Trying to give context about 13.5's lore (spoilers)

[SoulN7]

So, I managed to finish both Paragon and Renegade route, thanks to @Magus543 who gave me his 13.5 Renegade Route file, and I'm trying to "collect" the lore from 13.5. Since they are both my first runs on 13.5, I'm not sure how much of what I'll be saying will be correct and I'll put even some theories about everything. This is only to help people understand or having their visions on the lore of the new update. Obliviously, SPOILERS ABOUT BOTH ROUTES.

Let's start.

Spoiler

The start is almost pretty much the same on both routes: Adrest is awaken and we got all of Interceptor's power with the "Knight form".

 

In both routes, he pretty much explains what is the "Old Earth", how Garufan Encorporated was born and how mankind, during a war, killed their god and susteiner, Arceus (this pretty much f*cks up Original Deity's story, though...) and the world started to fall of after, first having Pokèmon ceasing to exist and then humanity itself. As a last resort, humanity found the Archetype within the rests of Arceus' golden Arch and Garufan Encorporated started to test this on humans (like we saw on Pearl Route). At some point, tests are stopped by Variya, who discovered that G.E.'s higher ups are using Archetype for war and politic purposes instead of trying to "help humanity survive". During this, 18 volounteers (one of this being Adrest) helped Variya to build The Core, a "Pseudo-Arceus" and use Archetype's power to make a "world reset". In the meantime, Variya built a self-learning AI named Karma who pretty much helped to establish fate of people, Pokèmon and ambients, alongside three programs named Nymiera.exe, Vitus.exe and "Missing.exe" that were assigned to take role of Life, Death and Balance on the new world. At some points, they took physical forms and this explained why Storm-9 is like a sort of virus and why Vitus could not make children. Right, Karma needs one active Interceptor to make sure it could work properly. Despite this, the Interceptor can work outside its control sometimes and having some "perks" which helped them to outstand a possible intervention. Karma works like the Interceptor as a sort of "judge" of worlds: if a world is in bad shape, too much evil and anything else, Karma will destroy The Core and let the "world crumble" in a limit of 20 years. If, instead, the world is in good shape and its inhabitant are indipendent enough, Karma will let The Core deactivate and give free will to humanity.

 

After this, the routes split: Adrest will be gone for good by an outer entity, in Paragon, while in Renegade, despite the outer entity's intervention, is the MC whom killed Adrest.

 

Before this, Crescent appeares, as she knows in "her lover" there is another person instead and tries to kill us. After the fight, she will escape or she'll have a mental breakdown (this in Paragon), we see that all MCs in the protagonist are now fully awakened and can see what we do in our adventure. In Paragon, it's our job to enforce the relationship with her and the rest of the "main gang" to gain access to Interceptor's perks and truths about Karma.

 

At some point, the Interceptor (at his ""full power"") and Melia's "Archetype/Genesis Syndrome" make contact, resulting in MC and Melia of both routes experiencing some kind of "broken future" where Xen Raid failed and the squad lost (it seems like this is more an outcome for the Renegade Timeline). This timeline is the same for both routes, but you experienced certain moments based on which route you have:

 

- In Renegade Route, we have Hooded Girl, a "Melia of an older version of Rejuvenation", and our choosen protagonist with their body back (so, it's not us) who travelled this "broken world" after their MC did something that cancelled half of them. After 6 years of travelling and never finding something useful, Hooded Girl lost hope and tries to kill choosen MC because "they look just like P\N". In this moment, an outer entity (probably Karma) intervened, talks about a "World Shatterer" who pretty much ruined its job and let Hooded Girl "escape" their world, who then went into the Renegade Route present and overlaps the present Melia. Now Hooded Girl calls herself M2 and, having memories of pain and suffering from her timeline, seeks help of Renegade MC to kill some people who inflicted her those memories (and in these, there is the MC). 

 

-In Paragon Route, we experience the exact moment AFTER M2 "escaped", leaving her body behind. After being "rescued" by the choosen MC, we found out that Paragon Melia has now the body of M2 and she doesn't know what is happening in this new world. After taking control of choosen MC, we found out that this one is too from a different version of Rejuvenation, since they didn't know about GDC's Central Building look in 13.5. Together, they discovered M2's diary, which pretty much explained her "fall to madness", but the vision here stopped and we return to the present, but it seems like Melia experienced something else we couldn't see. Paragon Melia seems normal...for now.

