Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190403163405/@comment-32182236-20190414005327

--Chapter 5:The Perils of Uncontrolled Experiments--

As incredible as it may seem, the Underground is facing a plague of monster soul thefts. Alphys thought the Fallen showed a typical reaction of what Determination did to monsters. But with Undyne acting as the Control Group, we can see that the Fallen were not typical monsters to begin with.

As I point out in Chapter 4, Undyne does not serve as a control group.

Several smiling Vegetoids appear in the amalgamate of Snowdrake’s Mom, a horrible contrast to her own incredible unhappiness and hopelessness. But you can only encounter Vegetoids in the Ruins. And while some do appear with all the monsters telling the story of Asriel to Frisk, the Ruins are their natural place.

It's rather strange, really. All the monsters from the Ruins-But not just those, but every species of monster came over to New Home..

Perhaps because New Home is the capital, it would have people moving in from everywhere. While some monsters stayed in the Ruins, some of everyone who was in the Ruins would make the journey to New Home as well. Monsters from the other towns likely come to visit the capital from time to time:That is their only way of meeting Asgore, after all.

The monsters from the Ruins couldn't just be visiting. The door is one-way. If they left the Ruins, they intended to stay somewhere else. Everyone's famalies wanted their monsters back, and this would be impossible if anyone from the Ruins was involved, because Alphys wouldn't be able to bring them back. She'd get stuck at the end (or the start from Frisk's perspective) of Snowdin.

When we first met Toriel, she said she was making her daily rounds to see if anyone had “Fallen Down”. Our first instinct was to assume she was looking for humans that has fallen from the world above, just like us. But no humans had fallen into the Ruins in several years. And yet here we have The Queen of All Monsters personally making daily patrols to look for anyone who had fallen down. Toriel wasn’t just looking for humans.. She was looking for afflicted monsters as well. And felt that such frequent patrols were necessary.

She's not the queen anymore. She's the guardian of the Ruins now. And if a human did fall, she'd need to find them quickly. What if the poor child gets dehydrated because Toriel didn't come to meet them within 24 hours, and they had no water to drink? What if they wander off and get into a fight with the monsters, getting themselves hurt?

This is Toriel we're talking about. She'd be worried about that kind of stuff.

The monster population is relatively small, and monsters Falling Down should not be a daily occurance.

Hmm.. Let's calculate the population, shall we?

In the Genocide Route, it's possible to get the same monster again and again, and fulfill the kill count that way. This, and the ability to get multiple monsters to appear even when there's only "1 left", implies the kill count marks the point where monsters evacuate-NOT the point where you've actually killed everyone. Given this, we can actually presume that there are 20 of each Ruins random (non-unique) encounter monster, 16 of each Snowdin random (non-unique) encounter monster, etc. We then add one monster to the total for each unique encounter.

If we count this way, we get 120 in the Ruins, 51 in Snowdin (most encounters are unique ones), 89 in Waterfall, and 320 in Hotland/CORE, giving us a sum of 580 monsters.

But some monsters never die at all, no matter what we do, because they're not fightable. So let's add those, shall we?

We have Bratty and Catty, Gerson, Nice Cream Guy, Snowdin Shopkeeper, Alphys, Monster Kid, Grillby, Napstablook, Faun, Snowman, two Innkeepers, a Rabbit Girl and Cinnamon, Gift Bear, Politics Bear, Scarf Mouse, Nacarat Jester, the three members of the Slime Family.. Okay, I should probably stop trying to list them all. It's 71.

If we add the 5 Amalagamates you battle in True Pacifist (sure, you don't SEE them in Genocide, but they're still there), plus the four that corner you before Alphys shows up, and another one that tucks you into bed, you get a total of 81 monsters. But we're still missing the lone spider that we see in Muffet's battle. Make that 82. Take into account that you can't encounter Glyde or So Sorry, and that boosts the number again to 84. Add that to the total, and we get 664. Oh, and if the annoying dog counts as a monster, it's 665.

...That means Gaster would make it 666. Very clever, Toby Fox.

That's the lower bound. But if Gerson's anything to go by, monsters have a very long lifespan. So your thesis does have merit to it. (Though I'm not sure if 20 is a sizable chunk of 664.)

For all her show of keeping to door to the Ruins shut, it does seem like Toriel had to open this door regularly, even if she locked it behind her, and had to have dealings with Alphys or someone else in the Underground to get the Fallen Vegetoids to the True Lab for Alphys to work on.

If that's the case, why doesn't Alphys know that Toriel even exists? https://youtu.be/L48AqPEPBYc?t=191

Now, Undertale’s lore is weirdly specific about which types of creatures have the power to move between the Ruins and Underground at will, other than Toriel. There are only two types: Those who can burrow, like Flowey and the Vegetoids, and ghosts who can phase through the walls, like Napstablook.

And that's how we know the Froggits that show up in New Home have to be living there now. But this actually makes perfect sense. Ghosts are incorporeal, and burrowing through the door would obviously work. This isn't weird at all.

