Crescent are two halves of the same organisation. /s (That being said, Lilith and Nova *did* seem pretty cozy in that one cutscene, though it might have just been solidarity between ex-Darkrai pawns.)

 

2. Wait, what Black Piece? I went back and checked the lab near Fairbale, but there was no Black Piece there, just a book.

 

I feel like there's another possible explanation- maybe there's something they needed in the Canyon itself. After all, we never got any real reason as to why they went there, of all places. The new dev blog says that 'The history of the canyon is well storied... but despite that, there are still missing pieces of the puzzle, and a large mystery that only a small, unfortunate handful are privy to...'

 

So I'll bet that the twins and Darkrai are in that handful.

 

 

Regarding the possible Reeve/Waldenhall conversation, it's basically all but confirmed in-universe, but it hasn't really been openly said in the game: Reeve and Waldenhall obviously did a ton of research during their time working for the Council, but I don't know how many accounts of past attempts to make artificial Perfection even exist, let alone how many they found. Reeve says he studied what happens when both people and Pokemon reach Perfection artificially, and the way he and Waldenhall talked about it at the end confirmed it for me- they don't reference past accounts or anything, they talk about it like it happened in front of them. That is, I think Reeve and Waldenhall were experimenting not only on Pokemon, but on humans- and as we know, all their test subjects died. I'm guessing that the only part that those outside the Council know is that they experimented on Pokemon who died, otherwise they both would probably be in jail, and even if they escaped prison, I doubt Reeve would have become a Gym Leader. So I think the dialogue in question is from the following scenario: they tested on Pokemon who died, Waldenhall thinks he's got everything perfect for the test on humans, and Reeve is understandably wary.

 

 

Now, regarding my Reeve theory, I agree that he's likely not an actual member. It especially makes sense when you recall that Waldenhall was suspecting that Reeve was keeping things from him; given that Lilith would have wanted as much information and people working on her Perfection research as possible, I doubt that she would have overlooked that Waldenhall had a very talented student. It seems obvious that Reeve wouldn't have agreed to join- especially since I really doubt that the Black Foxes care about whether or not anyone they test artificial Perfection on would die, as long as the cops didn't find out and it wasn't anybody likely to be missed- but yeah, I can see Lilith either blackmailing, buying or recruiting Reeve- but for herself, not for the Foxes. 

 

 

 

And Reeve mentioned that Arcanius has a long history with Perfection. We'll probably learn more about the people behind the ruins in Fairbale, too.

 

 

I went back and reread that dialogue, and it made me think: it seems evident that the unknown speaker was either trying to save Darkrai or elevate it to Perfection artificially (or, save Darkrai from dying because it reached Perfection artificially). But now I'm wondering: the unknown speaker seemed to be lamenting an impossible situation. What if Darkrai reached Perfection because of that, but it combined with artificial Perfection and something went amiss? I don't know if that's even possible, but it's an intriguing thought. Maybe that's why Darkrai reached Perfection, but then lost it at some point.

 

 

That's actually a really fascinating point, and it makes a lot of sense. When you consider that natural Perfection seems to come from impossible circumstances, I can see why people might think that Perfection is a divine gift. Waldenhall talks about the priests like they're nothing but fanatics, but I wonder, do they worship Perfection, or something like it? 

 

 

[Luri]

On 6/5/2023 at 4:22 AM, Amare said:

 

1. I feel like if we high-fived Jarred and got a flashback, it'd just break the protagonist's brain and lead to a bad ending.

 

2. Yeah, either there's some intentional fuckery going on, or Ayrith really, really needs some better management regarding its Elite Four and Gyms, especially since it seems like nobody bothered to find a replacement for Tristan for five years. I'd say 'this is why Ayrith needs an Ame or Amanda', but considering what happened to them both... maybe not.

 

...or maybe whoever was in charge of management got taken out as well, who knows?

 

Replies ^4:

 

1. Connor definitely seems like he's either upset about something or just needs to chill the hell out already. I'm hoping we can call in Aaron, Rosetta and maybe Aderyn for help. (Or we could just throw Jarred at Waldenhall and see what happens). Of course, it'd also be the perfect time for Lilith to return and reveal that she and Nova were working together all along and unbeknownst even to their members, the Black Foxes and Crescent are two halves of the same organisation. /s (That being said, Lilith and Nova *did* seem pretty cozy in that one cutscene, though it might have just been solidarity between ex-Darkrai pawns.)

 

2. Wait, what Black Piece? I went back and checked the lab near Fairbale, but there was no Black Piece there, just a book.

 

I feel like there's another possible explanation- maybe there's something they needed in the Canyon itself. After all, we never got any real reason as to why they went there, of all places. The new dev blog says that 'The history of the canyon is well storied... but despite that, there are still missing pieces of the puzzle, and a large mystery that only a small, unfortunate handful are privy to...'

 

So I'll bet that the twins and Darkrai are in that handful.

 

 

Regarding the possible Reeve/Waldenhall conversation, it's basically all but confirmed in-universe, but it hasn't really been openly said in the game: Reeve and Waldenhall obviously did a ton of research during their time working for the Council, but I don't know how many accounts of past attempts to make artificial Perfection even exist, let alone how many they found. Reeve says he studied what happens when both people and Pokemon reach Perfection artificially, and the way he and Waldenhall talked about it at the end confirmed it for me- they don't reference past accounts or anything, they talk about it like it happened in front of them. That is, I think Reeve and Waldenhall were experimenting not only on Pokemon, but on humans- and as we know, all their test subjects died. I'm guessing that the only part that those outside the Council know is that they experimented on Pokemon who died, otherwise they both would probably be in jail, and even if they escaped prison, I doubt Reeve would have become a Gym Leader. So I think the dialogue in question is from the following scenario: they tested on Pokemon who died, Waldenhall thinks he's got everything perfect for the test on humans, and Reeve is understandably wary.

 

 

Now, regarding my Reeve theory, I agree that he's likely not an actual member. It especially makes sense when you recall that Waldenhall was suspecting that Reeve was keeping things from him; given that Lilith would have wanted as much information and people working on her Perfection research as possible, I doubt that she would have overlooked that Waldenhall had a very talented student. It seems obvious that Reeve wouldn't have agreed to join- especially since I really doubt that the Black Foxes care about whether or not anyone they test artificial Perfection on would die, as long as the cops didn't find out and it wasn't anybody likely to be missed- but yeah, I can see Lilith either blackmailing, buying or recruiting Reeve- but for herself, not for the Foxes. 

 

 

 

And Reeve mentioned that Arcanius has a long history with Perfection. We'll probably learn more about the people behind the ruins in Fairbale, too.

 

 

I went back and reread that dialogue, and it made me think: it seems evident that the unknown speaker was either trying to save Darkrai or elevate it to Perfection artificially (or, save Darkrai from dying because it reached Perfection artificially). But now I'm wondering: the unknown speaker seemed to be lamenting an impossible situation. What if Darkrai reached Perfection because of that, but it combined with artificial Perfection and something went amiss? I don't know if that's even possible, but it's an intriguing thought. Maybe that's why Darkrai reached Perfection, but then lost it at some point.

 

 

That's actually a really fascinating point, and it makes a lot of sense. When you consider that natural Perfection seems to come from impossible circumstances, I can see why people might think that Perfection is a divine gift. Waldenhall talks about the priests like they're nothing but fanatics, but I wonder, do they worship Perfection, or something like it? 

 

 

 

1)

Haha yeah it will undoubtedly fracture the protagonist’s psyche and give us a bad end but I am determined to see all the bad endings at the expense of the protagonist so bring it on! We already do have a sort of bad end with Jarred (albeit it is mostly not canon to the plot of the game as far as I know, so it’d be neat to see an actual canon ending involving him xD).

2)

Five years of handing out badges for free, that’s gotta be against regulations of some kind. That’s such a major oversight on the League’s part it has to be intentional. At some point Jarred got the boot but no one decided to replace Tristan. Someone even let Connor into the League not too long ago XD Even the NPC near Tristan’s gym says she has been told not to let anyone near the gym. They know the position is vacant and aren’t doing anything about it.

Yeahhhh it wouldn’t end well for whomever ended up elected as an administrative official considering those two…maybe it’s for the better lol.

Taking out upper management is also a possibility especially when there are methods of entrapment in Ayrith that don’t require brute force such as throwing people into the grid or sending them off to dreamland. Jeez, what if the entirety of the upper echelons of the League are just gone without a trace.

 

Replies ^{^}5:

1)

Connor does. I suppose he could still be worked up over what went down with Crescent and Scarlett. Combining those feelings with the mounting pressure from the Foxes and the Darkrai situation and I suppose he feels the need to pursue strength and eliminate every foe he comes across regardless of the situation. Though he did seem like he was pretty chill before the whole Darkrai situation. I wonder if there was some possible development during that time.

I’m sure we will be seeing at least one of them join us at some point. Aaron does seem the most likely after all he did say we’d be seeing more of each other at some point so I’m holding him to that. Rosetta seems to be taking a break and sorting out some personal stuff. Maybe we may see her after she gets that done and dusted. It’d be cool to see her join the group without her Rosetta persona, or at least a laid-back Rosetta persona and becoming more in tune with who she used to be before her idol status.  

Ooh Aderyn would be neat to pair up with. She’s been on the sidelines concerning the main plot, so it’d be fun to see her take action and get to know her a bit more. Maybe she can also talk about Azura and Hardy since they both hail from Celeste City. Although I have a feeling she’s gonna be more active on the ranger side of things. Maybe she’ll accompany the protagonist when we are unlocking Majira’s Rest. She seemed to get along well with that Virizion.

 

Duel of the century right there XD Waldenhall and Jarred duking it out would be a treat. Also, I’d love to see Baron’s reaction to Lilith dropping that bombshell on everyone lol.

There is indeed some solidarity going on between them. I also believe Lilith did in fact pledge to fight Darkrai with Nova and the protagonist before she went off the radar. Not only that but Nova mentions something quite strange during our time trying to get answers from Reeve. She mentions she cannot contact Lilith for some reason, but she keeps seeing a vision, or memory of some sort. One that doesn’t belong to her. A vision of Lilith’s umbreon that started after Darkrai entered Ayrith and Nova’s powers started to fade. Nova wonders if Lilith and her are somehow linked.

Linked how is the question.

 

I have no clue if this has any bearing on the link or anything of that matter but there are two gravestones in the Dreamscape that have Lilith and Nova’s name on them. I always thought that was a bit odd…when we first enter the Dreamscape Nova was still under Darkrai’s command to some degree so her and Lilith seeing eye to eye hasn’t exactly happened yet as far as I am aware. So, pairing those gravestones together is odd. Jarred is in the same vicinity as those gravestones and he does call that place his settlement…did he put those gravestones there? Are the gravestones an early hint at Nova and Lilith having a connection of some sort?

 

Also side question: why does the Dreamscape seem to alter some people’s feelings or personalities? We see it a lot from the residence of Odis with people losing their drive to battle or whatnot. Jarred seems pretty chill compared to his Ayrith personality. And we’ve got multiple examples of this happening to Shiv.

But then other people like Aurora, Nova (when she entered with the protagonist), some Crescent grunts and even the protagonist don’t seem affected by it.

Is it more of a willpower thing? Or Darkrai’s influence?

2)

Haha it’s just hidden, pretty well I may add. The book on the table in the righthand corner of the room (I think said book appears after interacting with the scraps on the table after the Ryder events), and the depiction on the floor are hints to gaining access to the piece. It’s quite a cheeky one compared to the others. I’m not sure if you wanna solve it yourself so I’ll leave it at that. Though the process of obtaining the Black piece is detailed in the Episode 6 Encounters, Passwords, Side Quests, and more post (the steps are under Ryder’s quest) if you just wanna collect it. This time the piece itself isn’t the most interesting thing but the note attached to it.

 

 

True, the canyon is home to several mysteries like some mysterious ruins, Kanzen Temple, and who knows what else. It’s quite possible that they went to the Canyon for a specific reason. And Darkrai was present during the entire thing way back when so it could also have needed something or been searching for something that we aren’t aware of yet. We don’t know what happened to the Perfection Gem, yeah? Maybe that’s what they were searching for.

 

Chances are it was probably a fair number of pokémon to get that kind of information pertaining to Perfection. It seems kinda unlikely they found much in the ways of prior research documents (the research documents that seem to depict the first discovery of Perfection and subsequent experiments were sealed in the Settler’s Ruins until recently). Also there doesn’t seem to be any recent pokémon or humans reaching a Perfection state, aside from Lilith and her Umbreon of course. Reeve’s notes in his lab even mention “various pokémon” so not only was more than several but of different types and whatnot as well.

I really like that interpretation. For Reeve to know the consequences of Perfection on humans their experimentation must have extended down that path at some point. It is some definite firsthand knowledge there. That seems like the most likely interpretation of the dialogue all things considered. And yeah, human experimentation may be a bit too much for the Council. I don’t remember when exactly the corruption of the Council started but yeah that could have either resulted in jail time at the very least, or potential blackmail against Reeve later on so it’s definitely a good thing they left out the whole human aspect. No wonder why Reeve turned to alcohol man.

We did see her sort of do that with Hardy, she specifically chose him and at some point, was using him to leave breadcrumbs for the protagonist so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Reeve was and or is still in such a position.

Absolutely, there’s at least a centuries' worth of history on Arcanius that’s integral to what’s happening currently so it’s more than likely we will get more information on them in due time. Quite an exciting prospect!

 

I do agree, it sounds like to me they were attempting to elevate Darkrai to a Perfection status. There are even diagrams in the ruins suggesting this.

Although it still makes me wonder if they were actively trying to ascend Darkrai why mention that Darkrai is a threat to the future they envisioned. Waldenhall even points out that it seems odd for them to try and cast aside their pokémon despite their connection to Perfection being strong. Also, I didn’t catch this before, but Waldenhall muses that the specific journal entry may prove that it is possible to ascend to Perfection without a pokémon (which is probably not true without some major consequences). Maybe at the start of the research the trainer was trying to ascend both themselves and Darkrai, but at some point, turned their research solely onto themselves. Possibly with the help of the Perfection Gem (and the mirror?). I suppose it is possible that they could have changed their mind after realizing how important Darkrai is to them (which at least seems to be the case during the beginning dialogue bit).

Motives aside, the dialogue seems to indicate whatever they tried failed, or like you’re saying they ended up in an impossible situation, and at that point the trainer definitely seemed to want to save Darkrai but it is unclear if they were able to do so.

That is a very intriguing thought. Considering the strict conditions to achieve natural perfection for both humans and pokémon and the emphasis on natural and purity versus synthetic and tainted makes me inclined to believe something could go awry when artificial Perfection is mixed with natural. But who knows for sure.

Another thought I had is that maybe the Perfection Gem could have caused a problem during the ascension phase. I assume the gem must be more potent than anything that has been encountered thus far, considering that most research in the current day and age has been dealing with concentrated amounts of Perfection energy. Maybe the potency could have resulted in either more drastic or altered repercussions for both the trainer and Darkrai? Such as Darkrai straight up losing Perfection status and the trainer becoming some ethereal entity.

 

That’s what I was thinking, they are priests after all. There may have been some worship or a spiritual view of Perfection going on. At least before Perfection started turning people to dust, at that point (some of the) priests called it a curse and started pursing the trainer southwards lol.

That being said, Kanzen Temple also kind of reflects this sort spiritual or religious mindset. Kanzen translates to perfect, perfection or completeness in Japanese. It is a temple, and one named after Perfection no less. They also use terminology that is more akin to spiritualism and divinity as well. For instance, “The Passing” as noted by Lilith in one of her logs.

A good question to ask is if they are privy to aspects of Perfection that scientists haven’t considered because of the bias they hold. After all, those conducting research like Waldenhall, and the trainer regard the priests as fanatics and probably don’t take much of what the priests say to heart. So, it’s possible those at Kanzen Temple may hold some sort of insight on Perfection that we haven’t seen yet.

[Amare]

On 6/7/2023 at 12:49 PM, Luri said:

 

1)

Haha yeah it will undoubtedly fracture the protagonist’s psyche and give us a bad end but I am determined to see all the bad endings at the expense of the protagonist so bring it on! We already do have a sort of bad end with Jarred (albeit it is mostly not canon to the plot of the game as far as I know, so it’d be neat to see an actual canon ending involving him xD).

2)

Five years of handing out badges for free, that’s gotta be against regulations of some kind. That’s such a major oversight on the League’s part it has to be intentional. At some point Jarred got the boot but no one decided to replace Tristan. Someone even let Connor into the League not too long ago XD Even the NPC near Tristan’s gym says she has been told not to let anyone near the gym. They know the position is vacant and aren’t doing anything about it.

Yeahhhh it wouldn’t end well for whomever ended up elected as an administrative official considering those two…maybe it’s for the better lol.

Taking out upper management is also a possibility especially when there are methods of entrapment in Ayrith that don’t require brute force such as throwing people into the grid or sending them off to dreamland. Jeez, what if the entirety of the upper echelons of the League are just gone without a trace.

 

Replies ^{^}5:

1)

Connor does. I suppose he could still be worked up over what went down with Crescent and Scarlett. Combining those feelings with the mounting pressure from the Foxes and the Darkrai situation and I suppose he feels the need to pursue strength and eliminate every foe he comes across regardless of the situation. Though he did seem like he was pretty chill before the whole Darkrai situation. I wonder if there was some possible development during that time.

I’m sure we will be seeing at least one of them join us at some point. Aaron does seem the most likely after all he did say we’d be seeing more of each other at some point so I’m holding him to that. Rosetta seems to be taking a break and sorting out some personal stuff. Maybe we may see her after she gets that done and dusted. It’d be cool to see her join the group without her Rosetta persona, or at least a laid-back Rosetta persona and becoming more in tune with who she used to be before her idol status.  

