Pandemonium Backstory?

[Praecautus]

"It struck Roman now that this man, this Vanya, this stranger who
had accompanied him throughout the night, possessed an air of something
other than simply an exotic foreigner. It was as though he were
bigger than life, a person harbouring great mysteries…like an angel,
perhaps, or a demon."

There is a lot of that stuff in PWH, when I reread PWH and this thread recently I noticed it cropping up a lot. Various unred/red characters are described by others as having the appearance of angels and demons.

TOTW came up earlier and I came across another item that describes TOTW - The Ax of Violetta. Whilst found in SL it has a small story in the desc about Violeta being transported into a SL garden from TOTW.

[Nobody]

Before I begin with some additional thoughts, let me say I very much like/support the theories involving the alien invaders being Xan desendants and that the death screams heard when the beast was killed were empaths linked with the source. So if any of my ideas contradict those please take it with a grain of salt. What follows is a somewhat jumble of ideas, but its hard to begin a discussion on them if I don't at least throw them out there - unrefined as they may be.

There was some talk at one point in this thread regarding the expansion of the universe. I'm wondering if anyone else has made the connection that perhaps the Source is the located where the Big Bang originally ocurred, assuming AO lore subscribes to that theory (I'm not interested in arguing whether the Big Bang actually ocurred in real life or not. As far as this thread goes, I'm only interested in how these theories may possibly be linked to AO's storyline. Unfortunately I think that argument kind of derailed some potentially enlightening story discussion earlier in the thread).

[Try to stay with me on this, because these ideas are still rough and a bit derivative. In other words...I'm reaching, but at least I'm aware of it ]

I believe there are some elements in the Big Bang theory (which is directly related to the expansion of the universe) which may shed some light on the Alien Invasion. There is discussion about whether the universe will just drift apart forever, if it will just sputter to a halt, or if it will one day collapse back in upon itself...

Now, assume the Source is the original power behind the Big Bang, and the Source is thereby connected to everything in the universe. What would happen if someone started trying to harvest this awesome power that created our universe, and ultimately ended up corrupting that power (or at least corrupting the balance of that power) as seems to be the case with the theories regarding the notum/novictum balance mentioned throughout this thread. Could this lead to the collapse of our universe, or somehow otherwise lead to its destruction (perhaps even in the form of a brand new Big Bang)?

If the invading aliens (which I'm assuming are at least descendants of the Xan, if not original Xan, for purposes of my theory) live near the border of the expanding universe, might they be the first to feel the effects of this corruption? This of course would compel them to zoom back to their old homeworld on Rubi-Ka to deal with whatever was causing the problem.

In our story, we have this ancient race of Immortals (the Xan - who were perhaps even among the first sentient beings in the universe) who encounter this ultimate power. And like any sentient beings we know, they are tempted to tame, guard, or otherwise control this power, which ultimately leads to chaos, destruction, war, and a division into factions.

[Darn, have to go now, but I'll leave this as is for now, and hopefully finish/refine it later, although my primary ideas are already there]

You mean String Theory?

Or in other words the idea that the speed of light at the moment of creation was several 100, or even million times faster than it is now, is gradually slowing down, may eventually stop, then begin to collapse back or just reach a certain point and stop. I belive the big bang to a certain extent, it's more like if you believe in the beginning God or dirt , how it happened, or what set it off, we may never really understand.

[Telperion]

I personnally stay with my opinion that:

1. the aliens planted the Beast, and the aliens have no link whatsoever with the Xan,
2. Adonis was built around the original, untainted Source, which makes this city more or less the center of the Universe and the capital of the Xan.

I hope 16.3 will tell me whether i'm right of wrong, hehe

[Vlain]

I personnally stay with my opinion that:

1. the aliens planted the Beast, and the aliens have no link whatsoever with the Xan,
2. Adonis was built around the original, untainted Source, which makes this city more or less the center of the Universe and the capital of the Xan.

I hope 16.3 will tell me whether i'm right of wrong, hehe

This is a creative theory, but my problem with it is that it seems to discard all the information we gather from the Codex Clavis regarding the awakening of the Fisher King when the Xan first reach the Source, the Xan's attempts to keep it alive, and it's subsequent corruption into the Arthur/Beast that fell into madness where the Source kept him against his will.

[Nobody]

if aliens planted the beast then, who planted the aliens? if they have a connection with the beast they MUST have a relation to the xan somehow

[Tussa]

Ah, but I don't think we should take the Codex Clavis too literally. Even the item description says "It is often self-contradicting and confusing. All in all it doesn't seem to be all too relieable."

Whether or not the Codex is correct to the letter or if it's a blend of myth, legend, history and imagination from the writer (the ingame writer, not the designer who made the database item) is something I guess is up to each of us. Just like, say, the Bible. You can choose to believe what's written in it, or you can choose not to. It's a matter of conviction.

[Nobody]

Let's leave the bible out of this, that's a whole nother matter of religious discussion.