 

Now, both routes truly splits:

 

In Paragon Route, Melia needs access to our Zeight in order to work together with MC to "decrypt some data given by Adrest" and make sure the Broken Timeline doesn't happen. With her help, we need to improve and dig deeper in certain relationship we have with the "Xen Raid squad", included Crescent, whom needs our help to "have the simpathy of everyone". Obliviously, all of these "mini-quests" are pretty straightforward, so they are easy to understand and I won't explain them even further, aside from "Crescent's day", who revealed her past, her motivations and that she is an Interceptor, (note: she stole the show in Paragon Route: a character which evolution is in continue progress and have good moments) and Alice's Day" (where Vitus's spirit in Angie tries to control Alice and we found out that Anju is trying to break free). Other than this, MC and Melia developed an "Obliteration spell" which they discarded later due to its dangerous power.

Everything else is straight forward and you should know everything, aside from seeing how Melia returned to Paragon's world after the broken timeline (after facing Spacea and Tiempa).

 

In Renegade Route, M2 goes on a killing spree, stopping people like Karrina, almost Ren, Spacea and Tiempa, while ruining her own body (abuse of Archetype) and her relationships with the squad, alongside us. Meanwhile, MC obtained a spell which helpes them to erase people and seeks to get Red gems from the Lake Guardians in order to create the Red Chain...which they throw away in front of M2 instead of use it on their Spacea and Tiempa.

In the end of the route, MC snaps at M2 for her snapping at them because they kill mercilessy people, explaining their motivation: they knows their world is doomed, they prefer sparing people in a painless way and more...while destroying M2's ridiculous reasoning for killing. Poor girl. 

 

Obliviously, there is a particular detail in all of this. After MC and Melia's contact, the routes started to "merge", or at least they influenced each other: Melia gaves unwillingly access to Zeight to M2, Paragon MC and Melia create the End of Night spell which then Renegade MC uses, Renegade MC actually sends the Red Chain on purpose to Melia and more. So, my guess is that Paragon Melia and Renegade MC know that their worlds are making contact, so I feel like Renegade MC wants to help Paragon to reach their goal, so the success in the Xen Raid, while Melia needs some "events" to happen in the Renegade Timeline in order to get advantages in Paragon Timeline. 

 

I think I putted everything important to say, if you want to correct something or add more important things, I'll be glad.

Edit: updated, I had to correct what was the "broken timeline".

[Magus543]

Going over it, perhaps the eye in Paragon is more hopeful because our world is on track to getting a happy ending? 

[SoulN7]

Probably, after all, it doesn't make sense to Eye intervening and talking about good endings and hopes. If this World Shatterer "intervenes" in your duty when you want to preserve the world and its life, I would intervene too like the Eye did...unfortunatelly, I don't think it knows that it sent M2 in the Renegade Route.

[Magus543]

There's still the question of where M2 is in the Paragon route. I interpreted the flash forwards after making contact with Melia as in the same timeline, because in the Paragon route, Melia wakes up after M2 tried to kill the host body of the interceptor, which is what happens in the Renegade route, and in the Paragon route, she's still herself and relays that she remembers being in the bad future.

 

So that leaves the question of where M2 is in Paragon. Unless our Melia managed to overlap with M2 because of the paradox gate and regain control of her body. 

[SoulN7]

Right, I changed many things in my first post, since of my ideas were wrong or confused. Not sure if I forgot something, still.

[Magus543]

So got an update on your thoughts or what? 

[SoulN7]

Yup, I changed some of my thoughts and bits of lore I tried to collect.

[Magus543]

On 11/15/2023 at 12:34 AM, SoulN7 said:

Yup, I changed some of my thoughts and bits of lore I tried to collect.

Also the end of days spell in Paragon after you clear the gauntlet is given to the Renegade player.

[SoulN7]

7 minutes ago, Magus543 said:

Also the end of days spell in Paragon after you clear the gauntlet is given to the Renegade player.

Yup, I think I said it. Also, I wanted to add that...

