Melia's backwards dialogues and discussion (Chapter 7 and .Karma Files spoilers)

[SoulN7]

Probably it should not be new, but as 13.5 came out with revamp of many areas and old chapters, during Chapter 7, we assist, as always, at the scene where Angie tries to sacrifice Melia to "Arceus" and the "Maria" part within her snaps and saves her, ruining the ritual. The scene in 13.5 is a bit different, as many illusions of Melia's incarnations (included Maria, Marianette, Melanie and Hooded Girl) appear. But I'm not here to talk about this, I want to talk about the strange scene after we and the others reach Melia after the ritual, where she is in a sort of "hypnosis state" where she will talk backwards. I tried to read correctly all of her dialogues, even the fastest ones since all of her dialogues are pretty important and never appeared before V13.5. As there is already enough spoilers alert....here we go.

 

"Won't someone help me? I'm trapped here and there's nothing I can do...

 

My father is ruining this world...

 

I thought someone would be able to hear me...

 

I can't do this alone.

 

Someone help me...

 

the world is being unraveled at the seams.

 

Spacea and Tiempa follow their orders.

 

They must be contained too.

 

She's watching us. The one who shattered the world is here.

 

Someone free me, please, I am begging. Watching and waiting with the other two.

 

I am trapped.

 

I cannot see.

 

I cannot help myself. I am doing terrible things.

 

Someone help me... (x4)"

 

 

After this, there is a short transition, like someone else is talking within Melia and the dialogue will have the normal speed.

"How many times we had done this, INTERCEPTOR?

You betrayed me at one point."

 

Honestly, I'm not sure how to feel about all of this, but I think "three people" are talking within Melia in the first part, as I'm not sure it's only Maria who is talking, since there are other two who are watching, waiting and be trapped with her (probably Marianette and Melanie), And we have yet another evidence of the bigger threat of Rejuvenation: the World Shatterer. Since we know Spacea and Tiempa follow orders from an our dear acquaintance and this threat is referred as an "her", I would say it's Variya with great chances. The most confusing one is the part which we betrayed "someone within Melia"...I'm...not sure how, since we saved Marianette in the pocket dimension and, if she would have remembered everything, she'll surely will not help us after our possible betrayal.

 

All of this is open to discussion, feel free to add your thoughts.

 

 

[jimkas]

I don't believe Marianette is a seperate being from Maria, it feels more like a name given to her by Vitus as a way to control her (it's literally Maria + marionette).
I also doubt Melanie is involved, as she wouldn't even exist at that point.
The second part might be related to the Renegate Route, I haven't played it yet so I'm not confident it really is.

Edited November 22, 2023 by jimkas

[Nox Omen]

14 minutes ago, SoulN7 said:

Since we know Spacea and Tiempa follow orders from an our dear acquaintance and this threat is referred as an "her", I would say it's Variya with great chances.

 

 

Spoiler

In the Paragon route Spacea e Tiempa openly say they follow the orders of "Her Majesty Variya".

 

[SoulN7]

10 minutes ago, jimkas said:

I don't believe Marianette is a seperate being from Maria, it feels more like a name given to her by Vitus as a way to control her (it's literally Maria + marionette).
I also doubt Melanie is involved, as she wouldn't even exist at that point.
The second part might be related to the Renegate Route, I haven't played it yet so I'm not confident it really is.

It's true, but it seems like Marianette from the pocket dimension could be easily another entity entirely. Well..not until we figured out what truly happened after Chapter 9 and what happened in the Underground Sanctuary.

3 minutes ago, Nox Omen said:

 

  Hide contents

In the Paragon route Spacea e Tiempa openly say they follow the orders of "Her Majesty Variya".

 

Yup, I remembered, but the part with the World Shatterer are not confirmed, but all of the details around it bring those to Variya.

[Magus543]

I suspect there are TWO Variyas considering Ardrest was sure she was dead. 

 

Perhaps an A.I. based on her that went insane? 

[SoulN7]

It could be, after all, Adrest said it could not access all of the Variya's projects and we, players, never meet her properly. We only saw her in flashbacks or illusions. We could know everything of her as we know nothing of her.