The codex clavis is the ONLY written piece of shadowlands history we have. what sentence in it is made to be taken figurativley? The ARKS described in it even are'nt talking about the helpers on rubi-ka, there are several crashed/landed ships in adonis, penumbra, and i think i found 2 in inferno.

The Codex Clavis is only contradicting because the information is so fragmented, if we had say the entire thing, we would discover more, you can see in it how it skips several chapters/passages after each sentence.

What else do we have to go on?

EDIT: (This is gonna be kinda like the story of the servants of eight, like how so many people argued over it being true or made up, even those who experienced it.)

[Sorceress]

I really hope the new Inferno quests in patch 16.3 will shed some more light on the storyline.
Can't wait to mapping those quests too

Just hope they can be done solo and not like Key quests

[Vlain]

Ah, but I don't think we should take the Codex Clavis too literally. Even the item description says "It is often self-contradicting and confusing. All in all it doesn't seem to be all too relieable."

Whether or not the Codex is correct to the letter or if it's a blend of myth, legend, history and imagination from the writer (the ingame writer, not the designer who made the database item) is something I guess is up to each of us. Just like, say, the Bible. You can choose to believe what's written in it, or you can choose not to. It's a matter of conviction.

I have to agree with malewerecat on this one...if we discard the Codex we might as well not try to figure out Pand's backstory at all, because we have very little else to go on. If you want to liken it to the bible then it would be similar to trying to discuss Christianity after throwing out the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of what you find in this thread is still theory, but at least they are theories backed up by something...hence the discussion. Throw out the Codex and virtually ANY pet theory becomes plausible.

There are some other tidbits gathered throughout this thread from other sources like PWH, So8 armor, IS flavor text, ergo dialogue, and some other quest info, but it is the Codex which really seems to hammer it all together...albeit cryptically.

[Vlain]

After a quick poll on my 1up blog, we decided to go for Scheol over Penumbra next, and are currently working hard to fill this playfield with story-driven quests. We hope to give you some of the missing pieces in each of the playfields, so that once you've completed the quests, your knowledge of the Shadowlands should be improved. And as a bonus, you might get some other nice rewards too

quote source


Bump for even more story <3 otw.

[Tussa]

I never said we should discard the Codex entirely. Please point to where I wrote that. What I did say was that because the item description itself says it's not too reliable, there's more than likely several things in the current (and hey, possible future) codex clavis texts that isn't fact, in terms of the SL history. Hearsay, maybe. Myth and legend, surely. Personal conviction (what your character chooses to believe), definitely.

[Vlain]

I never said we should discard the Codex entirely. Please point to where I wrote that. What I did say was that because the item description itself says it's not too reliable, there's more than likely several things in the current (and hey, possible future) codex clavis texts that isn't fact, in terms of the SL history. Hearsay, maybe. Myth and legend, surely. Personal conviction (what your character chooses to believe), definitely.

(Please don't take any of this as a flame, because it isn't intended to be one.)
I know what you said. And I know what the Codex says about itself. But if the Codex is an unreliable source there is no reason for us to go on devising theories based on its contents, which is the same as throwing it out. You can't discern truth from a source filled with lies.

Edit:

When you first posted, malewerecat & I were discussing Telperion's theory, and why we thought it wasn't valid because it contradicts the codex. Then you stepped in to point out that the codex isn't reliable...well what are we to draw from that? What is the point of making that an issue unless your goal is to undermine use of the Codex in constructing theories? It doesn't matter if you use the word unreliable, non-fact, heresay, or whatever...these are all ways of saying we can't depend on the Codex - whether you explicitly say to "throw it out" or not doesn't matter because that is what those words imply.

Of course future text will shed more light on the subject...that's what we're all hoping for. That is why I made posts regarding upcoming content in 16.3 and beyond. But as of right now the Codex is what we have. It is what the designers intended for us to have, to discuss, and theorize from. If future content proves that the Codex is all wrong then I guess we'll have to deal with that, but to focus on its unreliablility when we have nothing else like it to draw from just opens the door to ANY pet theory (as I mentioned before). And that undermines all the work that this thread has sought to accomplish from the very beginning.

If we had an alternative reference that contained completely different information from the Codex then I believe that line in the Codex's description about its reliability would be at the forefront of our discussion. In fact, this thread would have taken on a completely different direction as we debated the validity of each reference against the other. As it stands though, the Codex is our only reference.

This thread has gone on for over 2 years without being derailed, and I sincerely hope that's not what you're trying to do now. If I had to guess I'd say you were just trying to add to the discussion, and were probably a bit surprised by our reaction. I'd like to think that you're just as interested in the story as the rest of us. But I have to say that focusing on the Codex's shortcomings (at least until we have more information from future content upgrades), is generally counter-productive as we try to piece together the story.

