Lore and speculation

## WARNING! MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR ALL VERSIONS AND STORIES!!!!!!!

***Read at your own caution.***

This page is about the lore and speculation behind the game.

## Main game story

This section talks about the main/basic games lore and speculation.

**Ancient Progenitors**

* An advanced civilization (technology) which rivals but doesn't match the golden age of present day.

* Made contact with a similar species specialized in magic. Exchanged information, learned about magicks.

* Used said information on magic to create the Facility. The Facility served as a gateway to anywhere.

* The mages betray the Progenitors and come through the gate as invaders. 'With no warning they came through the gates wielding arms of total destruction and powers over time'. The mages take over the Facility, their invasion starting a war.

**Powers That Be**

* Powers/Authority of the Phantasmal Void. Attracted by mass death/passage of souls generated from the war against the Mages. Presumably a neutral party (neither good nor evil). 'Even their barest touch destroys'. The overwhelming power of Power Eternal? Simply highly destructive. 'And their presence, corrupts.' The presence of great power corrupts those who would wield it. 'Ended' the war between the Progenitors and mages through sheer destruction.

* 'When the dust settled, there was not much left of anything.'

**The Phantasmal Void**

* The sky was shattered, and past it the void exists. (A phantasm is an illusion, dream, something unreal.) The phantasmal void could be something like a place that exists outside the concept of reality, perhaps something on the...EDGE of Reality? haha   ha/

* Contains the Ultimate Truth

* Living beings who go there are likely to be consumed by it. Emphasis on living. Described as a realm of pure unshackled potential. 'Down in the bowels, near the source, the walls of reality give way to a distant, phantasmal void.' (Insubstantial bestiary) The source being that of Power Eternal, I assume.

**The Star of Providence**

* From the Phantasmal Void. 'When our debt is squared, the Star of Providence will rise again and take us all along with it'. The more the Power Eternal is extracted from the star, the more souls the inhabitants owe it. 'They misunderstood. We do not own this power, merely borrow it.'(Displacer). 'An emissary of Power Eternal'

* The source of Power Eternal on the planet, after it crashed from the Phantasmal Void. Indestructible. Unaffected by temporal magic. Monolith is the Star of Providence.

**Power Eternal**

* 'The glorious source of our misery'. Ultimately the source of the ruins, the state of the world, etc. How to handle it is unknown, even by the 'powers that be'. Communed with through 'feeding' it 'our living past'. 'Ultimately, the soul is simply fuel. The essence of the past, burned to make future.' (Eternal Gestalt)

* TRADE OFFER: i receive: Power Eternal, you receive: souls

* 'The Power Eternal gave us everything we could ever want, as long as it was sated.' (Reactor bestiary)

* 'A soul exposed to Power Eternal is never the same again. Something is lost forever.' (Lost Soul) Was exploited and contained in some fashion, likely by the sacrifice of souls.

* Neither good nor evil, a neutral force of absolute consumption. Outside of time. Hence, not affected by temporal magics.

* The Facility's source of Power Eternal (the Star of Providence) is deep in the facility, and the creatures spawned of it are tasked with its protection. I believe this information was from the bestiary.

**The Progenitors Blow Themselves Up**

* The Trader explicitly states that they screw up and die trying to exploit the Power Eternal. Sought to manipulate the power from the Star of Providence through barbaric ritual.

* Were wiped out and 'stripped from the pages of time, like we are.'

**Power Eternal Discovered Again**

* 'Power Eternal was discovered, forgotten, rediscovered and then made impossible to forget.' (Archivator bestiary)

* Discovered by Progenitors. Forgotten when they blew themselves up with it. Rediscovered by the current inhabitants of the planet. Made impossible to forget. Some large enough event has happened that the inhabitants can't simply \*kill themselves\* to forget about it this time. Soul shenanigans?

**The Council**

* The Council is in shambles at the time we speak to the Trader, but they seem to still be considered organized in some fashion. 'War has driven them to create a living god.' HAS driven them, present tense.