Spoiler

In Renegade Route, Karma is "forcing" characters to stop MC and making them transform into beasts that are similar to Pokémon. Now that I think about it, the Files in Paragon Route mentioned about objects, people and Pokémon could corrupt into Pokémon-like beasts if exposed too much in Eye Matter...

 

[Nishtala]

8 hours ago, SoulN7 said:

Yup, I think I said it. Also, I wanted to add that...

  Hide contents

In Renegade Route, Karma is "forcing" characters to stop MC and making them transform into beasts that are similar to Pokémon. Now that I think about it, the Files in Paragon Route mentioned about objects, people and Pokémon could corrupt into Pokémon-like beasts if exposed too much in Eye Matter...

 

 

Yeah, and given what we learn about 

 

Spoiler

...ley lines and how a rift in them results in "corrupted data on life itself" to leak, I think it is safe to say that Dimensional Rifts as we know are actually literal rifts in the planetary Ley Lines of the Core. Which makes Zetta's ability to freely create artificial Rifts even more fascinating, because I'm pretty sure Zetta is still the only person who's explicitly stated to have the ability to create full on Dimensional Rifts (not just have a Rift-corrupting influence like Vitus, though we'll have to see for that).

 

I also think Karma is kind of going rogue in spite of Variya's intentions due to its sentience. It is stated that Karma should, in theory, release worlds from its grip should a world's decided to be Blooming, and shut down along with the core if it is Wilting. Yet future Karma sounded very gleeful when it talks about games and how it's grown to be very good at it, and how it can't wait for the next "version" - which, given the meta-acknowledgement of different game versions via Eizen now, I'm pretty sure means literally the Rejuvenation game version. My theory is that each version update of the game is a world reset like many others have theorized, which is made by Karma. And the thing is as long as the version updates continues the "decision point" where Karma has to decide whether the world is blooming or wilting can be delayed, resulting in an "endless game". So I think the world is stuck in a perpetual cycle of resets until Karma is "satisfied" or completely destroyed - which is what I think what the Paragon and Renegade routes will be, with some added Ouroborus-type "inducing each other to happen" kind of way given the emphasis of it in the added lore (goldenwood mural script, Kieran's hideout in Valor, etc).

 

One last thing - I think the fact that v13.5 main quest is called ".Karma files" and not "Karma files" is also important to note. It implies that the quest is referring to files with the file extension Karma, not just files related to Karma. And given how Paragon Melia has started to literally learn Ruby, and how the game has started to play with program mechanics such as the Puppet Coin Gardevoir event -- I think the following versions will be very... funky. I'm tentatively excited, but I also think self-awareness and mechanical gameplay meta has become a bit too oversaturated in indie/fangames these days, I just hope that the creators will be able to pull it off well.

[SoulN7]

6 minutes ago, Nishtala said:

 

Yeah, and given what we learn about 

 

  Hide contents

...ley lines and how a rift in them results in "corrupted data on life itself" to leak, I think it is safe to say that Dimensional Rifts as we know are actually literal rifts in the planetary Ley Lines of the Core. Which makes Zetta's ability to freely create artificial Rifts even more fascinating, because I'm pretty sure Zetta is still the only person who's explicitly stated to have the ability to create full on Dimensional Rifts (not just have a Rift-corrupting influence like Vitus, though we'll have to see for that).

 

I also think Karma is kind of going rogue in spite of Variya's intentions due to its sentience. It is stated that Karma should, in theory, release worlds from its grip should a world's decided to be Blooming, and shut down along with the core if it is Wilting. Yet future Karma sounded very gleeful when it talks about games and how it's grown to be very good at it, and how it can't wait for the next "version" - which, given the meta-acknowledgement of different game versions via Eizen now, I'm pretty sure means literally the Rejuvenation game version. My theory is that each version update of the game is a world reset like many others have theorized, which is made by Karma. And the thing is as long as the version updates continues the "decision point" where Karma has to decide whether the world is blooming or wilting can be delayed, resulting in an "endless game". So I think the world is stuck in a perpetual cycle of resets until Karma is "satisfied" or completely destroyed - which is what I think what the Paragon and Renegade routes will be, with some added Ouroborus-type "inducing each other to happen" kind of way given the emphasis of it in the added lore (goldenwood mural script, Kieran's hideout in Valor, etc).