Ooh Aderyn would be neat to pair up with. She’s been on the sidelines concerning the main plot, so it’d be fun to see her take action and get to know her a bit more. Maybe she can also talk about Azura and Hardy since they both hail from Celeste City. Although I have a feeling she’s gonna be more active on the ranger side of things. Maybe she’ll accompany the protagonist when we are unlocking Majira’s Rest. She seemed to get along well with that Virizion.

 

Duel of the century right there XD Waldenhall and Jarred duking it out would be a treat. Also, I’d love to see Baron’s reaction to Lilith dropping that bombshell on everyone lol.

There is indeed some solidarity going on between them. I also believe Lilith did in fact pledge to fight Darkrai with Nova and the protagonist before she went off the radar. Not only that but Nova mentions something quite strange during our time trying to get answers from Reeve. She mentions she cannot contact Lilith for some reason, but she keeps seeing a vision, or memory of some sort. One that doesn’t belong to her. A vision of Lilith’s umbreon that started after Darkrai entered Ayrith and Nova’s powers started to fade. Nova wonders if Lilith and her are somehow linked.

Linked how is the question.

 

I have no clue if this has any bearing on the link or anything of that matter but there are two gravestones in the Dreamscape that have Lilith and Nova’s name on them. I always thought that was a bit odd…when we first enter the Dreamscape Nova was still under Darkrai’s command to some degree so her and Lilith seeing eye to eye hasn’t exactly happened yet as far as I am aware. So, pairing those gravestones together is odd. Jarred is in the same vicinity as those gravestones and he does call that place his settlement…did he put those gravestones there? Are the gravestones an early hint at Nova and Lilith having a connection of some sort?

 

Also side question: why does the Dreamscape seem to alter some people’s feelings or personalities? We see it a lot from the residence of Odis with people losing their drive to battle or whatnot. Jarred seems pretty chill compared to his Ayrith personality. And we’ve got multiple examples of this happening to Shiv.

But then other people like Aurora, Nova (when she entered with the protagonist), some Crescent grunts and even the protagonist don’t seem affected by it.

Is it more of a willpower thing? Or Darkrai’s influence?

2)

Haha it’s just hidden, pretty well I may add. The book on the table in the righthand corner of the room (I think said book appears after interacting with the scraps on the table after the Ryder events), and the depiction on the floor are hints to gaining access to the piece. It’s quite a cheeky one compared to the others. I’m not sure if you wanna solve it yourself so I’ll leave it at that. Though the process of obtaining the Black piece is detailed in the Episode 6 Encounters, Passwords, Side Quests, and more post (the steps are under Ryder’s quest) if you just wanna collect it. This time the piece itself isn’t the most interesting thing but the note attached to it.

 

 

True, the canyon is home to several mysteries like some mysterious ruins, Kanzen Temple, and who knows what else. It’s quite possible that they went to the Canyon for a specific reason. And Darkrai was present during the entire thing way back when so it could also have needed something or been searching for something that we aren’t aware of yet. We don’t know what happened to the Perfection Gem, yeah? Maybe that’s what they were searching for.

 

Chances are it was probably a fair number of pokémon to get that kind of information pertaining to Perfection. It seems kinda unlikely they found much in the ways of prior research documents (the research documents that seem to depict the first discovery of Perfection and subsequent experiments were sealed in the Settler’s Ruins until recently). Also there doesn’t seem to be any recent pokémon or humans reaching a Perfection state, aside from Lilith and her Umbreon of course. Reeve’s notes in his lab even mention “various pokémon” so not only was more than several but of different types and whatnot as well.

I really like that interpretation. For Reeve to know the consequences of Perfection on humans their experimentation must have extended down that path at some point. It is some definite firsthand knowledge there. That seems like the most likely interpretation of the dialogue all things considered. And yeah, human experimentation may be a bit too much for the Council. I don’t remember when exactly the corruption of the Council started but yeah that could have either resulted in jail time at the very least, or potential blackmail against Reeve later on so it’s definitely a good thing they left out the whole human aspect. No wonder why Reeve turned to alcohol man.

We did see her sort of do that with Hardy, she specifically chose him and at some point, was using him to leave breadcrumbs for the protagonist so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Reeve was and or is still in such a position.

Absolutely, there’s at least a centuries' worth of history on Arcanius that’s integral to what’s happening currently so it’s more than likely we will get more information on them in due time. Quite an exciting prospect!

 

I do agree, it sounds like to me they were attempting to elevate Darkrai to a Perfection status. There are even diagrams in the ruins suggesting this.

Although it still makes me wonder if they were actively trying to ascend Darkrai why mention that Darkrai is a threat to the future they envisioned. Waldenhall even points out that it seems odd for them to try and cast aside their pokémon despite their connection to Perfection being strong. Also, I didn’t catch this before, but Waldenhall muses that the specific journal entry may prove that it is possible to ascend to Perfection without a pokémon (which is probably not true without some major consequences). Maybe at the start of the research the trainer was trying to ascend both themselves and Darkrai, but at some point, turned their research solely onto themselves. Possibly with the help of the Perfection Gem (and the mirror?). I suppose it is possible that they could have changed their mind after realizing how important Darkrai is to them (which at least seems to be the case during the beginning dialogue bit).

Motives aside, the dialogue seems to indicate whatever they tried failed, or like you’re saying they ended up in an impossible situation, and at that point the trainer definitely seemed to want to save Darkrai but it is unclear if they were able to do so.

That is a very intriguing thought. Considering the strict conditions to achieve natural perfection for both humans and pokémon and the emphasis on natural and purity versus synthetic and tainted makes me inclined to believe something could go awry when artificial Perfection is mixed with natural. But who knows for sure.

Another thought I had is that maybe the Perfection Gem could have caused a problem during the ascension phase. I assume the gem must be more potent than anything that has been encountered thus far, considering that most research in the current day and age has been dealing with concentrated amounts of Perfection energy. Maybe the potency could have resulted in either more drastic or altered repercussions for both the trainer and Darkrai? Such as Darkrai straight up losing Perfection status and the trainer becoming some ethereal entity.

 

That’s what I was thinking, they are priests after all. There may have been some worship or a spiritual view of Perfection going on. At least before Perfection started turning people to dust, at that point (some of the) priests called it a curse and started pursing the trainer southwards lol.

That being said, Kanzen Temple also kind of reflects this sort spiritual or religious mindset. Kanzen translates to perfect, perfection or completeness in Japanese. It is a temple, and one named after Perfection no less. They also use terminology that is more akin to spiritualism and divinity as well. For instance, “The Passing” as noted by Lilith in one of her logs.

A good question to ask is if they are privy to aspects of Perfection that scientists haven’t considered because of the bias they hold. After all, those conducting research like Waldenhall, and the trainer regard the priests as fanatics and probably don’t take much of what the priests say to heart. So, it’s possible those at Kanzen Temple may hold some sort of insight on Perfection that we haven’t seen yet.

 

(Sorry for the late reply, I didn't have my computer for a while.)

 

2. I mean, there's always option 3, where it turns out that the Ayrith League is run by some guy who's just sick of his job and either went on vacation or is permanently stoned, and we get a whole episode where the protagonist deals with bureaucracy and recruits people to take over. But I'll assume it's probably nefarious. Maybe the Black Foxes were the real admins the whole time.

 

Replies ^6:

 

1. Yeah, I think Aaron seems most likely. As for Aderyn, I'm surprised she hasn't yet got involved with the Elliot clusterfuck yet, that's a nightmare and a half. Also, I don't recall Hardy being from Celeste, when was that mentioned?

 

 I noticed the gravestones as well. It does seem like the game is implying that there's a connection, but I don't know what it could be. Unless the flashback was lying, they first met when Nova tried to recruit/kidnap Lilith, but we don't know what happened after that, so there's a big interval that they could have spent becoming best buds/rivals/conspirators/whatever.

 

As for the Dreamscape, I think at least a lot of it is people reacting to the news that (or so they think) their entire life has been a lie and they're now in the 'real' world, which frankly sucks compared to the 'fake' world. That'd do a number on anyone's psyche, honestly. That being said, the Dreamscape is weird enough that I imagine at least some of it could have been induced. I suppose it makes sense that Jarred's doppelgänger would be completely lucid, at least...

 

2. ...well, shit. Excuse me, I think I need to go get an Umbreon.

 

I'm assuming that by 'Perfection Gem' you mean the Fragment that Waldenhall was looking for. I thought the entity was the so-called Fragment, or that Waldenhall's whatever he was using to sense Perfection energy picked up the entity and he mistakenly concluded that it was what he wanted it to be. (I mean, he's an arrogant prick, but to be fair, I don't think anyone expected the entity.)

 

Remind me, when was Lilith using Hardy to leave breadcrumbs for the protagonist? The only thing I remember along those lines is when she asks the player to meet her on Route 1.

 

 

 

That would actually make sense if the priests knew about more/other kinds of Perfection. So far we've mostly heard scientific theories and old folk tales, so maybe there's other ways to look at it. Episode 7's going to be awesome.

 

 

[Luri]

On 6/16/2023 at 1:10 AM, Amare said:

 

(Sorry for the late reply, I didn't have my computer for a while.)

 

2. I mean, there's always option 3, where it turns out that the Ayrith League is run by some guy who's just sick of his job and either went on vacation or is permanently stoned, and we get a whole episode where the protagonist deals with bureaucracy and recruits people to take over. But I'll assume it's probably nefarious. Maybe the Black Foxes were the real admins the whole time.

 

Replies ^6:

 

1. Yeah, I think Aaron seems most likely. As for Aderyn, I'm surprised she hasn't yet got involved with the Elliot clusterfuck yet, that's a nightmare and a half. Also, I don't recall Hardy being from Celeste, when was that mentioned?

 

 I noticed the gravestones as well. It does seem like the game is implying that there's a connection, but I don't know what it could be. Unless the flashback was lying, they first met when Nova tried to recruit/kidnap Lilith, but we don't know what happened after that, so there's a big interval that they could have spent becoming best buds/rivals/conspirators/whatever.

 

As for the Dreamscape, I think at least a lot of it is people reacting to the news that (or so they think) their entire life has been a lie and they're now in the 'real' world, which frankly sucks compared to the 'fake' world. That'd do a number on anyone's psyche, honestly. That being said, the Dreamscape is weird enough that I imagine at least some of it could have been induced. I suppose it makes sense that Jarred's doppelgänger would be completely lucid, at least...

 

2. ...well, shit. Excuse me, I think I need to go get an Umbreon.

 

I'm assuming that by 'Perfection Gem' you mean the Fragment that Waldenhall was looking for. I thought the entity was the so-called Fragment, or that Waldenhall's whatever he was using to sense Perfection energy picked up the entity and he mistakenly concluded that it was what he wanted it to be. (I mean, he's an arrogant prick, but to be fair, I don't think anyone expected the entity.)

 

Remind me, when was Lilith using Hardy to leave breadcrumbs for the protagonist? The only thing I remember along those lines is when she asks the player to meet her on Route 1.

 

 

 

That would actually make sense if the priests knew about more/other kinds of Perfection. So far we've mostly heard scientific theories and old folk tales, so maybe there's other ways to look at it. Episode 7's going to be awesome.

 

 

Hey, it's no problem at all! ^_^

 

1)

Given all that we know/don’t know about the League that seems pretty likely all things considered. I imagine being an admin for the League is quite an ordeal…being baked would make the job a heck of a lot easier. Or just outright skedaddling xD The Black Foxes running the League would definitely give them a huge advantage. And they are one of the few that could probably pull it off as well. If they are I’m highly curious how they managed to snag the admin position.

 

Replies ^{^}7:

 

1)

Yeah, I was pretty surprised she hasn’t seeing that she is a pretty well-known ranger herself. With Amaria Island devoid of trouble after the tussle with the Black Foxes and Crescent, it’s a bit of a surprise she didn’t catch wind of Elliot’s shenanigans and lend a helping hand. We have the Lightening Orb or whatever it will be called and two of Majira’s keys left to find, there’s still time for her to join us for an adventure or two.

 

Hardy mentions he’s from Celeste City the very first time the protagonist meets him on Route 1 before we go about destroying him in battle. That’s the only time he’s mentioned it.

 

It’s got me stumped as well. There is one obvious connection, being able to enter the dream and all that, but others tend to share that ability, so I doubt it’s something as simple as that. Maybe something of a connection was formed during that confrontation? It could have something to do with the Astraciel, where that confrontation took place. There’s some form of energy or presence there or something, maybe that ended up getting involved somehow. Other than that, it’s a big question mark for me.

I’d wager if the flashback was false, it must have been a half-truth situation. True to some extent but some details were altered or left out to a degree. Whether or not it was fake I do think there is definitely a bit more to that situation than meets the eye.

 

Agreed, while it is a bit hard to pin down how long ago that was, there has been more than enough time for Nova and Lilith to conspire after the fact. Although Nova was still influenced by Darkrai to some degree when the protagonist arrived in Ayrith. It seems a bit more likely the truce or whatever is going on between the two was established near the start of the game.

 

That is true. Undoubtedly learning that some dreary dark land is “reality” would do a number on anyone and quite a few side quests in the Dreamscape seem to suggest as much. Jarred and Shiv seem to be outliers in this case…maybe it’s a combination of both, the realization for the people of Odis that their life in Ayrith had been a lie and some Dreamscape weirdness. Or I suppose it’s just other things going on with those two.

Out of everyone I’m not surprised Jarred’s Dreamscape doppelganger would be the most lucid and normal of the bunch…dude’s obviously got some secrets going on.

 

2)

Haha an Umbreon may be helpful indeed ^_^

Yeah, the Perfection Gem has been referred to as the Divine Light and a fragment by the trainer in those journal entries in the Settler's Ruins.  It is likely the thing Waldenhall was searching for although I’m not sure if it’s what he found. I also thought that the entity was the fragment. It’d explain why the entity was able to attach fragments to both Waldenhall and the protagonist and why there was such an energy spike under Fairbale. Though rereading the journals and some other dialogue makes me wonder if they are separate entities. The trainer didn’t mention any sort of strange oddities surrounding it, like the fragment speaking to them for instance. And if the entity is the Perfection gem/fragment then what happened to the trainer? Did they fuse with the fragment or something?

 

Reeve also mentions near the end of v6 that the large source of Perfection the protagonist is chasing after is chilling in Astraciel, which is north of the Canyon, and it remains stationary. We know based on the last scene that Darkrai is located on some mountain top and that the entity seems to be visiting Darkrai, which places it around either Visinite Peak or Frozen Peak. Considering the snow Frozen Peak seems fitting. Frozen Peak is north of Astraciel, as far north as one can get on Arcanius. Even if Darkrai was perched on Visinite Peak, that’d be before the Astraciel. Assuming that one cutscene at the end wasn’t before Reeve giving the protagonist the location that means the large source of Perfection we are after cannot be the entity unless it can be in two places at once or something... then again, we are dealing with an ethereal being of unknown power…maybe it is possible?

 

My other line of thought kind of coincides with your other idea of Waldenhall mistaking the energy source for the Perfection fragment. No matter what happened down there we do know Perfection played a part to some degree. Whatever energy Waldenhall was picking up could have been residual energy or the entity that has a part of the Perfection fragment attached to it, or something to that degree.

Waldenhall is quiteee an arrogant prick but yeah, I highly doubt even the most astute researchers in Ayrith could have foreseen that. Can’t blame him there.

 

I went back and double-checked to make sure… the events of Cellia North led up to the protagonist finding a Pokeball that shed some more light on what Lilith went through. Since we ran into Hardy outside the Den, I had initially assumed he planted the Pokeball for Lilith while she was off doing whatever so the player could see the vision/memory that she wanted. Looking back, I suppose Lilith herself could have left the Pokeball in Cellia North prior to the raid as well.

However, Hardy does mention he was hoping that he could stop the protagonist and save them from what’s coming. So Hardy was at least informed by Lilith of the situation to some extent and was actively trying to prevent the worst-case scenario from unfolding. I suppose it depends on whether you count that as an instance of Hardy acting on Lilith’s orders or whatnot.

 

Yeppers, sometimes a different perspective can be beneficial when it comes to solving puzzles. And the priests certainly seem like they view Perfection differently so I’m quite curious to see how that plays out. There is no doubt about that. Episode 7 is gonna be one grand time!

 

[Amare]

On 6/21/2023 at 2:11 PM, Luri said:

Hey, it's no problem at all! ^_^

 

1)

Given all that we know/don’t know about the League that seems pretty likely all things considered. I imagine being an admin for the League is quite an ordeal…being baked would make the job a heck of a lot easier. Or just outright skedaddling xD The Black Foxes running the League would definitely give them a huge advantage. And they are one of the few that could probably pull it off as well. If they are I’m highly curious how they managed to snag the admin position.

 

Replies ^{^}7:

 

1)

Yeah, I was pretty surprised she hasn’t seeing that she is a pretty well-known ranger herself. With Amaria Island devoid of trouble after the tussle with the Black Foxes and Crescent, it’s a bit of a surprise she didn’t catch wind of Elliot’s shenanigans and lend a helping hand. We have the Lightening Orb or whatever it will be called and two of Majira’s keys left to find, there’s still time for her to join us for an adventure or two.

 

Hardy mentions he’s from Celeste City the very first time the protagonist meets him on Route 1 before we go about destroying him in battle. That’s the only time he’s mentioned it.

 

It’s got me stumped as well. There is one obvious connection, being able to enter the dream and all that, but others tend to share that ability, so I doubt it’s something as simple as that. Maybe something of a connection was formed during that confrontation? It could have something to do with the Astraciel, where that confrontation took place. There’s some form of energy or presence there or something, maybe that ended up getting involved somehow. Other than that, it’s a big question mark for me.

I’d wager if the flashback was false, it must have been a half-truth situation. True to some extent but some details were altered or left out to a degree. Whether or not it was fake I do think there is definitely a bit more to that situation than meets the eye.