* Members(not necessarily current):
* **Warden** (Specialized in Enigmancy.)
* **Daemon.** 'Malicious and abrasive even since before this whole mess began.' (Daemon bestiary) (Specialized in Sight magic.)
* **The GRAND Ordinator**, 'Fools. Cretins. We wield the Power Eternal at our fingertips. It is high time to show them the full extent of our capabilities.' (Ordinator bestiary) (Specialized in Pyromancy.)
* **Renegade** 'They found me out. I managed to escape with the seal, but those wounds look serious. I may not make it out of here alive.' (Renegade bestiary), The Trader's master. Created the Visitors. (Specialized in Abyssal magic.)

* **Bloke,** Currently a shopkeeper, likely the lord of shopkeepers. (Specialized in Geomancy.)

* **Stormlord,** Likely the lord of hermits. **(**Specialized in Electromancy.)

* Ultimate Loser **Cryolord,** We don't know anything about this goon. (Specialized in Cryomancy.)

* Sought to exploit Power Eternal...again. It seems like Warden kept everyone in check, and once he was out of the picture Ordinator and the other fire mages took over.'Long ago, the four elemental schools worked together in harmony, but it all changed when the fire mages took over.' Yes, it's an Avatar reference, but it's actually lore too (in-fighting caused by Ordinator). Trader was also invited as Grand Warlock, but declined.

**Temple Game**

* A creature of extreme power, Chaos God, threatened what remains of society (presumably). Not sure where it came from. The Prisoner \*resembles\* a ship, so it wouldn't be farfetched to believe this is some sort of creation gone wrong. I've considered it may be similar to Monolith in nature because of its structure, but there's so little information it's difficult to speculate. Null exists as the core of Monolith, Prisoner exists as the core of CG. Otherwise, it's likely some powerful creature from the Void.

* Unable to defeat Chaos God, Warden instead created a prison in the form of a videogame cartridge and imprisoned himself and CG inside of it. At some point, some Visitor entered, killed Warden and killed ChaosGod. If this has not happened, the Database is capable of pretty advanced simulations, which isn't altogether too unlikely.

**2nd War**

* Promotional art for RotP shows Overlord in a showdown with Ordinator 'Fools. Cretins. We wield the Power Eternal at our fingertips. It is high time to show them the full extent of our capabilities.' (Ordinator bestiary). Mages of the Facility vs the rest of society?

**Null & D-13**

* Soldiers in the war. Presumably they weren't named 'Null' and 'D-13', those are the ships' names. Their goal is to take the Facility, I'm assuming \*on foot\* since they plan on climbing the spires after taking the Facility. Watch lore happens here. This is back when they were alive. I assume that the ships are running on their souls, in the distant future.

**The Seals & The Machine**

\*\*Reasonable amount of speculation here, supported by tidbits of evidence\*\*

* The remaining Council sought to exploit Power Eternal by creating an incredibly powerful war machine. 'Desperate to avert their impending mortality the council performed the final ritual: an attempt to channel the Power Eternal into a vessel of their making, flinging wide the doors of the Eternal Domain.' (Unknown bestiary)

* Denied mind by the Trader's Master/ Denied mind means not putting a soul into it (not giving it a 'ghost'). 'putting a mind into a machine is what ghost in the shell means'.

* At some point before creating the Machine, the Council created 4 Seals that could help to keep the Power Eternal in check. Renegade, disagreeing with the creation of the Machine, stole one of the Seals and ran, hoping to deter their peers from their endeavor by weakening their ability to control it. There was clearly infighting and disagreement, given the implication that the Warden held things together. 'In the end, there was really only one link holding our group together. I doubt the disasters that followed truly surprised any of us.' (Warden bestiary)

* Renegade ends up betraying the group and stealing a Seal.

* Stormlord(I'm assuming is "the Master") refuses to grant the Machine a mind.

* Not all Council members are present during the Point Zero scene. Only three members are visibly present. Presumably Ordinator, Cryolord, and Daemon. With this in mind, Bloke probably did not agree either, which may also be indicated by his own possessing a Seal.

* The Machine is created and goes berserk, possibly causing an even wider tear in the plane of reality, exposing it even moreso to the Eternal Domain or worse. This may be because the 4th Seal was missing/ 3/4 Seals are present at the end of the Point Zero fight because of Renegade's theft.