[Tussa]

All I'm saying is that people shouldn't get upset or sad or confused if what comes in Inferno and Scheol and the other playfields doesn't completely concur with what their opinion on the codex is. Surely, the cataclysm, the arks and the xan's rise and fall should be real, it's described in more sources than the book.

But Ergo being built way after the cataclysm? Don't think so. Arthurian legends? Come on. Sure it can all be a metaphor, but my personal opinion is that a lot of what the codex say is meant to be presented as legends, not hard-boiled, 100% undisputable facts about SL.

[Vlain]

All I'm saying is that people shouldn't get upset or sad or confused if what comes in Inferno and Scheol and the other playfields doesn't completely concur with what their opinion on the codex is. Surely, the cataclysm, the arks and the xan's rise and fall should be real, it's described in more sources than the book.

But Ergo being built way after the cataclysm? Don't think so. Arthurian legends? Come on. Sure it can all be a metaphor, but my personal opinion is that a lot of what the codex say is meant to be presented as legends, not hard-boiled, 100% undisputable facts about SL.

I can agree that its quite possible the Codex is not 100% fact, but there has to be some truth to the Arthurian legend references since we have Glahad and Mordred currently ingame. We have a big sword blocking a portal in Excalibur's end. We have Merlin's armor...etc...

I haven't finished reading PWH yet, but I believe it has been suggested by others that much of the legends and myth we have on Earth were originally planted in our history by the Redeemed/Unredeemed. (I need to re-read this thread...too much info to remember)

I'm interested to here more about your theories on Ergo. There's alot of interesting theories regarding him in this thread, and I still haven't completely made up my mind about him. I kind of liked the one that suggested the Beast (who wants to die) was manipulating Ergo to draw adventurers to himself in an effort to commit suicide. I never would have come up with that on my own.

[sebquantic]

(this is way off subject, and It might have been asked somewhere else in the thread but im too lazy to read it all again)


Just watched some of the expansion trailers again, and noticed something in the Alien Invasion Trailer. At the end the guy says "they have come, they are here" and he puts an accent on the word "they". This sounds an awful lot like the PWH book. Anybody else think that the aliens are just automated war machines controlled by the omega/unredeemed? Just like they used on earth?

[Nobody]

until we get more items describing the history of sl, i think i'll stick with the codex clavis until then. sure some other items have vague descriptions but are far more cryptic.

[Ms_Idoru]

But Ergo being built way after the cataclysm? Don't think so.

Ergo says as much himself, that he was around long before it, and that he has a huge gap in his memory where it occured.

Arthurian legends? Come on. Sure it can all be a metaphor, but my personal opinion is that a lot of what the codex say is meant to be presented as legends, not hard-boiled, 100% undisputable facts about SL.

As has been suggested by several others, I think its likely the legends were presented to humans early in our history to prepare us for our eventual arrival in the shadowlands...

[Telperion]

I quite agree with Tussa about how cautiously we should read the Codex. The thing is, we actually lack information to properly identify the Fisher King. In my opinion, we've gone as far as we can get with the current in-game elements, and we need more information from Funcom...
All we're talking about here are theories, but none of us can prove his own theory, unless the 16.3 quests give some critical answers, about the precise nature of the Fisher King and the Beast mainly, but also about the "Nine" number of the last Ergo (if it's an Ergo at all), the So8 thing, etc.

Let's leave the bible out of this, that's a whole nother matter of religious discussion.

Talking about the Bible is not necessarily talking about religion. It's a record of a certain period in time to me, written with verses, metaphors and such, and i actually think there's a comparison to be made with the Codex. But since this seems to be a touchy subject for some of us, let's not insist.

If aliens planted the beast then, who planted the aliens? if they have a connection with the beast they MUST have a relation to the xan somehow

Why? Why do you want the aliens to have been planted by someone? Even if the AO storyline says *we* have been planted (by the Redeemed Arks), it doesn't necessarily implies that every lifeform in the Universe has been planted as well...

Let me explain myself (the following is of course completely hypothetical and i've just spent 2 nights in planes, so maybe it's complete nonsense as well )
First, Humans are using Nanobots, which

[Telperion]

(( Can't edit my previous post, weird... ))

Humans are using Nanobots, which are basically maniaturized machines.
Aliens are using Viralbots, which *might* be a biological version of nanobots (i mean living bots), and these seems to operate much more efficiently when in presence of Notum.
Xan are using Spiritech, which could be extremely advanced versions of nanobots, advanced to the point of creating a very ingenious backup device for living beings called "soul". This could explain the existence of disembodied spirits throughout the Shadowlands, their "soul" Spiritech device gone dysfunctional because the Source is corrupted, and so on...
What i mean is that maybe by "all Life in the Universe" we should understand "Soul of Xan", the network of lifeforms "contaminated" by spiritech (including Rubi-Ka and Earth, but not necessarily a distant Alien homeworld).

Time to take a shower now :P

[Ms_Idoru]

The scariest thing is - I understood that.