 

Agreed, while it is a bit hard to pin down how long ago that was, there has been more than enough time for Nova and Lilith to conspire after the fact. Although Nova was still influenced by Darkrai to some degree when the protagonist arrived in Ayrith. It seems a bit more likely the truce or whatever is going on between the two was established near the start of the game.

 

That is true. Undoubtedly learning that some dreary dark land is “reality” would do a number on anyone and quite a few side quests in the Dreamscape seem to suggest as much. Jarred and Shiv seem to be outliers in this case…maybe it’s a combination of both, the realization for the people of Odis that their life in Ayrith had been a lie and some Dreamscape weirdness. Or I suppose it’s just other things going on with those two.

Out of everyone I’m not surprised Jarred’s Dreamscape doppelganger would be the most lucid and normal of the bunch…dude’s obviously got some secrets going on.

 

2)

Haha an Umbreon may be helpful indeed ^_^

Yeah, the Perfection Gem has been referred to as the Divine Light and a fragment by the trainer in those journal entries in the Settler's Ruins.  It is likely the thing Waldenhall was searching for although I’m not sure if it’s what he found. I also thought that the entity was the fragment. It’d explain why the entity was able to attach fragments to both Waldenhall and the protagonist and why there was such an energy spike under Fairbale. Though rereading the journals and some other dialogue makes me wonder if they are separate entities. The trainer didn’t mention any sort of strange oddities surrounding it, like the fragment speaking to them for instance. And if the entity is the Perfection gem/fragment then what happened to the trainer? Did they fuse with the fragment or something?

 

Reeve also mentions near the end of v6 that the large source of Perfection the protagonist is chasing after is chilling in Astraciel, which is north of the Canyon, and it remains stationary. We know based on the last scene that Darkrai is located on some mountain top and that the entity seems to be visiting Darkrai, which places it around either Visinite Peak or Frozen Peak. Considering the snow Frozen Peak seems fitting. Frozen Peak is north of Astraciel, as far north as one can get on Arcanius. Even if Darkrai was perched on Visinite Peak, that’d be before the Astraciel. Assuming that one cutscene at the end wasn’t before Reeve giving the protagonist the location that means the large source of Perfection we are after cannot be the entity unless it can be in two places at once or something... then again, we are dealing with an ethereal being of unknown power…maybe it is possible?

 

My other line of thought kind of coincides with your other idea of Waldenhall mistaking the energy source for the Perfection fragment. No matter what happened down there we do know Perfection played a part to some degree. Whatever energy Waldenhall was picking up could have been residual energy or the entity that has a part of the Perfection fragment attached to it, or something to that degree.

Waldenhall is quiteee an arrogant prick but yeah, I highly doubt even the most astute researchers in Ayrith could have foreseen that. Can’t blame him there.

 

I went back and double-checked to make sure… the events of Cellia North led up to the protagonist finding a Pokeball that shed some more light on what Lilith went through. Since we ran into Hardy outside the Den, I had initially assumed he planted the Pokeball for Lilith while she was off doing whatever so the player could see the vision/memory that she wanted. Looking back, I suppose Lilith herself could have left the Pokeball in Cellia North prior to the raid as well.

However, Hardy does mention he was hoping that he could stop the protagonist and save them from what’s coming. So Hardy was at least informed by Lilith of the situation to some extent and was actively trying to prevent the worst-case scenario from unfolding. I suppose it depends on whether you count that as an instance of Hardy acting on Lilith’s orders or whatnot.

 

Yeppers, sometimes a different perspective can be beneficial when it comes to solving puzzles. And the priests certainly seem like they view Perfection differently so I’m quite curious to see how that plays out. There is no doubt about that. Episode 7 is gonna be one grand time!

 

 

1. Well, to return to an earlier theory, it's possible that we're dealing with a Malva situation- that one of the Elite Four is a Fox. If they were, I imagine it'd be quite simple to either subvert whoever runs the League or get them replaced by another Fox.

 

Replies ^8:

 

1. So he does, I forgot that. 

 

Yeah, given how we were basically shown that the flashbacks had been altered when we first saw them, I dare say that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for that not to have been the *only* alterations, or maybe we just weren't shown the relevant bits. After all, this is Desolation, where a rather large part of the game involves us being lied to or just having the truth concealed in other ways, so why would they stop there?

 

Well, with Shiv, I'm guessing that at least part of it is that unlike everyone else, he can go back to Ayrith, so he hasn't really 'lost' anything, as such. Not to mention, he has godlike powers and hardly anyone else does, so I imagine that's a bit of a morale booster for him. 

 

2. All of these are excellent questions, and I don't really have any answers, though I am most curious about the fate of the trainer as you mentioned (assuming they didn't get trapped in the mirror, sent into the future by Darkrai, spontaneously thrown into the Pokemon world as an amnesiac or anything along those lines). However, I do have a... well, I could say 'theory', but it's more 'crazy idea', and it runs as follows:

 

1. The only way we know of for Perfection to occur naturally is for a trainer and their Pokemon to be facing impossible odds with no way out.

2. Perfection has also been referred to as 'Divine Light', and Waldenhall apparently thinks it can be fragmented or broken up.

3. The thing he thought was a fragment of Perfection was clearly sapient and had some kind of otherworldly power.

4. The priests at Kanzen Temple have something to do with Perfection.

5. In this 'verse, the only religion we've seen involves worshipping Arceus.

6. Arceus allegedly has 1000 arms, even if we can't see them.

 

In essence, my theory/crazy idea is that what the game calls 'Perfection' is Arceus directly granting the trainer/Pokemon pair his blessing, possibly by sacrificing/implanting one of his arms in them, and it's the exposure to his power that changes them. (Kinda like Exalted, a bit.) If that or anything like it is the case, then it's possible that people who attained Perfection alongside their Pokemon become immortal, so the trainer may well still be out there. 

 

Well, that's a very valid point, but there's always option 3, which is that Reeve is lying for some reason (or mistaken/his calculations are off). If he really is working for/stuck with the Foxes, he may be trying to throw us off, lead us astray, or even just keep the player safe, given that we're supposedly/allegedly dying and all.

 

Edit: I went back and watched the last part of E6, and realised something- Reeve *does* straight up lie to us then. He says that Waldenhall is heading for Darkroot, but the subtitle just before the cutscene conversation with Reeve and Waldenhall doesn't have anything about 'in the past' or anything, it just says it's happening in Cellia East. I mean, it's possible that Waldenhall headed for Darkroot after that conversation and Reeve made an educated guess as to where he'd go, but it's very suspicious.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. I always assumed that Lilith teleported it in or something, but Hardy could well have left it too.

 

Speaking of, something just hit me. From what we saw in E6, Hardy genuinely doesn't seem to have any idea where Lilith is. She seems to have just up and vanished, either because she had to/someone kidnapped her/she's dead (I really doubt that last one, but we can't count it out as an option), or because she decided she didn't need the Foxes anymore- as I recall, the Fox defector in the quest on Arcanius says that Lilith used to act like she could just dissolve the Foxes any time she wanted and that'd be the end of it, which was an attitude that a lot of people didn't like. Assuming Lilith didn't get abducted or something, I feel like it'd be out of character for her to not have *someone* telling her what's going on with the Foxes. Lilith may be a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them, and I really doubt that she never realised how much of a loose cannon/potential liability Amelia was (not to mention, she'd probably want to make damn sure that she knew what Waldenhall was up to). So I'm guessing that unless she can spy on them somehow, she's got at least one person in the Foxes reporting to her. Hardy is the most obvious option- for all we know, he's a damn good actor- but I feel like the other options would be Reeve (assuming the theory about him is correct) or Cedric, who seemed weirdly concerned about Lilith during the Arcanius sidequest. Just a thought.

 

Edited June 24, 2023 by Amare

[Luri]

On 6/23/2023 at 6:59 AM, Amare said:

 

1. Well, to return to an earlier theory, it's possible that we're dealing with a Malva situation- that one of the Elite Four is a Fox. If they were, I imagine it'd be quite simple to either subvert whoever runs the League or get them replaced by another Fox.

 

Replies ^8:

 

1. So he does, I forgot that. 

 

Yeah, given how we were basically shown that the flashbacks had been altered when we first saw them, I dare say that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for that not to have been the *only* alterations, or maybe we just weren't shown the relevant bits. After all, this is Desolation, where a rather large part of the game involves us being lied to or just having the truth concealed in other ways, so why would they stop there?

 

Well, with Shiv, I'm guessing that at least part of it is that unlike everyone else, he can go back to Ayrith, so he hasn't really 'lost' anything, as such. Not to mention, he has godlike powers and hardly anyone else does, so I imagine that's a bit of a morale booster for him. 

 

2. All of these are excellent questions, and I don't really have any answers, though I am most curious about the fate of the trainer as you mentioned (assuming they didn't get trapped in the mirror, sent into the future by Darkrai, spontaneously thrown into the Pokemon world as an amnesiac or anything along those lines). However, I do have a... well, I could say 'theory', but it's more 'crazy idea', and it runs as follows:

 

1. The only way we know of for Perfection to occur naturally is for a trainer and their Pokemon to be facing impossible odds with no way out.

2. Perfection has also been referred to as 'Divine Light', and Waldenhall apparently thinks it can be fragmented or broken up.

3. The thing he thought was a fragment of Perfection was clearly sapient and had some kind of otherworldly power.

4. The priests at Kanzen Temple have something to do with Perfection.

5. In this 'verse, the only religion we've seen involves worshipping Arceus.

6. Arceus allegedly has 1000 arms, even if we can't see them.

 

In essence, my theory/crazy idea is that what the game calls 'Perfection' is Arceus directly granting the trainer/Pokemon pair his blessing, possibly by sacrificing/implanting one of his arms in them, and it's the exposure to his power that changes them. (Kinda like Exalted, a bit.) If that or anything like it is the case, then it's possible that people who attained Perfection alongside their Pokemon become immortal, so the trainer may well still be out there. 

 

Well, that's a very valid point, but there's always option 3, which is that Reeve is lying for some reason (or mistaken/his calculations are off). If he really is working for/stuck with the Foxes, he may be trying to throw us off, lead us astray, or even just keep the player safe, given that we're supposedly/allegedly dying and all.

 

Edit: I went back and watched the last part of E6, and realised something- Reeve *does* straight up lie to us then. He says that Waldenhall is heading for Darkroot, but the subtitle just before the cutscene conversation with Reeve and Waldenhall doesn't have anything about 'in the past' or anything, it just says it's happening in Cellia East. I mean, it's possible that Waldenhall headed for Darkroot after that conversation and Reeve made an educated guess as to where he'd go, but it's very suspicious.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. I always assumed that Lilith teleported it in or something, but Hardy could well have left it too.

 

Speaking of, something just hit me. From what we saw in E6, Hardy genuinely doesn't seem to have any idea where Lilith is. She seems to have just up and vanished, either because she had to/someone kidnapped her/she's dead (I really doubt that last one, but we can't count it out as an option), or because she decided she didn't need the Foxes anymore- as I recall, the Fox defector in the quest on Arcanius says that Lilith used to act like she could just dissolve the Foxes any time she wanted and that'd be the end of it, which was an attitude that a lot of people didn't like. Assuming Lilith didn't get abducted or something, I feel like it'd be out of character for her to not have *someone* telling her what's going on with the Foxes. Lilith may be a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them, and I really doubt that she never realised how much of a loose cannon/potential liability Amelia was (not to mention, she'd probably want to make damn sure that she knew what Waldenhall was up to). So I'm guessing that unless she can spy on them somehow, she's got at least one person in the Foxes reporting to her. Hardy is the most obvious option- for all we know, he's a damn good actor- but I feel like the other options would be Reeve (assuming the theory about him is correct) or Cedric, who seemed weirdly concerned about Lilith during the Arcanius sidequest. Just a thought.

 

1)

Oh yeah, I do recall that theory! Man, I should refresh my memory a bit before constructing more questions xD That’d make the most sense, kinda similar to the whole Elias/Bennet situation in Reborn. I think it’d be kinda amusing if Atlas was the Black Fox. He’s marketed as the hero the world needs and all that jazz.

 

Replies ^{^}9:

1)

In all fairness it’s probably a flavor detail. Kinda neat how Azura and Hardy are from the same city though.

 

Exactly, why not throw in more lies xD. I suspect we’re not fully done with them justtt yet. And in Lilith’s situation she had enough of a motive to alter those memories of hers. It was imperative that she sowed enough doubt about the twins and the situation at hand so that we started to seek the truth on our own. It’s still possible that she really did show us the truth and she wasn’t altering anything considering the lengths Darkrai went to muddle the protagonist’s perception of reality and dream. But she has allowed Waldenhall to abduct children/Eden, potentially blackmailed Reeve, (crazy theory alert) mayyybe infected Hardy’s Zorua with Perfection Serum to give him a reason to join the Foxes, and let Amelia run amuck, all in order to further her goals. Knowing that it’s hard to fully rule out the possibility that she didn’t alter or conceal any information in those visions, even if her intentions may be good in this instance.

 

Those godlike powers are most definitely an ego boost, especially in Aurora’s case. He does, though, mention that his memories and emotions in Ayrith don’t match who he is in the Dreamscape. His actions in the Dreamscape do seem a bit more antagonistic than the encounters the protagonist has with him in Ayrith. And later in v6 we do see him struggle with who he is and what memories are real and whatnot.  Because he can go between reality and dream unlike everyone else it does make sense that he is able to pick up on that difference of memories and emotions.

That line was what prompted me to wonder if there was more at play in the Dreamscape. Although your one post reminded me that people in Odis are reacting to the news of being stuck in Odis so it’s probably the fact some are more lucid or are more likely to be lamenting over their new lives. Shiv’s case may just stem from Darkrai’s manipulation. It's probably easier to scramble his feelings and whatnot in its own domain versus Ayrith where it doesn’t seem to have as much control prior to being released.

 

2)

Me too. Finding some form of concrete confirmation on whether or not the trainer is the entity/if the entity and that perfection signature are the one in the same would be a big help in determining what happened to them. Until then…lots and lots of theories!

Well, if that is indeed what happened I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the trainer hunting down a time gear thief some point soon xD

 

Interesting possibility is that there could have been local religions (devotion to Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres) that stemmed from the legend of the hero that quelled the conflict in the Ayrith wars. Although it seems like as time passed the people of Ayrith (or Ayrithians?) have pretty much forgone such worship, either forgotten the legend or chalked it up to fairytales.

But yeah, at this point it pretty much leaves Arceus the most prominent religious figure assuming Kanzen Temple isn’t going to flip that on its head.

That being said…Arceus has entered the chat finally. All those points are quite valid and honestly lead to a pretty interesting idea. That could explain why Perfection cannot be replicated by man despite harnessing residual energy from those who have attained it. Besides, the 1,000 arms of Arceus is such a cool idea that is quite underutilized in lore. Plus, Arceus created humans and pokémon, it’d make sense it’d want pokémon and trainers to care about each other.

 

 

Given that some of Reeve’s dialogue after his conversation with Waldenhall mentions not failing the protagonist I’d say if it was a lie, it would be a lie out of safety. The possibility of a miscalculation is also pretty possible given that neither of them could have accounted for that entity, there could still be surprises lurking around the corner. Playing off your ideas there could be an option four…if Reeve is working for Lilith, it’s possible he sent us to the Astraciel because that’s where Lilith is/or was located at some point. Maybe she requires assistance or something.

 

I think it does say some time ago... before stating it takes place someplace deep in Cellia East. What some time ago means though…it’s quite a vague way to indicate at some point in the past. I’d argue the conversation between Waldenhall and Reeve could take place anywhere before we arrived back in Cellia East to sometime around us boarded the boat after Reeve told us the locations.

It could be an educated guess; Amelia mentions returning to Darkroot to the player. It’s not too much of a stretch to assume Waldenhall would head to Darkroot as well or potentially chase after the larger fragment, both of which are in close proximity to each other.

 

 

Either does seem pretty possible. Looking back on it Hardy’s admittance about trying to save the protag from what was about to happen is probably a better indication of him and Lilith working together to some degree.

Yeah, Hardy so far has given no indication that he knows where Lilith is. In fact, no one seems to know maybe except for Shiv considering we did find a black piece in her old lab. The very same lab that has Lilith’s journals detailing how she’ll return to the Astraciel where it all started.

 

I do doubt she’s dead as well. Just don’t see her up and dying so unceremoniously. Besides she has her Umbreon to help defend her, not many people want to tussle with it. Could Amelia have sent a group of Foxes to make sure Lilith stays out of the picture? She did go to the Astraciel for a reason so maybe she encountered a problem with whatever she was trying to do and has been dealing with that for a time? A kidnapping could be possible also, two parties don’t want her around…although she does seem to have the ability to teleport so keeping her confined seems rather tricky.

I absolutely agree, if Lilith had enough cunning and foresight to recognize Waldenhall will make sure nothing stands in the way of his goals then there’s no way she’d fail to notice the liability Amelia will pose in the future. Chances are she does have someone inside the Foxes to report back to her, Hardy is indeed the most obvious choice. He’s only there out of necessity so him being a double agent would make quite a bit of sense.

 

You bring up quite an interesting point about Cedric. He really is weirdly concerned about Lilith. When we first meet him, he was undercover as a Fox grunt, and he mentions that he wants to take out the Foxes from the inside. If that’s truly his goal, it’s weird he’s still chasing after Lilith. Lilith isn’t the head of the Foxes anymore; Amelia seized the position. And if Cedric is still roleplaying a Fox, he’d know this. Even if he isn’t an inside Fox anymore, he has enough investigative ability to find Lilith’s old lab in Arcanius, so it’d be easy enough for him to learn about this change in leadership. Shouldn’t his priorities lie with Amelia, Hardy, and Waldenhall if his goal is to truly take down the Foxes? Maybe he really is reporting to Lilith but because he lost contact with her, he needed to visit old Fox labs to deduce where she is now.

 

 

Okay this may be a bit, but I decided to deconstruct the Darkness Field due to that one stray comment from Shiv and that weird pattern of Dark types and Perfection. Several things stand out to me.

