Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-32182236-20190721003717/@comment-32182236-20200113021401

To start, the very first step in any deductive project is to learn the Rules of the Game.

Yes. And to do that, we need to look at the canon, and derive the rules from the canon. And to derive the rules from canon, we need to know what canon actually is. Which is what I do here.

These rules might be different for every project. So creating an overarching set of rules that Undertale Lore Must Conform To, is very dangerous if you don't actually use the Undertale Lore itself while setting these ground rules.

Yes, each world has different rules to it. But we need to derive the rules and the lore FROM the canon itself. Lore is a part of canon. We need canon to gain the lore-Lest we end up with a conspiracy theory of monsters acting out a story to tell Frisk, with none of the events of Undertale actually being real.

In Steven Universe, for example, it's ok to use in-world TV commercials as foreshadowing and evidence, even though this seems insane, because it's a vehicle the Crewniverse uses for quick compact lore deliveries.

Crewniverse? ...I should really look into the SU lore then. I'm not sure what that is.

The Immortal and the Restless" in Sister Location seems to take this style also. What are the odds that the soap opera that Michael is watching is actually about him?

Next to zero.

Normally we'd say Zero.. except that "The Immortal and the Restless" was also custom-made by Scott, and Michael seems to have a great interest in this show, since it resonates with him somehow.

Or he's interested in the show because this is the kind of stuff he's interested in? He would obviously pick a show that he LIKED watching. Now, why the show is the specific part of the days between shifts we get to see is an interesting question.. that I don't have the answer to.

Making up a list of artibrary rules before even jumping into the project lore, and expecting all other theorists to abide by them, is a bit how the offical language in the novel "1984" actually loses words each year, because controlling the process of thought itself is considered valuable by The Party in preventing dissent.

They're not arbitrary, I based them off of the rules we use for this world for a reason. And I presented a case as to why Hard Mode isn't canon. Though if you think my case is flawed, feel free to debunk it. Skepticism is a good thing, after all.

And the reason why we haven't gotten anywhere in four years is because nobody can seem to agree on what is and isn't canon. So we might as well discuss specifically that, so that people don't start debating other things, and getting nowhere because the underlying foundations they use are incompatible with each other.

Of course, I didn't want to just make a random set of rules. I wanted to make sure the rules were the CORRECT ones. (Otherwise I'm no better than any of the orhers that made up rules!) So I made sure to derive them from basic principles. Like the rules of science today. I needed to base the rules on something objective.

A dangerous precedent that has less to do with solving mysteries and more to do with seeing that they aren't ever solved.

It's been four years without any major solves. It's about time for a change.

My take on Undertale's Hard Mode, where we actually put our name in as "Frisk", is that this is an impossibility. Frisk is a canon character from another video game, and we, who lent are own name to The Fallen Human, Chara, are a human playing a video game.

So Frisk and Gaster should have the same effect, right? And entering Frisk in Deltarune should also be impossible, right? Rather than just act like other Undertale character names?

They cannot possibly be the same person, any more than The Soul and The Vessel can be the same entity in Deltarune. The soul resides in the Vessel, they are not the same.

Yes, Frisk is not Chara. But they should be able to share a name. Unless, of course, that'd result in an error, which I did actually consider once (Since no two names ever show up in the HUD-When there's multiple of the same monster, they get labeled by letter)

So in Hard Mode, the Undertale characters actually are putting on a theater production for us, knowing that this setup is impossible. That's why Toriel dramatically pretends to be dying, then stands up again, revealing that it was all an act.

But that means they know what name we chose. And specifically, that "Frisk" was already taken, despite not knowing Frisk's name until after Frisk told it to Asriel.

Essentially, every monster in the Ruins must have already known about Frisk.. Prior to arrival. And of course, Frisk actually does attack Toriel. Yet, she survives. Meaning that it's possible to actually survive such an attack. So why did Toriel willingly choose to die in Normal Mode? We know from Hard Mode that she could have lived...

My theory currently is that Frisk is the Beta Timeline version of Sans, who took this trip on the Alpha Timeline, then went back in time and changed the past, most notably resulting in Gaster's early death, so that when the version of him that already existed in that timeline, Beta Sans, took that trip, the world had changed, presumably to make it easier for Frisk/Beta Sans to achieve the True Pacifist Ending.

So Hard Mode WAS the Alpha timeline? Interesting... How did Toriel know about Frisk, prior to anyone telling her about them?

Choosing to actually be Frisk.. and not a version of Frisk being remotely controlled by Chara.. might force us to play the Alpha Timeline adventure instead of the normal Beta Timeline that Undertale usually resides in. Naming ourselves "Frisk" is the only name choice that actually radically changes the game, so perhaps we're seeing the Ruins when Sans arrived much earlier in the past, before the monsters migrated to New Home, which is why we see endgame monsters living in the ruins?

Some of the monsters in Hard Mode aren't even around anymore. I too considered the idea of Hars Mode being prior to the move, but the move happened at 201X, yet Flowey still exists in Hard Mode, despite it supposedly happening PRIOR to his creation. (Chara wouldn't have fell yet, meaning that no human DT was around to create Flowey.)

This, like everything else about Undertale, will have to be looked at from several angles, before we find one that makes perfect sense. But declaring it to be Non Canon before a complete understanding of it can be reached cannot be good for anyone.

That is indeed an extraordinary claim, so I need extraordinary evidence. Fortunately I have that.