Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190617222636/@comment-32182236-20190711022448

Well, although no humans have fallen down in a long time, Toriel says she's making daily runs to see if anyone else fell down. She must be finding some monsters that have fallen down, due to the current epidemic. And since there are no hospitals, and she isn't keeping the Fallen at home, what else could Toriel be doing with the fallen monsters she finds, then taking them to Alphys' lab?

Why can't Toriel just be a super-protective mother who searches for humans every day? She does seem to be super protective in her character...

Sans and Toriel are old friends. Longer than Toriel even knows, I think, since Sans was one of the children who once passed through her Ruins.

Sans was around when Gaster fell... So of course Sans should have known Toriel before she left.

Yet, Toriel doesn't recognize Sans by his face.

My conclusion is that Gaster must have fell AFTER Toriel left, meaning after Chara's death. Which rules out the Memorial Fountain being Gaster.

Sans and Papyrus just "showed up one day"... in Snowdin. Meaning this happened after the move to New Home at the start of 201X. (Okay, we're not actually sure it was the start of 201X-That's me assuming that the calendar from HOME represents the time they left. Either way, it was after the move, and the move happened after Asriel was born, because Asriel had a room in HOME.)

And Gaster's arrival couldn't have been that long ago, because the future tech he brought to the monsters is still spreading through the monster world, and hasn't reached areas like Snowdin yet.

If Gaster was erased, Alphys would have to reverse-engineer Gaster's tech, because nobody remembers how it worked. Of course it would take time. Also, given that the librarby has a bunch of books that are just student projects*, we're not sure if Snowdin has good priorities.

*("Um, let's end the chapter here"-Orange Book) ("Uhhh, am I at the page minimum yet? I'm kinda sick of writing this."-Red Book)

The wiki theorizes that Frisk uses his Determination as a type of energy to fire the gun. Which is basically what the PSI-powered 40k Orcs do.

Perhaps. The virtual attack must be a bit more complex than what I said if there was a real BANG sound effect. ...Maybe it evolved later? ...Yeah, I don't think I have an alternate explanation this time around. Good job, Ferret.

It's interesting to note that regardless of what weapon Frisk is carrying during the Sans fight, the last hit is always done with Chara's Knife.

Plays right into the idea that while Frisk made most of the shots, Chara dealt the final blow.

In the State of Nature, the monsters and humans once lived together in harmony.

That's not the state of nature. That's AFTER the state of nature. The state of nature was prior to civilization. Yes, eventually, they did become friends, and live in harmony.

You're claiming the monsters didn't use to have souls? Undertale makes it pretty clear that they do, and collecting those souls is a major plot point. The monsters are weird, but they're every bit as sentient as the humans are.

No, I'm saying they didn't originally have the ability to take our SOULs out of our bodies to initiate a FIGHT. Because they didn't need to. By the way, sentience is determined by determination, not SOULs. Flowey has no SOUL, and he's sentient. You could make the same claim that the monkeys that would later evolve into mankind didn't have souls.

I will make that claim, because the snails in Thundersnail don't have souls-At least not SOULs that can help the monsters break the Barrier.

But considering how much personality I've seen animals have, I think it's a matter of human arrogance to claim that only we have souls. We have the better brains and better capacity to imagine and innovate, but we were once animals too.

With no SOUL. Which means it evolved somehow.

...Hey, SOULs had to evolve just like everything else. Unless creationism is true in Undertale... Maybe the dog just spoke the world into existence. We did see him make a game by barking... And he goes through walls.. And he has a shrine..

It all depends on how you interpret Alphys' claim that SOUL power cannot be made artificially. I'd say it's just not possible with current technology.

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The idea is that human souls presiste after death. So if a monster could kill a human, they could collect the soul that drops as a powerup.

Indeed. This trait, they already had. We know this because flowers also have this trait, and there's no pressure for flowers to evolve such a trait. Instead, monsters evolved the restriction that they can't steal each other's SOULs... Since if they did that, they'd be killing each other. Not a good survival skill.