Besides the fact the field seems quite eager to give me a bad time when we face off against Perfection Darkrai, there is an intriguing thing about it. Last Resort doesn’t require other moves to be used first on stage 1 of this field. I feel like this may speak for itself. A last resort. A final course of action when all else has failed, when there are no other options left. Sortaaaa like the requirements to achieve a Perfection state…yeah? And ya can just use this move all willy-nilly on stage 1 of the Darkness field but not on stages 2 or 3.

Also bonus points for the fact that Darkrai can learn Last Resort via tutor…and so can Umbreon…that’s coincidentally fitting for those two XD

 

The second is that dark and ghost types take reduced damage on stages 2 and 3. Stage 3 is when their weaknesses are annulled. Pretty defensive all things considered. Makes me think…what’s a creature with no weaknesses? Perfect perhaps? If that’s the case, then there really is some sort of connection between Dark/Ghost types and Perfection. No other typings are benefiting from this field after all.

It’s an interesting order…stage 1 allows for Last Resort to be used regardless of other moves, stage 2/3 reduces the damage taken by these particular types, and stage 3 annuls their weaknesses. It loosely follows what we know about Perfection so far.

Whether or not there is a direct link between Perfection and the Darkness field I’m not sure. Considering that there does seem to be some similarities I think that gives some potential merit to Shiv’s comment about Lilith taking her Umbreon from that field way back in the Keneph Caves. Or maybe he is on the right track but not quite correct, it’s something I’ve been ruminating on.

 

 

Alsooooo a fun question I remember I had while playing through v6 the first time around: right after defeating Amelia in Fairbale Waldenhall emerges from the Settler’s Ruins all shaken up. After that whole ramble he notices the protagonist and, in his rattled state, he stutters out “Y-you…You can’t be…You…you look just like…No…no, no, no, no!” before running off towards Visinite Current.

Obvious questions here are who does our protagonist look like? Does that mean there is someone out in Ayrith that looks like the protag? Or does Waldenhall potentially know the protagonist?  

Or is that entity also talking to Waldenhall, showing visions of our protagonist similar to what it was doing to us at some point?

Maybe ditto Tristian or Hendrick is somewhere out there pretending to be the protagonist…who knows?

 

 

[Amare]

On 6/29/2023 at 10:33 AM, Luri said:

1)

Oh yeah, I do recall that theory! Man, I should refresh my memory a bit before constructing more questions xD That’d make the most sense, kinda similar to the whole Elias/Bennet situation in Reborn. I think it’d be kinda amusing if Atlas was the Black Fox. He’s marketed as the hero the world needs and all that jazz.

 

Replies ^{^}9:

1)

In all fairness it’s probably a flavor detail. Kinda neat how Azura and Hardy are from the same city though.

 

Exactly, why not throw in more lies xD. I suspect we’re not fully done with them justtt yet. And in Lilith’s situation she had enough of a motive to alter those memories of hers. It was imperative that she sowed enough doubt about the twins and the situation at hand so that we started to seek the truth on our own. It’s still possible that she really did show us the truth and she wasn’t altering anything considering the lengths Darkrai went to muddle the protagonist’s perception of reality and dream. But she has allowed Waldenhall to abduct children/Eden, potentially blackmailed Reeve, (crazy theory alert) mayyybe infected Hardy’s Zorua with Perfection Serum to give him a reason to join the Foxes, and let Amelia run amuck, all in order to further her goals. Knowing that it’s hard to fully rule out the possibility that she didn’t alter or conceal any information in those visions, even if her intentions may be good in this instance.

 

Those godlike powers are most definitely an ego boost, especially in Aurora’s case. He does, though, mention that his memories and emotions in Ayrith don’t match who he is in the Dreamscape. His actions in the Dreamscape do seem a bit more antagonistic than the encounters the protagonist has with him in Ayrith. And later in v6 we do see him struggle with who he is and what memories are real and whatnot.  Because he can go between reality and dream unlike everyone else it does make sense that he is able to pick up on that difference of memories and emotions.

That line was what prompted me to wonder if there was more at play in the Dreamscape. Although your one post reminded me that people in Odis are reacting to the news of being stuck in Odis so it’s probably the fact some are more lucid or are more likely to be lamenting over their new lives. Shiv’s case may just stem from Darkrai’s manipulation. It's probably easier to scramble his feelings and whatnot in its own domain versus Ayrith where it doesn’t seem to have as much control prior to being released.

 

2)

Me too. Finding some form of concrete confirmation on whether or not the trainer is the entity/if the entity and that perfection signature are the one in the same would be a big help in determining what happened to them. Until then…lots and lots of theories!

Well, if that is indeed what happened I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the trainer hunting down a time gear thief some point soon xD

 

Interesting possibility is that there could have been local religions (devotion to Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres) that stemmed from the legend of the hero that quelled the conflict in the Ayrith wars. Although it seems like as time passed the people of Ayrith (or Ayrithians?) have pretty much forgone such worship, either forgotten the legend or chalked it up to fairytales.

But yeah, at this point it pretty much leaves Arceus the most prominent religious figure assuming Kanzen Temple isn’t going to flip that on its head.

That being said…Arceus has entered the chat finally. All those points are quite valid and honestly lead to a pretty interesting idea. That could explain why Perfection cannot be replicated by man despite harnessing residual energy from those who have attained it. Besides, the 1,000 arms of Arceus is such a cool idea that is quite underutilized in lore. Plus, Arceus created humans and pokémon, it’d make sense it’d want pokémon and trainers to care about each other.

 

 

Given that some of Reeve’s dialogue after his conversation with Waldenhall mentions not failing the protagonist I’d say if it was a lie, it would be a lie out of safety. The possibility of a miscalculation is also pretty possible given that neither of them could have accounted for that entity, there could still be surprises lurking around the corner. Playing off your ideas there could be an option four…if Reeve is working for Lilith, it’s possible he sent us to the Astraciel because that’s where Lilith is/or was located at some point. Maybe she requires assistance or something.

 

I think it does say some time ago... before stating it takes place someplace deep in Cellia East. What some time ago means though…it’s quite a vague way to indicate at some point in the past. I’d argue the conversation between Waldenhall and Reeve could take place anywhere before we arrived back in Cellia East to sometime around us boarded the boat after Reeve told us the locations.

It could be an educated guess; Amelia mentions returning to Darkroot to the player. It’s not too much of a stretch to assume Waldenhall would head to Darkroot as well or potentially chase after the larger fragment, both of which are in close proximity to each other.

 

 

Either does seem pretty possible. Looking back on it Hardy’s admittance about trying to save the protag from what was about to happen is probably a better indication of him and Lilith working together to some degree.

Yeah, Hardy so far has given no indication that he knows where Lilith is. In fact, no one seems to know maybe except for Shiv considering we did find a black piece in her old lab. The very same lab that has Lilith’s journals detailing how she’ll return to the Astraciel where it all started.

 

I do doubt she’s dead as well. Just don’t see her up and dying so unceremoniously. Besides she has her Umbreon to help defend her, not many people want to tussle with it. Could Amelia have sent a group of Foxes to make sure Lilith stays out of the picture? She did go to the Astraciel for a reason so maybe she encountered a problem with whatever she was trying to do and has been dealing with that for a time? A kidnapping could be possible also, two parties don’t want her around…although she does seem to have the ability to teleport so keeping her confined seems rather tricky.

I absolutely agree, if Lilith had enough cunning and foresight to recognize Waldenhall will make sure nothing stands in the way of his goals then there’s no way she’d fail to notice the liability Amelia will pose in the future. Chances are she does have someone inside the Foxes to report back to her, Hardy is indeed the most obvious choice. He’s only there out of necessity so him being a double agent would make quite a bit of sense.

 

You bring up quite an interesting point about Cedric. He really is weirdly concerned about Lilith. When we first meet him, he was undercover as a Fox grunt, and he mentions that he wants to take out the Foxes from the inside. If that’s truly his goal, it’s weird he’s still chasing after Lilith. Lilith isn’t the head of the Foxes anymore; Amelia seized the position. And if Cedric is still roleplaying a Fox, he’d know this. Even if he isn’t an inside Fox anymore, he has enough investigative ability to find Lilith’s old lab in Arcanius, so it’d be easy enough for him to learn about this change in leadership. Shouldn’t his priorities lie with Amelia, Hardy, and Waldenhall if his goal is to truly take down the Foxes? Maybe he really is reporting to Lilith but because he lost contact with her, he needed to visit old Fox labs to deduce where she is now.

 

 

Okay this may be a bit, but I decided to deconstruct the Darkness Field due to that one stray comment from Shiv and that weird pattern of Dark types and Perfection. Several things stand out to me.

Besides the fact the field seems quite eager to give me a bad time when we face off against Perfection Darkrai, there is an intriguing thing about it. Last Resort doesn’t require other moves to be used first on stage 1 of this field. I feel like this may speak for itself. A last resort. A final course of action when all else has failed, when there are no other options left. Sortaaaa like the requirements to achieve a Perfection state…yeah? And ya can just use this move all willy-nilly on stage 1 of the Darkness field but not on stages 2 or 3.

Also bonus points for the fact that Darkrai can learn Last Resort via tutor…and so can Umbreon…that’s coincidentally fitting for those two XD

 

The second is that dark and ghost types take reduced damage on stages 2 and 3. Stage 3 is when their weaknesses are annulled. Pretty defensive all things considered. Makes me think…what’s a creature with no weaknesses? Perfect perhaps? If that’s the case, then there really is some sort of connection between Dark/Ghost types and Perfection. No other typings are benefiting from this field after all.

It’s an interesting order…stage 1 allows for Last Resort to be used regardless of other moves, stage 2/3 reduces the damage taken by these particular types, and stage 3 annuls their weaknesses. It loosely follows what we know about Perfection so far.

Whether or not there is a direct link between Perfection and the Darkness field I’m not sure. Considering that there does seem to be some similarities I think that gives some potential merit to Shiv’s comment about Lilith taking her Umbreon from that field way back in the Keneph Caves. Or maybe he is on the right track but not quite correct, it’s something I’ve been ruminating on.

 

 

Alsooooo a fun question I remember I had while playing through v6 the first time around: right after defeating Amelia in Fairbale Waldenhall emerges from the Settler’s Ruins all shaken up. After that whole ramble he notices the protagonist and, in his rattled state, he stutters out “Y-you…You can’t be…You…you look just like…No…no, no, no, no!” before running off towards Visinite Current.

Obvious questions here are who does our protagonist look like? Does that mean there is someone out in Ayrith that looks like the protag? Or does Waldenhall potentially know the protagonist?  

Or is that entity also talking to Waldenhall, showing visions of our protagonist similar to what it was doing to us at some point?

Maybe ditto Tristian or Hendrick is somewhere out there pretending to be the protagonist…who knows?

 

 

 

1. You know what, yes. Absolutely. Atlas is now the Black Fox. I realise everything indicates that Hendrick the Ditto is the actual weak link, but no, it's Atlas. 

 

Replies ^ 10:

 

1. Due to narrative conventions, I now declare that Azura is either Hardy's sister or his mother, given that we don't know how old she is. Or, come to think of it, how old *he* is.

 

Yeah, I feel like that's something we all need to remember- Lilith may seem really reasonable and apparently be on the side of good, but she still runs a crime gang, allegedly made people who crossed her disappear, and is apparently a cop killer. I realise we don't have any solid evidence on those last two, but she's still responsible for a lot of bad shit. Even if she didn't directly order it, I don't recall her doing anything to stop Amelia from bombing the cruise ship, for instance. And God knows how many people/Pokemon have died because of Waldenhall's experiments.

 

You know what, that's actually a really interesting theory. Hardy's Zorua seemed fine when we first met them, then suddenly he's sick with a disease nobody can cure. Lilith seemed to have an eye on Hardy from the start- I vaguely recall Amelia saying that Hardy was always Lilith's protege, not hers. Hardy said once that the Foxes had already helped his Zoroark more than the Pokemon Centers had, and maybe that's because Waldenhall's experiments gave them a head start. I'll throw in one of the above theories and say that even if she isn't a Fox herself, Azura might have mentioned Hardy to Atlas/Hendrick/whoever the Fox is and that's how Lilith found out about him. 

 

It's actually really interesting, now that you mention it. Shiv's spent a long time going between the Dreamscape and reality, and having to deal with readjusting to what he thinks is real and what's fake each time- and now he's got Darkrai controlling him too. I wouldn't be surprised if the poor guy was dealing with some serious psychosis on top of all of this. 

 

2. LMAO, a future episode has a prank ending where it's just suddenly Explorers of Sky and it's revealed that Ayrith is where the protagonist lived before that, and then it's just five minutes of the devs laughing at us.

 

That would make a lot of sense, actually. I mean, we're probably not going full Insurgence, but I can see that there could easily have been other cults around. For all we know, there could still be cults around, in Arcanius or other parts of Ayrith. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

I do think that Reeve is on our side, I just think he might be compromised by stuff like getting blackmailed by Lilith (hypothetically). But him sending us to Lilith is a good idea.

 

Whoops, I completely missed the 'some time ago' part. But it does beg the question of when- after all, Reeve only found out about that just before sending everyone on the boat, so either he met with Waldenhall after our match and lied to us/guessed at where Waldenhall was going, he met with Waldenhall before the match and somehow already knew what he and the player found, or... something. I don't know.

 

I just generally assume that Shiv knows everything, he usually does.

 

That's actually a good point. The game suggested that Amelia simply took advantage of Lilith vanishing to take over as the leader, but I can buy Amelia 'vanishing' Lilith herself. On the other hand, Lilith does seem to have some kind of goal/quest in mind.

 

Yeah, there's definitely something weird going on with Cedric. Maybe he's her long-lost brother or something. *crack theory*

 

 

 

Oh, I *hate* the Darkness Field, it was the bane of my existence when I fought Lilith and Aurora. But that part about the Last Resort is incredibly interesting. (Also, what was the stray comment from Shiv?)

 

That's a really, really interesting theory. I wonder, when we eventually face Damon, will he have a Perfection Pokemon too?

 

Oooh, great question. I think when I played that part the first time, I assumed the entity was screwing with him, but there's more possibilities- I know people have theorised that the player is one of the original settlers with amnesia. If there were pictures or descriptions that Waldenhall's research found, maybe that's where he recognised us from? Or maybe *we're* his long-lost relative.

 

Or, y'know, it was the Ditto. We can always blame the Ditto.

 

[Luri]

On 7/1/2023 at 10:51 PM, Amare said:

 

1. You know what, yes. Absolutely. Atlas is now the Black Fox. I realise everything indicates that Hendrick the Ditto is the actual weak link, but no, it's Atlas. 

 

Replies ^ 10:

 

1. Due to narrative conventions, I now declare that Azura is either Hardy's sister or his mother, given that we don't know how old she is. Or, come to think of it, how old *he* is.

 

Yeah, I feel like that's something we all need to remember- Lilith may seem really reasonable and apparently be on the side of good, but she still runs a crime gang, allegedly made people who crossed her disappear, and is apparently a cop killer. I realise we don't have any solid evidence on those last two, but she's still responsible for a lot of bad shit. Even if she didn't directly order it, I don't recall her doing anything to stop Amelia from bombing the cruise ship, for instance. And God knows how many people/Pokemon have died because of Waldenhall's experiments.

 

You know what, that's actually a really interesting theory. Hardy's Zorua seemed fine when we first met them, then suddenly he's sick with a disease nobody can cure. Lilith seemed to have an eye on Hardy from the start- I vaguely recall Amelia saying that Hardy was always Lilith's protege, not hers. Hardy said once that the Foxes had already helped his Zoroark more than the Pokemon Centers had, and maybe that's because Waldenhall's experiments gave them a head start. I'll throw in one of the above theories and say that even if she isn't a Fox herself, Azura might have mentioned Hardy to Atlas/Hendrick/whoever the Fox is and that's how Lilith found out about him. 

 

It's actually really interesting, now that you mention it. Shiv's spent a long time going between the Dreamscape and reality, and having to deal with readjusting to what he thinks is real and what's fake each time- and now he's got Darkrai controlling him too. I wouldn't be surprised if the poor guy was dealing with some serious psychosis on top of all of this. 

 

2. LMAO, a future episode has a prank ending where it's just suddenly Explorers of Sky and it's revealed that Ayrith is where the protagonist lived before that, and then it's just five minutes of the devs laughing at us.

 

That would make a lot of sense, actually. I mean, we're probably not going full Insurgence, but I can see that there could easily have been other cults around. For all we know, there could still be cults around, in Arcanius or other parts of Ayrith. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

I do think that Reeve is on our side, I just think he might be compromised by stuff like getting blackmailed by Lilith (hypothetically). But him sending us to Lilith is a good idea.

 

Whoops, I completely missed the 'some time ago' part. But it does beg the question of when- after all, Reeve only found out about that just before sending everyone on the boat, so either he met with Waldenhall after our match and lied to us/guessed at where Waldenhall was going, he met with Waldenhall before the match and somehow already knew what he and the player found, or... something. I don't know.

 

I just generally assume that Shiv knows everything, he usually does.

 

That's actually a good point. The game suggested that Amelia simply took advantage of Lilith vanishing to take over as the leader, but I can buy Amelia 'vanishing' Lilith herself. On the other hand, Lilith does seem to have some kind of goal/quest in mind.

 

Yeah, there's definitely something weird going on with Cedric. Maybe he's her long-lost brother or something. *crack theory*

 

 

 

Oh, I *hate* the Darkness Field, it was the bane of my existence when I fought Lilith and Aurora. But that part about the Last Resort is incredibly interesting. (Also, what was the stray comment from Shiv?)

 

That's a really, really interesting theory. I wonder, when we eventually face Damon, will he have a Perfection Pokemon too?