Toriel would never engage in something as dark as soul theft. And while Flowey is certainly willing to try this, for most of the game he doesn’t have the power.

Yeah, if he did, he'd probably try it on Sans, and it wouldn't have taken him so many resets.

The game says extracting the soul of a living monster would take a great amount of power, saying that such a thing would be difficult. While also saying it’s POSSIBLE in the same sentence.

It doesn't say the latter, but it implies the latter by saying the former.

And while Alphy’s soul harvesting experiments weren’t successful, her theory at least was sound: It -would- take an injection of Determination to allow the soul of an ordinary monster to survive outside their body and be collected.

Exactly-That was discovered to be how the human SOULs were able to do it.

You knocked out Alphys, Flowey, and Napstablook quite well. But of course, I think you already know what my premise is:There is no SOUL thief at all! (Look back at Chapter 4 if you forgot my justifications for that) But even if there was, we now know that being able to travel to the Ruins is not a requirement after all! So that adds back in a lot of candidates. ...But I wasn't able to find any viable ones, except maybe Sans.

So let's just move on to the next point of interest-Where you set out to prove that Mettaton wasn't the one who hired Muffet.

But there’s a problem with this. With his TV show, Mettaton is the one big source of entertainment for the monsters, and he’s the single most recognizable personality in the Underground! And even if he can change his shape, his very recognizable robotic voice always remains the same no matter what form he’s in. There is no way that Mettaton could have fooled both Muffet, and her entire spider court, from recognizing his legendary voice.

Mettaton only has nine viewers:https://youtu.be/fLSLWo0Mias?t=107

And yet, at the same time, he potentially has a fanclub of 24-36 monsters. However, as we calculated that at least 320 monsters exist in Hotland/Core, that's around one-tenth of the monsters. Sure, he's the most popular star in the Underground, but that's because he's the only star in the Underground.

So he's not as popular as you might think.

Mettaton only has three, distinct, very robotic forms. So Mettaton could not be the ghostly sprite that was watching Frisk move through Hotland, or the fluid-looking Redacted sprite which resembles it.

How do you know that Redacted looks similar to whoever Muffet was talking about? Can you provide evidence?

And Mettaton had no issues about fighting Frisk in person. In his original form he was impervious to all of Frisk’s attacks, so why would Mettaton be afraid of fighting him, when he could run right over Frisk like a tank?

He's not. He hired Muffet for the same reason why he hired everyone else. It's that simple.

Mettaton might have hired the mercenaries in the Core, but hiring the Spider Queen seems a little too sneaky.

..How is that sneaky, again?

And Mettaton thought he needed Frisk’s soul in order to pass through the barrier, and reach a human audience. If the ghost in Mettaton is Napstablook’s cousin, then it would make sense that Mettaton would have a monster soul too. Which means that Mettaton didn’t have access to a human soul, or a source of Determination, and couldn’t be our Monster Soul Thief.

Ferret, we weren't talking about a Soul Thief-You changed the subject to finding out who was hiring Muffet. Can you provide the evidence that proves that whoever hired Muffet must be the soul thief? For all we know, Flowey was the one who hired Muffet. (If it's not Mettaton, that is.)

Was also a member of the human race. How can I say so, without fear? (EXTREME CLOSEUP OF THE TALKING HUMAN HEAD IN GASTER FOLLOWER #1’s HAND!) His follower’s holding his head, RIGHT HERE!

Alright, two things. First, it's actually Gaster Follower 2, not 1.

Second, why can't that be a skeleton head?

Wingding Gaster was a natural at researching Determination, in part because he was a human himself, and had a natural source of the stuff beating in his own chest. And even when he became a ghost, Gaster was still a ghost with a human soul that acted as a portable source of Determination wherever he went.

Alright, can you get to proving that Gaster is a human first, Ferret? Once you do that, then you can take that claim for granted and build off of it.

In the elevator out of the True Lab, amniasic Frisk hears a voice he doesn’t remember. This voice claims to know him, and says it's been a long time since they talked. Flowey talked to Frisk hours earlier, that was hardly a long time. And even though Flowey has a talent for mimicking voices, they’re always the voices of other characters he’s heard before.

The voice doesn't say it's been a long time since they talked, it just says it's been a long time... period. (He didn't say "period", he just said it's been a long time, and left it at that.)

Chara... Are you there? It's been a long time, hasn't it...? But you've done well. Thanks to you, everything has fallen into place. Chara... See you soon.

That was the entire call. So.. I don't see how we can rule out Asriel this way.

And if an incredibly powerful ghost like Gaster, who shows signs of Determination Melting just like the invincible Amalgamates, wants vengeance on a little kid like Frisk.. Why is Gaster afraid of fighting Frisk himself?

Where'd you get the idea that Gaster wants vengeance on Frisk? Is it because you've concluded that he's the one who hired Muffet?

..Well, that's the end of Chapter 5. Next time, we'll go through Sans.