[Dausk]

While it is possible for "the one who shattered the world" to refer to Variya, the statement made by Karma in the ruined world portion of the Renegade Route leads me to think otherwise. In it, Karma blames the situation that has befallen upon the world on "the one who shattered this world, the one who shatters all worlds". This cannot be Variya unless it's some AI version of her that went rogue or something silly like that, since this would go against her stated goals. There's also the unlikely possibility that Melia and Karma are referring to two different people, but considering they are both referred to with feminine pronouns, I am going to assume this is not the case. In my opinion, it probably refers to Madame X, seeing that as far as we know, Team Xen's goal seems to be to destroy/reset the current iteration of the world in some capacity. We also know from Chapter 12 that she has been spying on the characters during their time in the past, so it would not be surprising if she was doing so here as well.

[Magus543]

6 hours ago, Dausk said:

While it is possible for "the one who shattered the world" to refer to Variya, the statement made by Karma in the ruined world portion of the Renegade Route leads me to think otherwise. In it, Karma blames the situation that has befallen upon the world on "the one who shattered this world, the one who shatters all worlds". This cannot be Variya unless it's some AI version of her that went rogue or something silly like that, since this would go against her stated goals. There's also the unlikely possibility that Melia and Karma are referring to two different people, but considering they are both referred to with feminine pronouns, I am going to assume this is not the case. In my opinion, it probably refers to Madame X, seeing that as far as we know, Team Xen's goal seems to be to destroy/reset the current iteration of the world in some capacity. We also know from Chapter 12 that she has been spying on the characters during their time in the past, so it would not be surprising if she was doing so here as well.

Yeah, that's why I think there are two Variyas. The one who died as Ardrest says, and some kind of copy.

 

 

And we can't be too sure what the latter's goals are. On one hand, A.I. Variya showed up and made the contract with the A class to bring us into the game for a happy ending. 

 

But then we can also assume from the laugh and subsequent glitching when Ardrest tried to reveal things also came from A.I. Variya.

[SoulN7]

Those are good questions, but I think Madame X has nothing to do with the World Shatterer. It's true that she has really low morals and evil stuffs and her too wants to reset this world, but at the same time she drove MC and Melia to certain right paths, like she did back in the past to save us and guide Melia to find the rests of Old Earth under Goldenwood Cave. I don't think she has "that power"...yet. About the A.I. ...uhm...Pokèmon Scarlet and Violet spoilers incoming!

Spoiler

What if it's actually the A.I. who is good and make the research for the person fitting for the Interceptor's role, while Variya got corrupted or something? We don't know basically nothing of her...

 

[Magus543]

27 minutes ago, SoulN7 said:

Those are good questions, but I think Madame X has nothing to do with the World Shatterer. It's true that she has really low morals and evil stuffs and her too wants to reset this world, but at the same time she drove MC and Melia to certain right paths, like she did back in the past to save us and guide Melia to find the rests of Old Earth under Goldenwood Cave. I don't think she has "that power"...yet. About the A.I. ...uhm...Pokèmon Scarlet and Violet spoilers incoming!

  Hide contents

What if it's actually the A.I. who is good and make the research for the person fitting for the Interceptor's role, while Variya got corrupted or something? We don't know basically nothing of her...

 

Well thinking about it now, it's entirely possible Karma is on our side since it wants a good ending. 

 

But it's also an A.I. and doesn't really account for morality in it's actions. 

[SoulN7]

4 minutes ago, Magus543 said:

Well thinking about it now, it's entirely possible Karma is on our side since it wants a good ending. 

 

But it's also an A.I. and doesn't really account for morality in it's actions. 

Obliviously, like Nymiera herself and Admin, they have low morals, but I think too Karma prefers the path of blooming, probably because this World Shatterer instead prefers the Crumbling.

[Magus543]

2 minutes ago, SoulN7 said:

Obliviously, like Nymiera herself and Admin, they have low morals, but I think too Karma prefers the path of blooming, probably because this World Shatterer instead prefers the Crumbling.

There's just so many questions that Karma raises. 

 

If it determines the path of everything in the world and writes all the characters, why can't it determine the ending? How the hell does it generate worlds? 