 

Oooh, great question. I think when I played that part the first time, I assumed the entity was screwing with him, but there's more possibilities- I know people have theorised that the player is one of the original settlers with amnesia. If there were pictures or descriptions that Waldenhall's research found, maybe that's where he recognised us from? Or maybe *we're* his long-lost relative.

 

Or, y'know, it was the Ditto. We can always blame the Ditto.

 

1)

Right? Heroes are always good, yeah? We’d never see it coming. Would totally end up blindsided by this revelation. Hendrick the Ditto was the red herring this whole time! Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if Atlas planted Ditto Hendrick and created that whole disappearing act to draw attention away from him and towards Mr. Ditto. Mayyybe it’s just my skepticism towards anyone named Atlas in video games talking lol

 

Replies ^{^}11:

1)

I was gonna say Hardy seems to be in the same age range as the protag but now that I think about it, we don’t actually know the protag’s age. It’s easy to place them in the same age range as Ava and Scarlett (being on the younger side of the cast and all that) but considering our protagonist has no memories and there seems to a connection between that entity and them…I wouldn’t be surprised if the protag is like over a 100 years old or heck maybe has some existential age like Melia or something. And the wiki certainly doesn’t state it. It’s probably more accurate to say Hardy’s in the same age range as Ava, Scarlett, Connor. And according to the wiki this seems to be the case (18-21). Albeit I dunno how accurate these are considering the wiki seems to be in an in between state of v5 and v6 information so it’s probably accurate but there’s always the chance there may be a slight difference.

That being said…that would honestly be kind of cute. If they were related maybe that could be a secondary reason as to why he wants to be the Champion of Ayrith. He was inspired by his mother/or sister Azura.

 

Yep yep, we do have confirmation about a lot of awful things the Black Foxes have done, and the things Lilith has allowed to happen. Even if she didn’t kill cops and make people disappear, I could see other members of her gang doing so…looking at you Amelia. Which doesn’t help Lilith’s cause. Really makes her an interesting character in my opinion. True, as far as I can recall it didn’t sound like she dissuaded Amelia from blowing up the cruise ship and it was most likely quite a bit of people/pokémon that perished in Waldenhall’s experiments.

 

All of those points are exactly why the idea of Lilith potentially dosing Hardy’s Zorua with Perfection serum came to mind. Not to mention she asks to meet the protagonist on Route 1, around the spot Hardy and the protagonist meet for the first time.

One theory as to how Lilith found out about Hardy is through his interactions with the protagonist. Based on those visions she knew that Nova and the twins had a hand in her parents’ disappearance/murder. It’s not unreasonable to assume she’s been keeping tabs on those three. She’d probably realized that when they took an interest in the protagonist that something was afoot, so she needed to act.

Obviously, she couldn’t reach out to Scarlett, Ava, or Connor but our protagonist did end up meeting someone on Route 1 who’s goal mirrored our own, to become stronger and take on the league. Who seemed to care very much about his pokémon and would do anything to help save them. Sounds like a good candidate to help her stop their machinations, willingly or not.

This theory hinges on how long Lilith had known about the protagonist which we don’t actually know but it was still pretty fun to come up with.

I do like the idea that Azura mentioned Hardy to whomever the Black Fox is. Especially if she doesn’t know about their double identity as a Fox and was making casual conversation about Hardy and his aspirations. That’ll just add to the already bad luck Hardy has.

 

Yeah, he did seem quiteee confused after re-entering the Dreamscape, and then the whole thing in the sewers, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did at this point. Going through all that certainly isn’t easy on the psyche.  

Makes me quite interested in v7 considering those two were ordered to slow the protag and co. down. I know Darkrai deterred him from coming to his senses, but he still seems on the fence. Which makes me wonder, is he gonna stick to those orders or deviate?

 

Omg that would be the most memorable prank ending I’ve seen in a while. I certainly wouldn’t be expecting that, they’d earned every minute of laughter at that point xD

 

Man Insurgence, good stuff! As far as I can tell it seems like there are some aspects of Ayrith that may predate the whole settler situation (look at the Hand of Arceus situation where there were supposedly two secs about 2,000 years ago…that’s really far back in the past). We don’t get too much information about these wars, but they don’t sound like they had too much to do with the perfection/first trainers/settlers situation currently. So, it’s possible there are other beliefs or cults dedicated to other pokémon or whatnot, at some point in Ayrith’s history at least.

 

Yeah, that’s completely fair, he could very well be. That’d definitely put him in a tricky situation especially since we still don’t really know what Lilith’s up to as of yet.

 

I’m still slightly up in the air about the when as well. My guess is that if it was before the match then he found out through Connor. I do remember him saying he was in contact with Connor when the Fairbale debacle went down. So, chances are he was probably tracking the location of the Perfection fragment when he noticed a splinter of it moving (definitely Waldenhall since he left the Settler’s Ruins first). Whether it was through the powers of deduction or Connor’s information he probably gathered that it was Waldenhall and reached out to him between the time it took for the player to reach Cellia/the match. If it was after the match, then he definitely led our group astray or got really lucky with his guess.

 

Also, I noticed at the end of the exchange Reeve mentions that he can’t fail the protagonist but there isn’t much more he can do...except… and it leaves us hanging. Reeve is a smart cookie; I doubt all he could do is point us in a direction. I do think Reeve is up to more than he is letting on, whether or not he’s lying about the location he’s sending the group. Or maybe I just have too much skepticism thanks to the first half of the game xD

 

And yeah, I pretty much assume he knows mostly everything, give or take a few things.

 

Right? She would benefit from vanishing Lilith that’s for sure. Indeed, it does sound like Lilith does have a goal in mind if her journals are anything to go by. I wonder what that goal/quest is? Why go back to an empty clearing? What’s she hoping to achieve?

 

It’s not out of the realm of possibility if Cedric is a long-lost sibling, that’d be quite a turn of events! I wonder how Lilith would react to finding out she still has family around.

 

Haha yeah Lilith’s battle had me puzzling my way through the battle. Fun field but oh my gosh xD. I found it incredibly interesting as well. It’s a move that feels like an odd-one out when looking at the field as a whole, so it feels like it has some lore significance going on.

 

It was right as the protagonist and Connor entered the hut in the Keneph caves. Shiv says, and I quote, “That doesn’t quite add up… If she took her Umbreon from that field, then she-“ before Connor interrupts his train of thought.

Of course, I was making a few inferences with my last post; the “she” being Lilith, cause who else has an umbreon in this game, and the field is a bit more vague but I took it as the Darkness Field. Any time Lilith’s umbreon is brought up it’s in regard to Perfection so based on that comment I ended up wondering if Perfection and the darkness field had some form of connection.

In hindsight I suppose it could be an actual field, like the field/clearing in the Astraciel that Lilith and Nova had that tussle in.

Also thanks, Connor, for not letting him finish that sentence >.>

 

That’s an interesting idea actually. It hadn’t even crossed my mind whether or not the Elite 4/Champion are gonna use Perfection pokémon.

If the whole Dark/Ghost types and Perfection theory holds water and proves to be true later on, he’s the best candidate to have one for sure. He does use both ghost and dark types after all. One of them could very well be a Perfection pokémon. If not maybe we'll fight him on the Darkness field...a full team taking advantage of that field...oh joy

 

Yeah, that was my first assumption, the entity was already antagonizing him in the ruins, it’s not too much of a stretch to assume it was just another jab at Waldenhall.

The settlers aspect would make sense for the most part, especially if the entity and Darkrai’s trainer are one in the same. I was kinda wondering the same but there’s some things that don’t quite add up to me. Like if the protag is one of the original settler/trainers then there’s a possibility Darkrai should have recognized the protagonist, yet it doesn’t show any recognition, especially upon meeting them face-to-face in the Dreamscape. And how did the protagonist live (and not age) for over a century, unless they were frozen in time or something xD

If the protagonist does end up being a settler, then that would be a really fun way for Waldenhall to recognize them honestly.

First Lilith and Cedric and now the protagonist and Waldenhall, man there are quite a lot of long-lost relatives. It'd be quite intriguing to see the protagonist actually have a blood relative running around, hopefully Waldenhall clears this up the next time we encounter him.

 

It’s probably the Ditto, it’s always the Ditto XD

 

 

 

[Amare]

On 7/8/2023 at 3:47 AM, Luri said:

1)

Right? Heroes are always good, yeah? We’d never see it coming. Would totally end up blindsided by this revelation. Hendrick the Ditto was the red herring this whole time! Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if Atlas planted Ditto Hendrick and created that whole disappearing act to draw attention away from him and towards Mr. Ditto. Mayyybe it’s just my skepticism towards anyone named Atlas in video games talking lol

 

Replies ^{^}11:

1)

 

I was gonna say Hardy seems to be in the same age range as the protag but now that I think about it, we don’t actually know the protag’s age. It’s easy to place them in the same age range as Ava and Scarlett (being on the younger side of the cast and all that) but considering our protagonist has no memories and there seems to a connection between that entity and them…I wouldn’t be surprised if the protag is like over a 100 years old or heck maybe has some existential age like Melia or something. And the wiki certainly doesn’t state it. It’s probably more accurate to say Hardy’s in the same age range as Ava, Scarlett, Connor. And according to the wiki this seems to be the case (18-21). Albeit I dunno how accurate these are considering the wiki seems to be in an in between state of v5 and v6 information so it’s probably accurate but there’s always the chance there may be a slight difference.

 

That being said…that would honestly be kind of cute. If they were related maybe that could be a secondary reason as to why he wants to be the Champion of Ayrith. He was inspired by his mother/or sister Azura.

 

 

Yep yep, we do have confirmation about a lot of awful things the Black Foxes have done, and the things Lilith has allowed to happen. Even if she didn’t kill cops and make people disappear, I could see other members of her gang doing so…looking at you Amelia. Which doesn’t help Lilith’s cause. Really makes her an interesting character in my opinion. True, as far as I can recall it didn’t sound like she dissuaded Amelia from blowing up the cruise ship and it was most likely quite a bit of people/pokémon that perished in Waldenhall’s experiments.

 

All of those points are exactly why the idea of Lilith potentially dosing Hardy’s Zorua with Perfection serum came to mind. Not to mention she asks to meet the protagonist on Route 1, around the spot Hardy and the protagonist meet for the first time.

One theory as to how Lilith found out about Hardy is through his interactions with the protagonist. Based on those visions she knew that Nova and the twins had a hand in her parents’ disappearance/murder. It’s not unreasonable to assume she’s been keeping tabs on those three. She’d probably realized that when they took an interest in the protagonist that something was afoot, so she needed to act.

 

Obviously, she couldn’t reach out to Scarlett, Ava, or Connor but our protagonist did end up meeting someone on Route 1 who’s goal mirrored our own, to become stronger and take on the league. Who seemed to care very much about his pokémon and would do anything to help save them. Sounds like a good candidate to help her stop their machinations, willingly or not.

 

This theory hinges on how long Lilith had known about the protagonist which we don’t actually know but it was still pretty fun to come up with.

 

I do like the idea that Azura mentioned Hardy to whomever the Black Fox is. Especially if she doesn’t know about their double identity as a Fox and was making casual conversation about Hardy and his aspirations. That’ll just add to the already bad luck Hardy has.

 

Yeah, he did seem quiteee confused after re-entering the Dreamscape, and then the whole thing in the sewers, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did at this point. Going through all that certainly isn’t easy on the psyche.  

Makes me quite interested in v7 considering those two were ordered to slow the protag and co. down. I know Darkrai deterred him from coming to his senses, but he still seems on the fence. Which makes me wonder, is he gonna stick to those orders or deviate?

 

Omg that would be the most memorable prank ending I’ve seen in a while. I certainly wouldn’t be expecting that, they’d earned every minute of laughter at that point xD

 

Man Insurgence, good stuff! As far as I can tell it seems like there are some aspects of Ayrith that may predate the whole settler situation (look at the Hand of Arceus situation where there were supposedly two secs about 2,000 years ago…that’s really far back in the past). We don’t get too much information about these wars, but they don’t sound like they had too much to do with the perfection/first trainers/settlers situation currently. So, it’s possible there are other beliefs or cults dedicated to other pokémon or whatnot, at some point in Ayrith’s history at least.

 

Yeah, that’s completely fair, he could very well be. That’d definitely put him in a tricky situation especially since we still don’t really know what Lilith’s up to as of yet.

 

I’m still slightly up in the air about the when as well. My guess is that if it was before the match then he found out through Connor. I do remember him saying he was in contact with Connor when the Fairbale debacle went down. So, chances are he was probably tracking the location of the Perfection fragment when he noticed a splinter of it moving (definitely Waldenhall since he left the Settler’s Ruins first). Whether it was through the powers of deduction or Connor’s information he probably gathered that it was Waldenhall and reached out to him between the time it took for the player to reach Cellia/the match. If it was after the match, then he definitely led our group astray or got really lucky with his guess.

 

Also, I noticed at the end of the exchange Reeve mentions that he can’t fail the protagonist but there isn’t much more he can do...except… and it leaves us hanging. Reeve is a smart cookie; I doubt all he could do is point us in a direction. I do think Reeve is up to more than he is letting on, whether or not he’s lying about the location he’s sending the group. Or maybe I just have too much skepticism thanks to the first half of the game xD

 

And yeah, I pretty much assume he knows mostly everything, give or take a few things.

 

Right? She would benefit from vanishing Lilith that’s for sure. Indeed, it does sound like Lilith does have a goal in mind if her journals are anything to go by. I wonder what that goal/quest is? Why go back to an empty clearing? What’s she hoping to achieve?

 

It’s not out of the realm of possibility if Cedric is a long-lost sibling, that’d be quite a turn of events! I wonder how Lilith would react to finding out she still has family around.

 

Haha yeah Lilith’s battle had me puzzling my way through the battle. Fun field but oh my gosh xD. I found it incredibly interesting as well. It’s a move that feels like an odd-one out when looking at the field as a whole, so it feels like it has some lore significance going on.

 

It was right as the protagonist and Connor entered the hut in the Keneph caves. Shiv says, and I quote, “That doesn’t quite add up… If she took her Umbreon from that field, then she-“ before Connor interrupts his train of thought.

Of course, I was making a few inferences with my last post; the “she” being Lilith, cause who else has an umbreon in this game, and the field is a bit more vague but I took it as the Darkness Field. Any time Lilith’s umbreon is brought up it’s in regard to Perfection so based on that comment I ended up wondering if Perfection and the darkness field had some form of connection.

In hindsight I suppose it could be an actual field, like the field/clearing in the Astraciel that Lilith and Nova had that tussle in.

Also thanks, Connor, for not letting him finish that sentence >.>

 

That’s an interesting idea actually. It hadn’t even crossed my mind whether or not the Elite 4/Champion are gonna use Perfection pokémon.

If the whole Dark/Ghost types and Perfection theory holds water and proves to be true later on, he’s the best candidate to have one for sure. He does use both ghost and dark types after all. One of them could very well be a Perfection pokémon. If not maybe we'll fight him on the Darkness field...a full team taking advantage of that field...oh joy

 

Yeah, that was my first assumption, the entity was already antagonizing him in the ruins, it’s not too much of a stretch to assume it was just another jab at Waldenhall.

The settlers aspect would make sense for the most part, especially if the entity and Darkrai’s trainer are one in the same. I was kinda wondering the same but there’s some things that don’t quite add up to me. Like if the protag is one of the original settler/trainers then there’s a possibility Darkrai should have recognized the protagonist, yet it doesn’t show any recognition, especially upon meeting them face-to-face in the Dreamscape. And how did the protagonist live (and not age) for over a century, unless they were frozen in time or something xD

If the protagonist does end up being a settler, then that would be a really fun way for Waldenhall to recognize them honestly.

First Lilith and Cedric and now the protagonist and Waldenhall, man there are quite a lot of long-lost relatives. It'd be quite intriguing to see the protagonist actually have a blood relative running around, hopefully Waldenhall clears this up the next time we encounter him.

 

It’s probably the Ditto, it’s always the Ditto XD

 

 

 

1. OK, I gotta ask. Why are you skeptic of people named Atlas in video games?

 

Replies ^11:

 

I think the protagonist is meant to be in their late teens... well, at the very least, they *look* like they could be in their late teens, maybe early twenties at the most. But yeah, given that this is a Pokemon fan game, they could be 100 years old, or reincarnated, or an android. You never know. And yeah, between the wiki and what was put on the tumblr, it's a bit hard to find concrete information. (But yeah, Hardy being inspired by Azura would be adorable, even if they turn out to not be related.) I remember Lilith calling Hardy a boy- I think Lilith's meant to be about thirty, so I'm guessing Hardy's somewhere between 15-17, definitely not over 19.

 

I feel like Lilith is a really interesting case of... I'm having trouble thinking of the word, but like... ambiguous morality? Like, yeah, she's nice and reasonable and opposed to the villain and has a sympathetic backstory, but she's also the leader of a crime gang who does terrible things. She supposedly did terrible things in the past, but we don't know if any of that actually happened, but she's still responsible for terrible things in the present. She's a good demonstration of how it's not all black and white.

 

We had a lot of Shiv trying to fight off Darkrai's orders during e6. I'm guessing that by this point, he's either thrown off Darkrai's control or succumbed fully, but as to which one... no clue. We'll have to find out the hard way.

 

Yeah, I'm guessing that the Serenity subplot is going to become a lot more important in e7, now that we're on Arcanius and heading to the Temple. It might even integrate with the main plot, who knows.

 

I agree that there's probably something else Reeve can do. As to what... no clue. Get a message to Lilith, or the Elite Four? Distract Waldenhall? Turn up on Arcanius as the world's most fashionable explorer? Who knows?

 

Technically, I guess we don't actually know *what* Lilith is looking for. IIRC, all she said is something like 'Where all this started' and that it's somewhere on Arcanius. Maybe it's where she met Nova, or maybe it's where she met Waldenhall, or maybe it's something else entirely. 