 

One last thing - I think the fact that v13.5 main quest is called ".Karma files" and not "Karma files" is also important to note. It implies that the quest is referring to files with the file extension Karma, not just files related to Karma. And given how Paragon Melia has started to literally learn Ruby, and how the game has started to play with program mechanics such as the Puppet Coin Gardevoir event -- I think the following versions will be very... funky. I'm tentatively excited, but I also think self-awareness and mechanical gameplay meta has become a bit too oversaturated in indie/fangames these days, I just hope that the creators will be able to pull it off well.

Spoiler

I hope they not go too far with the self-aware stuffs, but I think they'll handle this well. About Karma, I have the feeling that in some worlds, it was supposed to reach the Blooming, but this "World Shatterer" was doing something that could "block" Karma's job. With this, I think your thoughts about Karma going rogue against Variya makes sense. 

 

[Nill]

To add some info to the confusion

 

The paragon and renegade timelines starting to merge is somewhat confirmed in a talk between tiempa and space (something about alternate selves starting to merge) 

 

If this is true, and they end up merging fully, i wonder about the fate of amber in the paragon timeline since she was deleted in the renegade route. Does this overwrite the deletion or is she deleted in the paragon universe as well?? 

 

There is a small thing about M2 that i noticed that may point to its real origins

There is a quite dismissable talk she has with crawli on the bridge in terajuma,

M2 says "your hair is short now" 

Crawli says "my hairs always been this long"

This intrigued me and so i did some digging. And if you look at Crawlis former sprite in older versions of rejuvenation he indeed has long hair

 

If you look at the full 13.5 version we have a few other caracters that somewhat talk about older versions of the game being its own timelines

 

EIZEN says the following "unless their counsciousness has visited another version of this world" when talking about previous versions of the game

"sometimes their existences cross paths and become one for a very short period of time" 

"as a result an inconsistency occurs" 

 

Talon also implies something weird, claims god (karma) showed him his past, present and future

"apparently, in my past life, i didnt even exist!" 

"and i was placed here as an afterthought" 

So  by past he is refering to older game versions as well. 

 

Karma itself claims to be currently constructing new versions of the game at the moment sooo... 

 

So I believe that M2 is not just a "wilting world" Melia, she might just be a Melia from an old version of the game discarded away into limbo by karmaAi /devs a few versions ago. 

 

I my opinion these continous references to former versions of the game will have massive impact in the following story

 

"karma's a bitch, you'll see" 

[Mimikyu]

9 hours ago, Nill said:

To add some info to the confusion

 

The paragon and renegade timelines starting to merge is somewhat confirmed in a talk between tiempa and space (something about alternate selves starting to merge) 

 

If this is true, and they end up merging fully, i wonder about the fate of amber in the paragon timeline since she was deleted in the renegade route. Does this overwrite the deletion or is she deleted in the paragon universe as well?? 

 

There is a small thing about M2 that i noticed that may point to its real origins

There is a quite dismissable talk she has with crawli on the bridge in terajuma,

M2 says "your hair is short now" 

Crawli says "my hairs always been this long"

This intrigued me and so i did some digging. And if you look at Crawlis former sprite in older versions of rejuvenation he indeed has long hair

 

If you look at the full 13.5 version we have a few other caracters that somewhat talk about older versions of the game being its own timelines

 

EIZEN says the following "unless their counsciousness has visited another version of this world" when talking about previous versions of the game

"sometimes their existences cross paths and become one for a very short period of time" 

"as a result an inconsistency occurs" 

 

Talon also implies something weird, claims god (karma) showed him his past, present and future

"apparently, in my past life, i didnt even exist!" 

"and i was placed here as an afterthought" 

So  by past he is refering to older game versions as well. 

 

Karma itself claims to be currently constructing new versions of the game at the moment sooo... 

 

So I believe that M2 is not just a "wilting world" Melia, she might just be a Melia from an old version of the game discarded away into limbo by karmaAi /devs a few versions ago. 

 

I my opinion these continous references to former versions of the game will have massive impact in the following story

 

"karma's a bitch, you'll see" 

Another thing also, In previous versions of Rejuv (This is from my memory of an NPC), Crawli is stated to be blind and uses his Bug Types Compound Eyes ability to "See"
13.5 Rejuv has no mention of this at all now