* Bloke seals off the 6th Floor with Geomancy(?), invoking the 4 Seal runes upon his spell. At some point, he entrusts a Seal to Kleines and the machine that Overlord(Visitor) would eventually occupy and then keeps one himself. The reclaiming of the Seals by the Visitors later may be seen as a test of power or as the Seal's possessors being forced to relinquish them, it's unclear. It's possible that Bloke and the others believe that someone strong enough to defeat each of them would be strong enough to take on the Machine. Considering Overlord is able to venture to the Machine, does this mean that canonically a Visitor before Null collected the Seals? The alternative is that the Sealing happened after Overlord and Chaos descended, but I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense. The \*very\* unlikely alternative is that the Sealing/Resealing has happened multiple times as a 'test' to multiple Visitors, but we as players just have to go through it once.

**The Master/warlock (Renegade)**

* Master of the Trader.
* Created the Visitors. The Visitors are the Master's 'last legacy'

* Interested in transcendence beyond life and death. Presumably an engineer of soul-based technology. Allegedly 'doomed us all'. Doomed everyone by denying The Machine a mind, it seems. Stealing one of the Seals may actually be the cause of the 'doom'

* The Machine possesses life, but cannot think. Perhaps it acts wildly and automatically because of this. If it had a mind, perhaps it could be controlled. The Monolith event seems to contradict this, and the Trader likely wouldn't know this. It became impossible to control and the plan to use it in the war caused the self-destruction of its own creators.

* Possessed and bargained his 'considerable power' away in an attempt to circumvent the pact made with the Star of Providence. Mimics appear to be attempted recreations of Renegade's ships. Other mages could not infuse their creations with souls the way that Renegade could (they lacked control of Abyssal magic/necromancy), it seems, otherwise the Machine would have been granted mind by someone else. Mimics are likely others' failed attempts at doing so. It's mentioned that the Master tried to 'trick' the Star of Providence as well. If you were to 'trick' something, you would be pretending to give it something it wants in this case, so maybe they tried to provide it with artificial souls, or something that resembles a lifeform's past. Maybe Database has something to do with this.

**The Visitors**

* **13 visitors**

* 1st = Arena Blaster

* 2nd = Armsmaster

* 10th = Overlord

* 11th = Chaos

* 12th = Null

* 13th = D-13
* All created by Renegade. Skully's origin is unknown.

* Souls of the deceased seem to power/control them. Goal is to reach the bottom of the Facility. Perhaps created to free the world from the Star of Providence? Probably intended to \*contain\* Power Eternal, but it didn't work out, given Null tries to obtain the Power themself. Also possible that they were just a pet project by Renegade that evolved into something else, with the goal of contesting the rest of Council and their ambitions/to destroy the Machine.

* When the bottom is reached 'the world will change in ways none of us can predict'. Null reached the Conduit of Power Eternal and became Monolith. D13 reached the bottom of the Facility immediately after(?) Null and found Monolith, destroying it, and then destroying the Power Eternal conduit.. Nothing indicates a major change on the surface as of the current narrative. Does not have a 'living face', as the Trader says.

* Overlord was nearly killed by Machine but was saved by Chaos. His soul was then transferred to the actual Overlord boss. Who did this, for what purpose? Is he still conscious/fighting for the Master?

* Chaos saved Overlord and fused with the Machine. 'both things are true'. The fusion may be what causes the monolith-like containment that we find the Machine in when we encounter them as Null.

* Based on their mirror text:

* Null entered the Phantasmal Void and achieved Truth (that is he used the Conduit, got Power Eternal). Is this what it means to commune with Power Eternal? Give Soul to Void, become euphoric power beast?

**Bad End...Again**

* 'And so history repeated itself. A brilliant, white flash engulfed the planet, and a million souls have lost their home.' (Monolith bestiary). But D-13 managed to destroy Monolith before it could cause any more destruction. Allegedly, if D-13 had not stopped Monolith, it would lead to the events of Last Fighter D

**Database**

* The content of the game itself is a simulation generated by the Database. It is able to generate scenarios that occurred but with slight differences from the reality of said scenario. ie anyone but D-13 facing off against Monolith.