 

I went back and checked. When you fight Lilith, you start on... I think it's stage 3 of the Darkness Field, and the intro text is something like 'In an endless sea of darkness, any glimmer of hope fades away'. That's pretty... flowery? Esoteric? for field text. But at the same time, it *does* seem to tie into the whole Perfection thing- the only known Perfection Pokemon are all Dark-types, the whole needing to face unbeatable odds to attain Perfection, and so on. But it also works with Last Resort, tying into it- being in a situation so bad that there's no hope and you literally have to go back to the last resort. (I have no idea if this actually leads up to anything, if it's just a cool Easter egg, or if we're coming up with stuff the devs never thought of, but it is pretty fun.)

 

Yeah, thanks, Connor. God. But that is a good point- maybe it's the Darkness Field, or maybe it's the literal field. If we assume Umbreon attaining Perfection happened somewhere on Arcanius, that could have something to do with it, since there's supposed to be mystical energies and stuff. Or maybe it's that the field is where Lilith caught her Eevee?

 

Shhh, don't give the devs ideas! Oh, who am I kidding, like the Elite Four *won't* be agonising. Even if one of them's a Ditto.

 

Maybe everyone's related somehow. We're all cousins. 

 

In all seriousness, I agree that Darkrai didn't seem to recognise us, but it's possible that he was playing dumb in front of the twins or something. Or maybe being an amnesiac and possibly going by a different name made him think we had to be someone else who just looked like the original person?

 

 

 

[RocketOSullivan]

I could make the assumption that Ava's ace will be Mega Meganium. Why?

-We see her several times fighting with her Cradily and Meganium.

-Meganium may not be as bad as many say, especially with a favorable field, it still looks a bit underwhelming for a late game gym leader, a Mega would help in that sense.

-Thanks to Jarred the greatest character of all times we know that the greatest pokemon of all times Feraligatr has a Mega in Desolation, so I assume Meganium and Typlosion might have one as well.

[Luri]

On 7/9/2023 at 6:19 AM, Amare said:

1. OK, I gotta ask. Why are you skeptic of people named Atlas in video games?

 

Replies ^11:

 

I think the protagonist is meant to be in their late teens... well, at the very least, they *look* like they could be in their late teens, maybe early twenties at the most. But yeah, given that this is a Pokemon fan game, they could be 100 years old, or reincarnated, or an android. You never know. And yeah, between the wiki and what was put on the tumblr, it's a bit hard to find concrete information. (But yeah, Hardy being inspired by Azura would be adorable, even if they turn out to not be related.) I remember Lilith calling Hardy a boy- I think Lilith's meant to be about thirty, so I'm guessing Hardy's somewhere between 15-17, definitely not over 19.

 

I feel like Lilith is a really interesting case of... I'm having trouble thinking of the word, but like... ambiguous morality? Like, yeah, she's nice and reasonable and opposed to the villain and has a sympathetic backstory, but she's also the leader of a crime gang who does terrible things. She supposedly did terrible things in the past, but we don't know if any of that actually happened, but she's still responsible for terrible things in the present. She's a good demonstration of how it's not all black and white.

 

We had a lot of Shiv trying to fight off Darkrai's orders during e6. I'm guessing that by this point, he's either thrown off Darkrai's control or succumbed fully, but as to which one... no clue. We'll have to find out the hard way.

 

Yeah, I'm guessing that the Serenity subplot is going to become a lot more important in e7, now that we're on Arcanius and heading to the Temple. It might even integrate with the main plot, who knows.

 

I agree that there's probably something else Reeve can do. As to what... no clue. Get a message to Lilith, or the Elite Four? Distract Waldenhall? Turn up on Arcanius as the world's most fashionable explorer? Who knows?

 

Technically, I guess we don't actually know *what* Lilith is looking for. IIRC, all she said is something like 'Where all this started' and that it's somewhere on Arcanius. Maybe it's where she met Nova, or maybe it's where she met Waldenhall, or maybe it's something else entirely. 

 

I went back and checked. When you fight Lilith, you start on... I think it's stage 3 of the Darkness Field, and the intro text is something like 'In an endless sea of darkness, any glimmer of hope fades away'. That's pretty... flowery? Esoteric? for field text. But at the same time, it *does* seem to tie into the whole Perfection thing- the only known Perfection Pokemon are all Dark-types, the whole needing to face unbeatable odds to attain Perfection, and so on. But it also works with Last Resort, tying into it- being in a situation so bad that there's no hope and you literally have to go back to the last resort. (I have no idea if this actually leads up to anything, if it's just a cool Easter egg, or if we're coming up with stuff the devs never thought of, but it is pretty fun.)

 

Yeah, thanks, Connor. God. But that is a good point- maybe it's the Darkness Field, or maybe it's the literal field. If we assume Umbreon attaining Perfection happened somewhere on Arcanius, that could have something to do with it, since there's supposed to be mystical energies and stuff. Or maybe it's that the field is where Lilith caught her Eevee?

 

Shhh, don't give the devs ideas! Oh, who am I kidding, like the Elite Four *won't* be agonising. Even if one of them's a Ditto.

 

Maybe everyone's related somehow. We're all cousins. 

 

In all seriousness, I agree that Darkrai didn't seem to recognise us, but it's possible that he was playing dumb in front of the twins or something. Or maybe being an amnesiac and possibly going by a different name made him think we had to be someone else who just looked like the original person?

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I have been a bit busy as of late!

1)

There’s an Atlas in BioShock which caused my skepticism of Atlases going forward xD Not that I run into many Atlases in the games I have played but still I’m always reminded of it when I see the name crop up.

Going back to Deso’s Atlas, it’s pretty cool that even an NPC mentions that Atlas is named after the Titan Atlas in Greek mythology. The name also conveys enduring, which is a good quality for someone portrayed as a hero to have.

I’m curious to see if that’s as far as the associations go concerning his name.

 

Replies ^{^}12:

 

Yeah, I’d say that’s a safe assumption without any more information about the protagonist. Anything is possible but how characters react to them and their looks alone suggest they’re around that age range. And it is, maybe later down the line we will get a bit more concrete information but until then we shall work off of eyeballing and what we know. It certainly adds another layer to unravel.

Totally, even if they weren’t related, having an Elite Four hail from the same town would be quite an inspiration. Adding that to my headcanon until further notice lol

Oh man she did? I must have glossed over that. Yeah 19 is usually the cutoff for adolescent youth, so he’s most likely no older than 19. I’d pin him around 16-17, it’s a pretty good in-between given all that.

 

Yeah, she has this morally ambiguous anti-villain (? Literary terms man…) archetype going on. Her gang has been a source of opposition for the protagonist and co. a good chunk of the game. The things people say she’s done and what we know for a fact are pretty awful. Her actions do make sense, albeit still not okay, once she reaches out and explains the bigger picture.

It’s not easy to take on a rouge Darkrai that’s manipulating several strong trainers or finding concrete information on Perfection. Indeed, quite a good demonstration about how it’s not all black and white.

With her pledging to help take on Darkrai and allying with Nova and the protagonist I wonder if her ambiguous morality will continue, like continuing to blackmailing Reeve if she is, or if she’ll go through a redemption of sorts…first we gotta find her though.

 

With the way things are stacking up we are most certainly going to learn the hard way. I do hope we get a chance to have Aurora come to her senses a bit more.

 

It would be great to see the Serenity subplot continue in e7. Maybe a sect broke off from the Hand of Arceus and became those priests that the journals talked about in the Settler’s Ruins. Or even the Kanzen Temple priests. Or maybe it’s neither and instead we will find out a bit more about Ayrith in general, after all the Hand of Arceus has ties to places like Weeping Hill, Keneph Jungle, and Vejyr Sanctum. Any one of those outcomes would be neat.

 

Omg having Reeve join us on the field in Arcanius decked out in the most fashionable explorer gear would be a treat! Plus, I wanna earn a reputation point or two with Reeve. It’d be nice to have him join us in the field! All of those seem pretty advantageous considering the current circumstances. Especially distracting/slowing down Waldenhall. We don't know what his next objective will be now that he also has a Perfection fragment stuck to him, but whatever it is spells trouble for everyone else.

Heck, crazy idea he could be leading us towards achieving a complete Perfection state, since the protagonist seems to react differently towards Perfection and all that.

All I know is that it feels like Reeve has more up his sleeve.

 

Yep, she does state that in one of her journals in the abandoned lab in Arcanius. I do think she headed back to the spot where the whole Nova fiasco happened. After Darkrai is released, Garret has that little pep talk with the Darkrai Destroyer squad in the manor and one of the cutscenes showed Lilith in a field that looks very similar to the one in the flashback she showed us.

She does mention, in the same journal, saving Umbreon one day. What if her objective is to help Umbreon now that she has more information on Perfection? Whether her Umbreon is suffering more or having Perfection Umbreon in tip-top shape would be more advantageous to defeating Darkrai…who knows what the real motive is…but returning to the area could help Umbreon in some regard? Or at least maybe that’s what she believes?

 

Oh man, good catch! It does feel like descriptive writing. Very ornate and flowery compared to the usual intro field text on other fields. It seems like the field may have different intro text depending on what stage the battle starts on, although only the first stage’s text is logged in the Field Notes in the Pokégear. 

The battle with Lilith does start in the third stage of the Darkness field (two Dazzling Gleams can reduce it to stage one). So far, it’s the only battle that seems to start on the third stage rather than the first (it also happens to be a battle that takes place in, what I assume to be, the very depths of the Dreamscape, in close proximity to Darkrai).

 

Putting that aside, it really does tie in well with what we know about Perfection, the Dark-type coincidence of known Perfection pokémon, and the move Last Resort. It also fits well for that particular battle given the situation and what Lilith is fighting for. It seems like this field holds a lot more surprises…and significance…than I first thought.

Hope Connor doesn’t have to battle on the Darkness field, being afraid of the dark and all that lol

 

Yeah, there’s always the chance we could be chasing connections and shadows that may not be intentional, or even thought of by the creators themselves. It is fun regardless; the narrative and characters are so enjoyable, it’s easy to get lost in every nook and cranny that becomes unearthed.

It’ll be a bonus if a sliver of our findings turns out to be true in some fashion!

 

It’s also interesting as to when/where the Darkness field is used (outside of Mega Mightyena’s Dark Surge ability of course). It’s been a minute since I went through the game as a whole, but I don’t recall too many battles taking place on the Darkness field. There was Shiv/Aurora’s battle in Cellia and Tristan’s battle at the temple (both of which start on the first stage). Tristan doesn’t benefit from the field while using Mega Lopunny, and his other pokémon prior to him were fought on neutral fields so the usage of the Darkness field during this battle feels quite thematic in nature.

 

Also, there is something I noticed while checking on Tristan’s battle. After you meet Nova in the Dreamscape, entering Shiv’s room shows a ghostly version of the protagonist (original design prior to Reeve’s glam-up) in the bed that kinda just fades away…can’t figure out what that signifies. Guess we are now just haunting his bed?

 

Right? Way to go buddy

My thoughts exactly. There is a pretty good chance Umbreon obtained Perfection on Arcanius, most likely in the Astraciel. Whether or not those mystical energies also have something to do with Perfection or not remains to be seen. With the way things are currently I’d say it’s within the realm of possibility.

Ooh I hadn’t even considered that. Maybe the field has some significance (sentimental or otherwise) to Lilith. She could have found her Eevee or even evolved Eevee into Umbreon there. Or a place she went to clear her mind or train.

Which field he’s referring to is unclear at this point. It’s possible that it will become clearer later on in the story.

 

Haha welp if it wasn’t thought of before it can be a prospect now! I’ll make sure to write down any other sadistic ideas for the Elite Four while I’m at it~

Joking aside, it is the Elite Four, even if one of them happens to be a Ditto we’re gonna have to work to secure a victory against them. If Damon doesn’t end up using the Darkness field or a Perfection pokémon then I wonder what he’s gonna use. There’re so many possibilities!

 

 

Oh, my goodness, that puts a whole new spin on all this xD Lilith won’t be alone anymore!

Yeah, that seems like a pretty good reason as to why Darkrai hadn’t mentioned anything yet… Actually, it makes me wonder how much they do know about that. Aside from that I can’t think of too many reasons why it would remain unusually silent about it.

Though it’s a missed opportunity for it to make a fleeting comment, allusion, or even a jab about it when abandoning the protagonist in the Grid in one of the Bad Ends. Neither of the twins are around, and Darkrai seemed a bit miffed about the feeble attempt to resist so it’d be the perfect time to rub it in.

 

Besides being an amnesiac there’s also the fact that most, if not all, of the trainers/settlers didn’t survive (according to Reeve’s recounting of the old tales and the journals in the Settler’s Ruins). Maybe Darkrai thought it was impossible for them to survive and that’s why it never put two and two together despite the numerous similarities?

 

Also…if that turns out to be the case…what pokémon did the protagonist have back then? Did all the trainers have legendary/mythical pokémon? I take it their pokémon weren’t as lucky as Darkrai?

 

On 7/13/2023 at 6:49 PM, RocketOSullivan said:

I could make the assumption that Ava's ace will be Mega Meganium. Why?

-We see her several times fighting with her Cradily and Meganium.

-Meganium may not be as bad as many say, especially with a favorable field, it still looks a bit underwhelming for a late game gym leader, a Mega would help in that sense.

-Thanks to Jarred the greatest character of all times we know that the greatest pokemon of all times Feraligatr has a Mega in Desolation, so I assume Meganium and Typlosion might have one as well.

 

Yeah, Cradily and Meganium seem to be her favored pokémon. It would stand to reason that either of them could have a Mega.

Thank you Jarred, you have given us hope that Meganium and/or Typlosion may get Megas yet!

If Ava doesn’t have a custom mega like Mega Meganium (Meganium you will always be mega worthy to me) maybe she’ll have Mega Venusaur. She can give the player a Venusaurite during the events of Cellia North. Aside from that there isn’t too many mainline grass Megas so unless she gets a surprise custom Mega her options are a bit on the shorter side.

[Amare]

On 7/19/2023 at 1:33 PM, Luri said:

 

Sorry, I have been a bit busy as of late!

1)

There’s an Atlas in BioShock which caused my skepticism of Atlases going forward xD Not that I run into many Atlases in the games I have played but still I’m always reminded of it when I see the name crop up.

Going back to Deso’s Atlas, it’s pretty cool that even an NPC mentions that Atlas is named after the Titan Atlas in Greek mythology. The name also conveys enduring, which is a good quality for someone portrayed as a hero to have.

I’m curious to see if that’s as far as the associations go concerning his name.

 

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Yeah, I’d say that’s a safe assumption without any more information about the protagonist. Anything is possible but how characters react to them and their looks alone suggest they’re around that age range. And it is, maybe later down the line we will get a bit more concrete information but until then we shall work off of eyeballing and what we know. It certainly adds another layer to unravel.

Totally, even if they weren’t related, having an Elite Four hail from the same town would be quite an inspiration. Adding that to my headcanon until further notice lol

Oh man she did? I must have glossed over that. Yeah 19 is usually the cutoff for adolescent youth, so he’s most likely no older than 19. I’d pin him around 16-17, it’s a pretty good in-between given all that.

 

Yeah, she has this morally ambiguous anti-villain (? Literary terms man…) archetype going on. Her gang has been a source of opposition for the protagonist and co. a good chunk of the game. The things people say she’s done and what we know for a fact are pretty awful. Her actions do make sense, albeit still not okay, once she reaches out and explains the bigger picture.

It’s not easy to take on a rouge Darkrai that’s manipulating several strong trainers or finding concrete information on Perfection. Indeed, quite a good demonstration about how it’s not all black and white.

With her pledging to help take on Darkrai and allying with Nova and the protagonist I wonder if her ambiguous morality will continue, like continuing to blackmailing Reeve if she is, or if she’ll go through a redemption of sorts…first we gotta find her though.

 

With the way things are stacking up we are most certainly going to learn the hard way. I do hope we get a chance to have Aurora come to her senses a bit more.

 

It would be great to see the Serenity subplot continue in e7. Maybe a sect broke off from the Hand of Arceus and became those priests that the journals talked about in the Settler’s Ruins. Or even the Kanzen Temple priests. Or maybe it’s neither and instead we will find out a bit more about Ayrith in general, after all the Hand of Arceus has ties to places like Weeping Hill, Keneph Jungle, and Vejyr Sanctum. Any one of those outcomes would be neat.

 

Omg having Reeve join us on the field in Arcanius decked out in the most fashionable explorer gear would be a treat! Plus, I wanna earn a reputation point or two with Reeve. It’d be nice to have him join us in the field! All of those seem pretty advantageous considering the current circumstances. Especially distracting/slowing down Waldenhall. We don't know what his next objective will be now that he also has a Perfection fragment stuck to him, but whatever it is spells trouble for everyone else.

Heck, crazy idea he could be leading us towards achieving a complete Perfection state, since the protagonist seems to react differently towards Perfection and all that.

All I know is that it feels like Reeve has more up his sleeve.

 

Yep, she does state that in one of her journals in the abandoned lab in Arcanius. I do think she headed back to the spot where the whole Nova fiasco happened. After Darkrai is released, Garret has that little pep talk with the Darkrai Destroyer squad in the manor and one of the cutscenes showed Lilith in a field that looks very similar to the one in the flashback she showed us.

She does mention, in the same journal, saving Umbreon one day. What if her objective is to help Umbreon now that she has more information on Perfection? Whether her Umbreon is suffering more or having Perfection Umbreon in tip-top shape would be more advantageous to defeating Darkrai…who knows what the real motive is…but returning to the area could help Umbreon in some regard? Or at least maybe that’s what she believes?

 

Oh man, good catch! It does feel like descriptive writing. Very ornate and flowery compared to the usual intro field text on other fields. It seems like the field may have different intro text depending on what stage the battle starts on, although only the first stage’s text is logged in the Field Notes in the Pokégear. 

The battle with Lilith does start in the third stage of the Darkness field (two Dazzling Gleams can reduce it to stage one). So far, it’s the only battle that seems to start on the third stage rather than the first (it also happens to be a battle that takes place in, what I assume to be, the very depths of the Dreamscape, in close proximity to Darkrai).