[SoulN7]

I think it can't determinate its ending due to the Interceptor. In Karma Files, other than requiring the presence of the Archetype to generate The Core, it's stated that at least one active Interceptor is required within Karma's programming. From previous chapters and from Crescent's first dialogues in .Karma Files, the Interceptor acts as the "judge" of worlds with their actions. This can be showed by the amount of Positive Karma in Paragon Route. With our actions, we help Karma calculate the amount of chances of reaching the Blooming World, while in Renegade Route, I have to believe that Interceptor has already accessed some of their "perks" which helps them to nullify Karma's intervention or probably its control, since it seems like Karma has to "change people's fate and force them to stop Renegade MC" and Talon will be not the last for sure. And for these reasons, Crescent's role was "half-ripped", since she didn't care about acting as such, but instead she wanted to bring back her lover, so in the moment she brought back her lover but within them he others MC too, the judgement of the Interceptor's role changed and it was later assigned to the MC who will take the body of the "lover" and Crescent will act as their co-host. I have to believe Crescent has 50% of Interceptor's powers and we originally had 25% instead, since the MCs were not awakened in us yet.

 

Other than that...I think no one talked about this, but the Ruined timeline in Chapter 12 (the one with Melanie) could be an example of Wilting World: The Core was shutted off and the lands started to die, starting first with Pokèmon, the flora, etc: when we stop Melanie, the Core's symbol turned from orange to blue. I think that's what happened in that scene. It was no wonder that in that moment The Core returned to work and probably Karma returned, there was an active Interceptor from another timeline (MC).

[Magus543]

5 minutes ago, SoulN7 said:

I think it can't determinate its ending due to the Interceptor. In Karma Files, other than requiring the presence of the Archetype to generate The Core, it's stated that at least one active Interceptor is required within Karma's programming. From previous chapters and from Crescent's first dialogues in .Karma Files, the Interceptor acts as the "judge" of worlds with their actions. This can be showed by the amount of Positive Karma in Paragon Route. With our actions, we help Karma calculate the amount of chances of reaching the Blooming World, while in Renegade Route, I have to believe that Interceptor has already accessed some of their "perks" which helps them to nullify Karma's intervention or probably its control, since it seems like Karma has to "change people's fate and force them to stop Renegade MC" and Talon will be not the last for sure.

 

Other than that...I think no one talked about this, but the Ruined timeline in Chapter 12 (the one with Melanie) could be an example of Wilting World: The Core was shutted off and the lands started to die, starting first with Pokèmon, the flora, etc: when we stop Melanie, the Core's symbol turned from orange to blue. I think that's what happened in that scene. It was no wonder that in that moment The Core returned to work and probably Karma returned, there was an active Interceptor from another timeline (MC).

Huh, do you have a copy of what happens if you give Melanie the stone in this version? 

[SoulN7]

2 minutes ago, Magus543 said:

Huh, do you have a copy of what happens if you give Melanie the stone in this version? 

Unfortunatelly no, but I think, it's still a Game Over.

[BlackPrismHunte]

"How many times have we done this Interceptor?"

This line in particular seems to confirm or at least support a theory I had about how the Interceptor from the Renegade timeline and the one from the Paragon timeline are the same person. The implications however seem to be that the Renegade timeline might not have been the first redo the Interceptor has been doing. Which I suppose makes sense. The Renegade timeline requires for you to be a perfect asshole and actively refrain from doing any good. It's possible that the Interceptor always fell short because they slipped and were nice to someone once in a blue moon and that was enough for Kieran and Clear to decide to not contact them or somewhere down the line they fail at the ultimate objective requiring to restart again. 

 

The later dialogue of the Interceptor, where they claim to give no fuck about anyone but yet says "They will gain everything" leads me to believe the Paragon timeline is the first and remains intact, after all End of the Night was born from Melia fucking around with the Zeight after you get a taste of the fight you'll get by betraying your buddies. Meanwhile the Interceptor is going through timeline after timeline thanks to the Zeight time dilation trying to get the perfect Renegade timeline to progress Melia's plan.

Edited November 25, 2023 by BlackPrismHunte