* Who created the Database? What was the purpose of creating the Database? How were events recorded by the Database? When the Database is unable to accurately simulate a situation due to an error/glitch(the player acquiring a glitched cartridge), Nowhere is generated, a hodgepodge of existing information already in the Database.

* Eventually Database itself attempts to expunge the 'error' from its system, leading into the player witnessing the birth of the Machine. By destroying the Machine in its playback (something that \*did not happen\* in reality), the player breaks the whole system and apparently causes the looping effect.

**The Echo Hub and the Player**

* The Echo Hub is where the player ends up after defeating Point Zero. This is not necessarily the official name. This name comes from sprites in the area all containing "echo" in their name. However, an echo does refer to something that has already happened occurring once again, so ya know, loops and all that.

* Some Echo Hub Dialogue:

* 'Useless. Scrap it. Start over from the beginning.' 'Have you checked the output? I'm getting some strange readings.' 'Soul extraction level is at 48%.' 'The Ordinator will have me quartered for this.' (or something to that effect)

* The dialogue is stuff previously spoken by people whose souls are now inside of the Facility's machines. Indicated by their sprites being outlines of enemies, but the dialogue being that of workers. An unknown figure stands in the middle of the room and allows the player to loop.

* Since Kleines is normally the only character in the hub, there's speculation that this is some kind of human form of his. We don't really know anything about Kleines other than he's a business associate of Bloke's and is apparently trusted by him, so anything is possible. Other candidates by the merit of just not knowing much/anything about them: the Master and Cryolord. It \*could\* be the Master (see Baseless Speculation section below)

* When the player approaches the southern wall, they can talk to somebody through it. Since \*every ship\* gets this dialogue, I'm assuming the voice is speaking to the player. It appears to be someone checking in on them, so I assume the player is undergoing some sort of process and is stuck stationary. Maybe the player completing runs of the game is directly related to something that is happening to them/others outside.

**The Nature of the Facility/World**

* Not Earth

* 'Some couldn't escape.' (Shattered One bestiary), 'They're a part of this place now.' (Broken One bestiary), 'They too will be consumed, in time.' (Cracked One bestiary) .'Death may have stopped, but the harvest continues.' (Grimm bestiary). All of the quotes seem to imply \*something\* about the setting, at least. Some couldn't escape. Likely couldn't escape a Monolith-like event that caused everyone's souls to leave their bodies. Being consumed makes me think of the phantasmal void, where one cannot exist without being consumed .Also pretty likely it's in reference to being consumed by the Star.

* Death has stopped? Can't die if you're just a soul or a 'ghost in the shell', I suppose, so maybe this is referencing everyone in the place just being a soul separated from its original form. Even the Trader, someone who appears corporeal, mentions this tangentially. "We have no need of living faces for our spirits to communicate." So...everyone's body is gone, but their souls still 'live.' Maybe souls can possess things without some special process. The longer a souls just 'lives' the more it loses its sense of self.

* Bestiary suggests this.

**Unsorted Curiosities**

* 'Stripped from the pages of time. Made whole. Trapped.' (Eternal Mage bestiary). Soul succ'd -> given form again -> trapped in that form.

* 'Opening the conduit to Eternal Domain has ever since attracted freeloaders.' (Beast bestiary) Eternal Domain? Is this what we call the source of Power Eternal?

* Trespasser and Oblivion are of the Eternal Realm

**Baseless Speculation**

* The Database was created by the Master as some means of 'tricking' the Star of Providence. I'm wondering if maybe the Master wanted to attempt to 'feed' the Star with a simulation of a soul. This way, no lives would actually need to be lost, it would just \*think\* it was getting something it wasn't. Everyone knows when they're drinking Diet though, and it didn't work out.

* Elaborating on DB a little bit more, it would also make sense that the Master made it since the vast majority of its recordings either track the Visitors or appear to be direcly recorded by the Visitors. The Temple is my main reason for thinking this. The Facility likely has surveillance footage of some sort, but the Temple probably doesn't. How could the Database simulate everything in the Temple if a Visitor didn't record it for them?

* 'And so history repeated itself. A brilliant, white flash engulfed the planet, and a million souls have lost their home.' What if by 'homes' the devs mean their bodies. We're likely dealing with literal souls here, not the figurative language