 

Putting that aside, it really does tie in well with what we know about Perfection, the Dark-type coincidence of known Perfection pokémon, and the move Last Resort. It also fits well for that particular battle given the situation and what Lilith is fighting for. It seems like this field holds a lot more surprises…and significance…than I first thought.

Hope Connor doesn’t have to battle on the Darkness field, being afraid of the dark and all that lol

 

Yeah, there’s always the chance we could be chasing connections and shadows that may not be intentional, or even thought of by the creators themselves. It is fun regardless; the narrative and characters are so enjoyable, it’s easy to get lost in every nook and cranny that becomes unearthed.

It’ll be a bonus if a sliver of our findings turns out to be true in some fashion!

 

It’s also interesting as to when/where the Darkness field is used (outside of Mega Mightyena’s Dark Surge ability of course). It’s been a minute since I went through the game as a whole, but I don’t recall too many battles taking place on the Darkness field. There was Shiv/Aurora’s battle in Cellia and Tristan’s battle at the temple (both of which start on the first stage). Tristan doesn’t benefit from the field while using Mega Lopunny, and his other pokémon prior to him were fought on neutral fields so the usage of the Darkness field during this battle feels quite thematic in nature.

 

Also, there is something I noticed while checking on Tristan’s battle. After you meet Nova in the Dreamscape, entering Shiv’s room shows a ghostly version of the protagonist (original design prior to Reeve’s glam-up) in the bed that kinda just fades away…can’t figure out what that signifies. Guess we are now just haunting his bed?

 

Right? Way to go buddy

My thoughts exactly. There is a pretty good chance Umbreon obtained Perfection on Arcanius, most likely in the Astraciel. Whether or not those mystical energies also have something to do with Perfection or not remains to be seen. With the way things are currently I’d say it’s within the realm of possibility.

Ooh I hadn’t even considered that. Maybe the field has some significance (sentimental or otherwise) to Lilith. She could have found her Eevee or even evolved Eevee into Umbreon there. Or a place she went to clear her mind or train.

Which field he’s referring to is unclear at this point. It’s possible that it will become clearer later on in the story.

 

Haha welp if it wasn’t thought of before it can be a prospect now! I’ll make sure to write down any other sadistic ideas for the Elite Four while I’m at it~

Joking aside, it is the Elite Four, even if one of them happens to be a Ditto we’re gonna have to work to secure a victory against them. If Damon doesn’t end up using the Darkness field or a Perfection pokémon then I wonder what he’s gonna use. There’re so many possibilities!

 

 

Oh, my goodness, that puts a whole new spin on all this xD Lilith won’t be alone anymore!

Yeah, that seems like a pretty good reason as to why Darkrai hadn’t mentioned anything yet… Actually, it makes me wonder how much they do know about that. Aside from that I can’t think of too many reasons why it would remain unusually silent about it.

Though it’s a missed opportunity for it to make a fleeting comment, allusion, or even a jab about it when abandoning the protagonist in the Grid in one of the Bad Ends. Neither of the twins are around, and Darkrai seemed a bit miffed about the feeble attempt to resist so it’d be the perfect time to rub it in.

 

Besides being an amnesiac there’s also the fact that most, if not all, of the trainers/settlers didn’t survive (according to Reeve’s recounting of the old tales and the journals in the Settler’s Ruins). Maybe Darkrai thought it was impossible for them to survive and that’s why it never put two and two together despite the numerous similarities?

 

Also…if that turns out to be the case…what pokémon did the protagonist have back then? Did all the trainers have legendary/mythical pokémon? I take it their pokémon weren’t as lucky as Darkrai?

 

 

Yeah, Cradily and Meganium seem to be her favored pokémon. It would stand to reason that either of them could have a Mega.

Thank you Jarred, you have given us hope that Meganium and/or Typlosion may get Megas yet!

If Ava doesn’t have a custom mega like Mega Meganium (Meganium you will always be mega worthy to me) maybe she’ll have Mega Venusaur. She can give the player a Venusaurite during the events of Cellia North. Aside from that there isn’t too many mainline grass Megas so unless she gets a surprise custom Mega her options are a bit on the shorter side.

 

I've also been quite busy, sorry.

 

1. Ah, that makes sense. (Now that you mention it, the Atlas mechs in Mass Effect were a bit of a bitch to fight, generally.) But I do look forward to meeting the Elite Four... three... three plus Ditto... in person.

 

Replies ^13:

 

Yeah, she says 'the boy, Hardy', so he's definitely under 20 (although as someone who is also 30, anyone younger than about 28 is a child to me).

 

I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about Ayrith and the lore. It also occurs to me that the Serenity/Kanzen Temple plot might somehow tie into the Dreamscape's plot with the temples and the weird shit in there. Not sure how, but it's a possibility.

 

I'm also hoping that Reeve joins us for a few reasons- for one, I want him to be like Radomus from Reborn and be able to change outfits to whatever fits the situation. For two, I feel like a bunch of strong Psychic Pokemon could really be helpful. For three, throwing Reeve against Waldenhall would add a really interesting dynamic to the whole thing. And for four, I don't know how much Reeve can do for the team back at his lab. He'd probably be a lot more help out in the field.

 

Good point with the scene of Lilith in the field. It occurs to me, we've (including the characters) all been assuming that we'll find Lilith on Arcanius, but with that clip of her in the field, who's to say that she hasn't been and gone already? For all we know, we'll have to track her all over Ayrith. (Maybe the Pieces are going to form some kind of Lilith-detector?) And it would be pretty poetic if the key to defeating Darkrai was to use Perfection against him.

 

God, if we wind up having to do another Reborn where completing a quest requires ending a battle on a certain stage of the field, I'm leaving. I'm not doing that shit again.

 

Honestly, if Connor does have to battle on the Darkness Field, he deserves it. But yeah, it feels like Darkness as a whole holds a lot of significance, so maybe that's what we should be looking at.

 

I feel like there's a non-zero chance that the devs read this thread and either laugh at what we come up with, take notes, update each other on how many rabbit holes we've fallen down, or pick bits to add into the game. In which case we should probably prepare for an agonising Elite Four lineup where they all turn out to be Dittos working for the Foxes. 

 

That's definitely a good catch. I wonder, would any match against someone Darkrai is controlling be on the Darkness Field by default? 

 

I noticed that too. Maybe Shiv's secretly into the protagonist? /jk

 

The only thing we really know about the field is that it's full of flowers and presumably wasn't on Amaria Island (and probably couldn't be on Cellia). I feel like Astraciel Forest is the most likely place, given all the stuff we've heard about it.

 

God, yes. Especially since we've got all the new Mega Evolutions, and AFAIK, no two Trainers have used the same one. So I imagine everyone's either going to be packing a Perfection mon or a new Mega mon.

 

Yeah, that would make sense if Darkrai just figured the protagonist must be dead. I suppose there's also the question of how long it's been- maybe Darkrai forgot the particulars?

 

That's an excellent question. Maybe we'll discover 'our' old Pokemon is still alive somewhere. 

 

On 7/14/2023 at 9:49 AM, RocketOSullivan said:

I could make the assumption that Ava's ace will be Mega Meganium. Why?

-We see her several times fighting with her Cradily and Meganium.

-Meganium may not be as bad as many say, especially with a favorable field, it still looks a bit underwhelming for a late game gym leader, a Mega would help in that sense.

-Thanks to Jarred the greatest character of all times we know that the greatest pokemon of all times Feraligatr has a Mega in Desolation, so I assume Meganium and Typlosion might have one as well.

 

That would be awesome! IIRC, Ava has Cradily, Meganium and I think Tropius (if that hasn't been changed), but any of those would be a good choice for a new Mega.

[RocketOSullivan]

Actually now that I think about it just as Luri said I believe Ava gives us the Venusaurite if we have enough relationship points with her at some point? That might be a hint meaning I was mistaken.

[Luri]

On 7/25/2023 at 10:55 PM, Amare said:

 

I've also been quite busy, sorry.

 

1. Ah, that makes sense. (Now that you mention it, the Atlas mechs in Mass Effect were a bit of a bitch to fight, generally.) But I do look forward to meeting the Elite Four... three... three plus Ditto... in person.

 

Replies ^13:

 

Yeah, she says 'the boy, Hardy', so he's definitely under 20 (although as someone who is also 30, anyone younger than about 28 is a child to me).

 

I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about Ayrith and the lore. It also occurs to me that the Serenity/Kanzen Temple plot might somehow tie into the Dreamscape's plot with the temples and the weird shit in there. Not sure how, but it's a possibility.

 

I'm also hoping that Reeve joins us for a few reasons- for one, I want him to be like Radomus from Reborn and be able to change outfits to whatever fits the situation. For two, I feel like a bunch of strong Psychic Pokemon could really be helpful. For three, throwing Reeve against Waldenhall would add a really interesting dynamic to the whole thing. And for four, I don't know how much Reeve can do for the team back at his lab. He'd probably be a lot more help out in the field.

 

Good point with the scene of Lilith in the field. It occurs to me, we've (including the characters) all been assuming that we'll find Lilith on Arcanius, but with that clip of her in the field, who's to say that she hasn't been and gone already? For all we know, we'll have to track her all over Ayrith. (Maybe the Pieces are going to form some kind of Lilith-detector?) And it would be pretty poetic if the key to defeating Darkrai was to use Perfection against him.

 

God, if we wind up having to do another Reborn where completing a quest requires ending a battle on a certain stage of the field, I'm leaving. I'm not doing that shit again.

 

Honestly, if Connor does have to battle on the Darkness Field, he deserves it. But yeah, it feels like Darkness as a whole holds a lot of significance, so maybe that's what we should be looking at.

 

I feel like there's a non-zero chance that the devs read this thread and either laugh at what we come up with, take notes, update each other on how many rabbit holes we've fallen down, or pick bits to add into the game. In which case we should probably prepare for an agonising Elite Four lineup where they all turn out to be Dittos working for the Foxes. 

 

That's definitely a good catch. I wonder, would any match against someone Darkrai is controlling be on the Darkness Field by default? 

 

I noticed that too. Maybe Shiv's secretly into the protagonist? /jk

 

The only thing we really know about the field is that it's full of flowers and presumably wasn't on Amaria Island (and probably couldn't be on Cellia). I feel like Astraciel Forest is the most likely place, given all the stuff we've heard about it.

 

God, yes. Especially since we've got all the new Mega Evolutions, and AFAIK, no two Trainers have used the same one. So I imagine everyone's either going to be packing a Perfection mon or a new Mega mon.

 

Yeah, that would make sense if Darkrai just figured the protagonist must be dead. I suppose there's also the question of how long it's been- maybe Darkrai forgot the particulars?

 

That's an excellent question. Maybe we'll discover 'our' old Pokemon is still alive somewhere. 

 

 

That would be awesome! IIRC, Ava has Cradily, Meganium and I think Tropius (if that hasn't been changed), but any of those would be a good choice for a new Mega.

1)

I just experienced the ME trilogy for the first time not too long ago…yes, those Atlas mechs were quite a bother…. why is it always Atlases? XD

Me too, I’ll settle for a few more tidbits of information until we get to meet them.  I am really curious to see what personalities they will have. Will Azura be rocking an ice queen persona? What will Hendrick be like? Oh, the curiosity is killer xD

 

Replies ^{^}14:

 

Agreed. Maybe she has that perspective as well. I do recall her referencing Amelia as girl, and I get the feeling Amelia is at least older than Hardy.

 

We are getting quite a few shrines and temples.

This may be a stretch but whoever wrote that passage in that book in the Waterscape Temple describes themselves as no scientist but a man of faith. Given that the only sort of religion that we’ve seen so far is based around Arceus it’s possible that someone related to that faith ended up in the Dreamscape and started investigating (I suppose Kanzen Temple could also be another possibility if they don’t have affiliations with the Temple of Arceus or the Hand of Arceus).

Although, given the situation the author finds themselves in maybe the faith that he referenced isn’t necessarily faith in a higher power but one in the belief that they will find a way out of the Dreamscape or unravel its mysteries. Just some thoughts.

If we are taking pokémon lore into account, the lake guardians have ties to the creation trio which in turn is tied to our favorite golden boy Arceus. Although I’m not sure of the Temple of Arceus worships the others ties to Arceus or just Arceus itself sooooo there is some potential that the shrines could have ties to them, but I suppose it depends on some things.

Whatever the case it is a bit strange the lake guardians get several shrines and a large temple with a mural depicting them in the Waterscape.

 

I didn’t know I needed this until now! I’m sure he has enough outfits for any occasion, that’d be pretty cool.

Besides Reeve is like the second strongest gym leader in the group. Definitely having those strong psychic types would be a huge help.

I completely agree, Reeve and Waldenhall already have quite a dynamic, seeing them interact more would be interesting, especially on opposing sides like they are now. Plus, there’s the fact that Garret and Reeve would be heading after the same person. Maybe throw in Eden as well if she becomes a factor later down the line. There’s definitely some potential there!

I assume he’s gonna be tracking the position of the Perfection fragments in case Waldenhall, or the entity changes course or skips town all of a sudden. Or he could provide some more valuable information, being a scientist and all, as the events unfold.

However, I am of the same mind. Right now, it looks like having a few more people on the field may be a good idea. It is possible Reeve will choose to enter the fray at some point during v7 if things get a little too heated…who knows?

 

Quite true. We know from Nova and that one scene she headed there after Darkrai was released. It seems like there are three likely possibilities…one Lilith is still there, two she has already bounced (I wouldn’t be surprised if she left a clue or something there for when we arrive), or three someone made sure she was out of the race (probably not permanently but still).

With that weird vision Nova was getting about her Umbreon I’m kinda of the mind she’s either not there anymore or someone is targeting Lilith. I’ll be surprised if we do find her in that field when we arrive. Also, the pieces forming a Lilith-detector would be quite helpful if she did start roaming around like certain legendaries do. Certainly wouldn’t have predicted that xD

It would be very poetic, I’m definitely very curious to see if that will be the case. Especially if Darkrai ends up in a Perfection state before the final showdown. I can think of several other poetic ways to defeat Darkrai, maybe one of them will come to pass.

 

I don’t mind having a battle or two with that sort of gimmick again in Desolation as long as the battle doesn’t take place on a field where several moves can easily nuke any or all progress (thanks Flower Garden Field lol) anddd has an opponent that’s wielding a full team with those moves that is more than willing to make the battle the player’s own personal hell. There were so many torched flowers that day…

Maybe having one or the other would make it a bit more manageable and not as frustrating if that’s ever a thing.

IMO Desolation has been pretty fair with its battle structures and comps thus far. None have been overtly difficult or underwhelming. I trust they would figure out how to balance a battle gimmick like that, so it works with their game if that’s a route they wanna take.

Now that you mention it though, I wonder if any other interesting gimmicks will appear in Desolation, like a hypnosis/illusion battle (just need one in Deso to complete the trio!). Or some gauntlet since we haven’t run into one of those yet.

 

Welp, Connor, I wish you luck with that. My protagonist will be over in the corner with some popcorn watching the show xD

It really does. Another point towards darkness being significant is the inscription in the weird cave in the Dreamscape. It mentions find the dark before it finds you. I always thought maybe the dark could be referring to Darkrai (which could still be the case) but with the emergence of things like the Dark Zone and the Darkness field maybe the dark is something else.

I forgot this but the darkness field is also a constant in the cave strangely enough. Both the trainers/Black Fox encounter and the wild pokémon all take place on the field. Yet another oddity of the cave.

What this darkness is, however, and why it seems prominent is still a mystery. It’s definitely something to look more into.

 

Or it could be all four of those combined XD We have fallen down quite a few rabbit holes, haven’t we? Whatever the case is, I hope our ramblings are an enjoyable read for everyone! I’m certainly having a grand time lol

Four Dittos working with the Foxes though…a bit scarier than that Ditto Arceus. I’m well prepared for whatever the Elite Four Ditto Army throws at us, I have my trusty Persian and Furret. They don’t stand a chance!

 

That could definitely be a possibility. Though Nova seems like an outlier in that case. I don’t recall battling her on a darkness field. However out of the four of them Nova was able to shake off Darkrai’s manipulation so maybe that’s why she’s an outlier? It does feel like there is some connection between Darkrai, those being controlled, and that field at least. I’ll be keeping an eye out the next time we duke it out with one of them, that’s for sure.

The only other connection I can think of at the moment would be that those battles also happened when there were some varying levels of emotional turmoil afoot. Tristan’s guilt over being forced to trick the protagonist, Shiv wanting to protect Nova, Aurora wanting Nova out of the picture, and even Lilith’s desperation at stopping the protagonist from falling into Darkrai’s clutches. 

 

You know, that’d explain a few things, like that midnight breaking and entering into the protag’s hotel room…kidding as well xD

Maybe it’s one of those obscure hints towards something to come, like those two gravestones that say Nova and Lilith or the Hardy and Emily ghostly figures in the cave in the South Settlement. The Dreamscape seems to be full of those.

Or just a spook, things are getting a bit spooky now.

I’m chalking it up to a spook until further notice xD

 

Yep, it looks like a normal flowery field. Of course, looks can be deceiving and there could be more to the field than we know but right now that’s about all we got. 

Unless there’s more to Cellia underneath its city, yeah, I’d say you’re probably right. It does seem like the field is located in the Astraciel Wildwood. Which is quite curious considering how remarkable the Astraciel sounds, it’s surprising the field is just an unassuming flowery field.

 

Now that you mention it, yeah no two trainers use the same new Mega (excluding the protagonist of course). If they aren’t wielding Perfection pokémon (the implications of more than one of them having a Perfection mon is a bit concerning…what did those trainers go through to end up with that many perfection pokémon?) then a new mega for each seems like a good idea. Which leads to a tonnn of possibilities for their teams. I’m certainly looking forward to that!

 

 

Well, the Settler’s Ruins dates back at least a century. We don’t know how long the trainers/settlers were on Ayrith prior to finding Perfection and getting that whole ball rolling so I assume it’s been at least 100+ years for Darkrai. I dunno how good pokémon memory is, specifically a mythical who has gained a level of sentience not typical of pokémon, but that’s quite a long time and memory is a fickle thing.

It also took the entity a good chunk of time to realize the identity of the protagonist as well so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the particulars have slipped Darkrai.

 

Although, there are those four strange NPCs in the Waterscape that mention something used to watch, and they are what remains now. This is a lot of inferring but they could be talking about Darkrai, considering it used to reside in the Dreamscape and most definitely watched over its domain, but isn’t doing so anymore. One of them mentions “I know what will come for me, trainer. But more importantly…I know what came before. I remember everything. Can you say the same?”. If they are talking about Darkrai it sounds like it didn’t forget what went down all those years ago. If not…then it’s still possible Darkrai could have forgotten the particulars.

Personally, I can’t decide if those NPCs are referring to Darkrai or the entity (or someone/something else entirely).

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it, also a possibility XD

 

I certainly hope we do if the protagonist does turn out to be a settler who somehow survived. It’ll be interesting to see what pokémon it is, or if the pokémon will be different depending on the protagonist chosen.

 

On 7/27/2023 at 11:07 PM, RocketOSullivan said:

Actually now that I think about it just as Luri said I believe Ava gives us the Venusaurite if we have enough relationship points with her at some point? That might be a hint meaning I was mistaken.

Yep, she gives you it if you talk to her during the events of North Cellia, provided you have enough relationship points with her. I don’t think you were mistaken; both are possibilities :D. The venusaurite was just an alternate idea if it turns out she doesn’t have a unique mega.  

 

I am more partial to your idea that she’ll have a unique mega. Not only is it wayyyy cooler, I also completely agree Jared is a pretty solid lead. He was once the water type gym leader, and he happens to be using a mega Feraligatr.  Looking at it from a team comp perspective I dunno how likely it’d be for her to be rocking two starters (Meganium and Venusaur) during a gym battle so a unique Mega would make more sense for her to have, at least for me lol. And I feel like it’d be fitting for Ava to use a custom Mega considering that the protagonist’s other BFF Scarlett uses a mega Cinccino (still waiting to obtain that megastone DX).

[RocketOSullivan]

Speaking of Jarred I really hope he is gonna be the actual Water gym leader fought for an actual badge, I know he isn't gym leader anymore but what about Tristan then? If the story makes Tristan fight us for a badge then why not Jarred? The only thing is that it is pretty unusual to fight a gym leader before the gym battle against him in games like Reborn/Rejuv/Deso, I believe the only precedent with these games is Saki from Rejuv, and the format was not serious at all, here we already have a pretty solid 6v6 fight with a favorable field for Jarred. 

4 gym leaders to go, we already know Ava is from Darkroot the next town after Astraciel, so I assume we will fight her in E8 for the tenth badge and the Astraciel leader for the ninth. We have heard in the boat about some gym leader from the League island, named Kairo or something like this don't remember exactly, since he is so close to the league he might be number 12 or at least number 11. Obviously we have heard about the Dragon gym leader Vera during the Aderyn arc, but I don't remember if her town is ever mentioned, does she come from Astraciel or not? Rationally a Dragon gym leader is meant to be the last one so I assume no, likely either 11 or 12 like that Kairo guy. Which would mean that the Astraciel gym leader has been either not mentioned yet or I simply don't remember him, and since I'm pretty confident that Jarred will not be the Astraciel leader that would not let him the spot for the last gym leader unfortunately. But whatever, all I ask for E7 is more Jarred and even more, still more, always more.

[Amare]

On 8/2/2023 at 12:49 PM, Luri said:

1)

I just experienced the ME trilogy for the first time not too long ago…yes, those Atlas mechs were quite a bother…. why is it always Atlases? XD

Me too, I’ll settle for a few more tidbits of information until we get to meet them.  I am really curious to see what personalities they will have. Will Azura be rocking an ice queen persona? What will Hendrick be like? Oh, the curiosity is killer xD

 

Replies ^{^}14:

 

Agreed. Maybe she has that perspective as well. I do recall her referencing Amelia as girl, and I get the feeling Amelia is at least older than Hardy.

 

We are getting quite a few shrines and temples.

This may be a stretch but whoever wrote that passage in that book in the Waterscape Temple describes themselves as no scientist but a man of faith. Given that the only sort of religion that we’ve seen so far is based around Arceus it’s possible that someone related to that faith ended up in the Dreamscape and started investigating (I suppose Kanzen Temple could also be another possibility if they don’t have affiliations with the Temple of Arceus or the Hand of Arceus).

Although, given the situation the author finds themselves in maybe the faith that he referenced isn’t necessarily faith in a higher power but one in the belief that they will find a way out of the Dreamscape or unravel its mysteries. Just some thoughts.

If we are taking pokémon lore into account, the lake guardians have ties to the creation trio which in turn is tied to our favorite golden boy Arceus. Although I’m not sure of the Temple of Arceus worships the others ties to Arceus or just Arceus itself sooooo there is some potential that the shrines could have ties to them, but I suppose it depends on some things.

Whatever the case it is a bit strange the lake guardians get several shrines and a large temple with a mural depicting them in the Waterscape.

 

I didn’t know I needed this until now! I’m sure he has enough outfits for any occasion, that’d be pretty cool.

Besides Reeve is like the second strongest gym leader in the group. Definitely having those strong psychic types would be a huge help.

I completely agree, Reeve and Waldenhall already have quite a dynamic, seeing them interact more would be interesting, especially on opposing sides like they are now. Plus, there’s the fact that Garret and Reeve would be heading after the same person. Maybe throw in Eden as well if she becomes a factor later down the line. There’s definitely some potential there!

I assume he’s gonna be tracking the position of the Perfection fragments in case Waldenhall, or the entity changes course or skips town all of a sudden. Or he could provide some more valuable information, being a scientist and all, as the events unfold.

However, I am of the same mind. Right now, it looks like having a few more people on the field may be a good idea. It is possible Reeve will choose to enter the fray at some point during v7 if things get a little too heated…who knows?

 

Quite true. We know from Nova and that one scene she headed there after Darkrai was released. It seems like there are three likely possibilities…one Lilith is still there, two she has already bounced (I wouldn’t be surprised if she left a clue or something there for when we arrive), or three someone made sure she was out of the race (probably not permanently but still).

With that weird vision Nova was getting about her Umbreon I’m kinda of the mind she’s either not there anymore or someone is targeting Lilith. I’ll be surprised if we do find her in that field when we arrive. Also, the pieces forming a Lilith-detector would be quite helpful if she did start roaming around like certain legendaries do. Certainly wouldn’t have predicted that xD

It would be very poetic, I’m definitely very curious to see if that will be the case. Especially if Darkrai ends up in a Perfection state before the final showdown. I can think of several other poetic ways to defeat Darkrai, maybe one of them will come to pass.

 

I don’t mind having a battle or two with that sort of gimmick again in Desolation as long as the battle doesn’t take place on a field where several moves can easily nuke any or all progress (thanks Flower Garden Field lol) anddd has an opponent that’s wielding a full team with those moves that is more than willing to make the battle the player’s own personal hell. There were so many torched flowers that day…

Maybe having one or the other would make it a bit more manageable and not as frustrating if that’s ever a thing.

IMO Desolation has been pretty fair with its battle structures and comps thus far. None have been overtly difficult or underwhelming. I trust they would figure out how to balance a battle gimmick like that, so it works with their game if that’s a route they wanna take.

Now that you mention it though, I wonder if any other interesting gimmicks will appear in Desolation, like a hypnosis/illusion battle (just need one in Deso to complete the trio!). Or some gauntlet since we haven’t run into one of those yet.

 

Welp, Connor, I wish you luck with that. My protagonist will be over in the corner with some popcorn watching the show xD

It really does. Another point towards darkness being significant is the inscription in the weird cave in the Dreamscape. It mentions find the dark before it finds you. I always thought maybe the dark could be referring to Darkrai (which could still be the case) but with the emergence of things like the Dark Zone and the Darkness field maybe the dark is something else.

I forgot this but the darkness field is also a constant in the cave strangely enough. Both the trainers/Black Fox encounter and the wild pokémon all take place on the field. Yet another oddity of the cave.

What this darkness is, however, and why it seems prominent is still a mystery. It’s definitely something to look more into.

 

Or it could be all four of those combined XD We have fallen down quite a few rabbit holes, haven’t we? Whatever the case is, I hope our ramblings are an enjoyable read for everyone! I’m certainly having a grand time lol

Four Dittos working with the Foxes though…a bit scarier than that Ditto Arceus. I’m well prepared for whatever the Elite Four Ditto Army throws at us, I have my trusty Persian and Furret. They don’t stand a chance!

 

That could definitely be a possibility. Though Nova seems like an outlier in that case. I don’t recall battling her on a darkness field. However out of the four of them Nova was able to shake off Darkrai’s manipulation so maybe that’s why she’s an outlier? It does feel like there is some connection between Darkrai, those being controlled, and that field at least. I’ll be keeping an eye out the next time we duke it out with one of them, that’s for sure.

The only other connection I can think of at the moment would be that those battles also happened when there were some varying levels of emotional turmoil afoot. Tristan’s guilt over being forced to trick the protagonist, Shiv wanting to protect Nova, Aurora wanting Nova out of the picture, and even Lilith’s desperation at stopping the protagonist from falling into Darkrai’s clutches. 

 

You know, that’d explain a few things, like that midnight breaking and entering into the protag’s hotel room…kidding as well xD

Maybe it’s one of those obscure hints towards something to come, like those two gravestones that say Nova and Lilith or the Hardy and Emily ghostly figures in the cave in the South Settlement. The Dreamscape seems to be full of those.

Or just a spook, things are getting a bit spooky now.

I’m chalking it up to a spook until further notice xD

 

Yep, it looks like a normal flowery field. Of course, looks can be deceiving and there could be more to the field than we know but right now that’s about all we got. 

Unless there’s more to Cellia underneath its city, yeah, I’d say you’re probably right. It does seem like the field is located in the Astraciel Wildwood. Which is quite curious considering how remarkable the Astraciel sounds, it’s surprising the field is just an unassuming flowery field.

 

Now that you mention it, yeah no two trainers use the same new Mega (excluding the protagonist of course). If they aren’t wielding Perfection pokémon (the implications of more than one of them having a Perfection mon is a bit concerning…what did those trainers go through to end up with that many perfection pokémon?) then a new mega for each seems like a good idea. Which leads to a tonnn of possibilities for their teams. I’m certainly looking forward to that!

 

 

Well, the Settler’s Ruins dates back at least a century. We don’t know how long the trainers/settlers were on Ayrith prior to finding Perfection and getting that whole ball rolling so I assume it’s been at least 100+ years for Darkrai. I dunno how good pokémon memory is, specifically a mythical who has gained a level of sentience not typical of pokémon, but that’s quite a long time and memory is a fickle thing.

It also took the entity a good chunk of time to realize the identity of the protagonist as well so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the particulars have slipped Darkrai.

 

Although, there are those four strange NPCs in the Waterscape that mention something used to watch, and they are what remains now. This is a lot of inferring but they could be talking about Darkrai, considering it used to reside in the Dreamscape and most definitely watched over its domain, but isn’t doing so anymore. One of them mentions “I know what will come for me, trainer. But more importantly…I know what came before. I remember everything. Can you say the same?”. If they are talking about Darkrai it sounds like it didn’t forget what went down all those years ago. If not…then it’s still possible Darkrai could have forgotten the particulars.

Personally, I can’t decide if those NPCs are referring to Darkrai or the entity (or someone/something else entirely).

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it, also a possibility XD

 

I certainly hope we do if the protagonist does turn out to be a settler who somehow survived. It’ll be interesting to see what pokémon it is, or if the pokémon will be different depending on the protagonist chosen.

 

Yep, she gives you it if you talk to her during the events of North Cellia, provided you have enough relationship points with her. I don’t think you were mistaken; both are possibilities :D. The venusaurite was just an alternate idea if it turns out she doesn’t have a unique mega.  

 

I am more partial to your idea that she’ll have a unique mega. Not only is it wayyyy cooler, I also completely agree Jared is a pretty solid lead. He was once the water type gym leader, and he happens to be using a mega Feraligatr.  Looking at it from a team comp perspective I dunno how likely it’d be for her to be rocking two starters (Meganium and Venusaur) during a gym battle so a unique Mega would make more sense for her to have, at least for me lol. And I feel like it’d be fitting for Ava to use a custom Mega considering that the protagonist’s other BFF Scarlett uses a mega Cinccino (still waiting to obtain that megastone DX).

 

1: Damn Atlases. Holding the weight of our frustration on their shoulders. But yeah, it's going to be really interesting when we finally meet the Elite Four/Three/π, unless they all turn out to be holograms or something. I feel like with this game, you *could* have them having the kind of personalities you'd expect from their reputations- Azura as an ice queen/stately noblewoman, Atlas as a noble hero, Damon as a bad boy- or maybe they'll all turn out to be frat kids or something.

 

Replies ^15:

 

I'd put Amelia in her twenties. Maybe somewhere between 22-28?

 

Yeah, I feel like Mesprit showing up is definitely going to lead into something bigger. And with the whole Dreamscape plot in E6, we're not done by any means. Maybe Azelf or Uxie will show up in the Dark Zone, who knows?

 

We definitely need all hands on deck, and I bet Reeve will enter the fray at the most appropriate moment, aka whenever he'd look the most stylish and/or save all our asses.

 

I suppose the question is, if Lilith *isn't* at Astraciel, where would she go and what's her intentions? Does she want to bring down Amelia and reclaim the Foxes? Does she want to destroy the Foxes? Does she want to join us? Is she building a Darkrai Death Ray? I do not know.

 

Oh God, not another gauntlet. Or hypnotised battle. But you're right, Deso has been pretty nice to us so far, which probably means it's going to stop being nice to us shortly. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

 

I just realised something. Darkrai and darkness are a major part of this game, but nobody ever mentioned Cresselia. You'd think Darkrai's counterpart would be something everyone would be all over, but I don't think there's even been a line about her in the game. So where is she, and what happened to her? Did Darkrai lock her away somewhere, or try to wipe her from everyone's memories? Is Cresselia what Lilith's looking for? Do all the Pieces summon her if you put them together?

 

Yeah, we've kind of spiralled a bit. Hopefully we're an enjoyable read at any rate. We could start speculating on various characters' relationships if we want the devs to have more fun?

 

That's definitely true. Does darkness feed off emotions? Does emotional turmoil lead to darkness? We know Perfection allegedly stems from being in an unwinnable situation with impossible odds, but there must have been a bunch of people in situations like that whose Pokemon didn't attain Perfection, so what makes Lilith different? Was it that she was in the presence of someone who was under the influence/affected by a Legendary? Was it that she was feeling the right cocktail of emotions to attain Perfection? I feel like there's an interesting line of thought there...

 

It's probably full of Oricorio, or militant Flabebe, or Vileplume or something. Or maybe the field's actually haunted. Who knows?

 

The new Megas and Perfection forms are really good. I can't wait to see what Perfection Darkrai looks like. I wonder how Perfection forms for the other Eeveelutions would look?

 

There's also the fact that Darkrai's spent a ton of time in the Dreamscape, which screws with your mind at the best of times. It's entirely possible that Darkrai has some problems telling the Dreamscape apart from reality.

 

I definitely agree that those four NPCs have some kind of importance. I'm not sure what, but they're suspicious. We should probably keep an eye on them.

 

On 8/4/2023 at 1:48 PM, RocketOSullivan said:

Speaking of Jarred I really hope he is gonna be the actual Water gym leader fought for an actual badge, I know he isn't gym leader anymore but what about Tristan then? If the story makes Tristan fight us for a badge then why not Jarred? The only thing is that it is pretty unusual to fight a gym leader before the gym battle against him in games like Reborn/Rejuv/Deso, I believe the only precedent with these games is Saki from Rejuv, and the format was not serious at all, here we already have a pretty solid 6v6 fight with a favorable field for Jarred. 

4 gym leaders to go, we already know Ava is from Darkroot the next town after Astraciel, so I assume we will fight her in E8 for the tenth badge and the Astraciel leader for the ninth. We have heard in the boat about some gym leader from the League island, named Kairo or something like this don't remember exactly, since he is so close to the league he might be number 12 or at least number 11. Obviously we have heard about the Dragon gym leader Vera during the Aderyn arc, but I don't remember if her town is ever mentioned, does she come from Astraciel or not? Rationally a Dragon gym leader is meant to be the last one so I assume no, likely either 11 or 12 like that Kairo guy. Which would mean that the Astraciel gym leader has been either not mentioned yet or I simply don't remember him, and since I'm pretty confident that Jarred will not be the Astraciel leader that would not let him the spot for the last gym leader unfortunately. But whatever, all I ask for E7 is more Jarred and even more, still more, always more.

 

I guess the difference is that we had every reason to believe that Tristan was the Leader, while we've been explicitly told that Jarred is no longer the leader. But it's possible that we might fight him for a badge anyway, I guess.

 

I'm guessing the Astraciel leader is next, then Ava, then Vera, then Kairo. This is a long shot and I'm probably not remembering properly, but I recall there being a mention of someone who I think was called Delia in Astraciel Town who Reeve is on good terms with, I think she's the Astraciel leader. And no, we haven't been told much about Vera except that she's the Dragon-type leader and only appeared on TV once.

 

[RocketOSullivan]

Yeah that rings a bell, I remember something like this but not sure at all what exactly, maybe he mentioned her in the prison but you are definitely right, she probably is the next gym leader, followed by the others three in that order. Honestly Vera in 11 is pretty fine, both Reborn and Rejuv have a Dragon user as the ultimate gym leader, would be nice to break that loop.