They don't need a spell to do this. They just have to kill a human. Or find the soul of a human that's already dead. Which might be what Kanashi did.

That's not what they need a spell for. They need a spell to initiate a FIGHT, by pulling your SOUL out of your body forcefully. Now that you understand that, perhaps the rest of my story will make more sense to you.

And this was the first step of HUD evolution. Before then, it didn't exist (though S/L/R most likely did, being a force of determination), so if your SOUL was taken out of your body, you were just dead. Remember, your essence is within your SOUL, so that's what you were "controlling" With no body to control, nothing to do.. You're better off being a sitting duck. Humans HAD to be able to move their SOULs around.. Return them to their bodies, to have a shot at surviving.

Remember, monster food has all kinds of special properties that would be very beneficial to humans.. That they can't make on their own. They'd want to loot the monsters for it (remember, this was prior to civilization)

While your tale of epic eternal battles between humans and monsters and the history of their evolution is interesting.. I think you get away from the observed canon in several parts.

Perhaps you need the full story, since you seem to be confusing the state of nature with the phase of civilization.

Now, after humans evolved the ability to FIGHT, they could attack again and again. The monsters obviously didn't want that... They were the ones getting bested by the humans now. ...But the human system had a few flaws in it. Flaws that the monsters could exploit.

But before we go into the flaws, we need to talk about how the current system worked.

First off, the humans would have to expend some of their SOUL power/magic simply to counter the monster's attempts at just moving it back to the box. After all, the tunneling is useless if the monster can just move the SOUL back. So there's either some kind of magical field protecting the area from being affected.. Or the SOUL itself is exerting a force against the monster.

And if the SOUL is using its magic to perform an attack.. Then it isn't using that magic to protect itself from monster spells. So, that means a monster now has an opportunity to put it right back inside of the box, as soon as that happened!

In fact, that attack would use up so much magic, that the human doesn't have enough to tunnel again!

But by absorbing ambient magic from the bullets that monsters fire, ala TP from Deltarune, they can regain the magic they need to do this.

But you see... magic is something that is very, well.. sensitive. Just a small change is enough to completely RUIN the intended effect! Why do you think that most humans weren't Mages? So, if there's still ambient magic being absorbed while the SOUL tries to teleport.. It can't!

So, in order to be able to tunnel again, they need to have absorbed magic from bullets made by monsters.. And have a time of opportunity where none are being fired at the time. In other words.. They can't attack again until after the monster made their move.

That's right, we just got to the point where turns came to be!

Now, the weapon connection is pretty close-range as well. The MERCY command was over at the right, so the weapons and FIGHT had to be on the left!

The left. And all the humans we see in the intro are left-handed. I don't think that's a coincidence... The odds are too small for that. I'd say they're left-handed... Because they need to be. The weapons need to be on the left, so that the connection will hold. Which is why you can only equip one at a time, instead of two.

Of course, at some point in time, ITEM evolved as well. As a way for the SOUL to use up the magic inside of magical items, to heal directly from them. However.. This can't be the full story, due to the descriptions that arise from using items. Perhaps it and ACT actually evolved to find a way to link up to the body to perform a few, basic actions.. But nothing complex like walking?

But of course, these battles didn't last forever. As you said, the humans and monsters eventually became friends. At the dawn of civilization, they decided they'd work TOGETHER, and help each other, rather than continuing to hunt each other down. And as stories of pre-civilization aren't really told (at least not accurately), it wouldn't be known by the humans that monsters could absorb human SOULs-At least not at the time when such fears would develop, or the concept of war even existed.

ACT was added. A way to talk to the monsters, and communicate with them, rather than fighting. The SOUL can't talk on their own.. But perhaps with another manifestation...

Likewise, RUN evolved into MERCY-As one could simply spare a monster.. If the monster and humans both agree.. The human will have the monster cut off the spell that links the human SOUL to them.. If none of the monsters have the SOUL entrapped.. The fight is basically over.

So now the entire HUD evolved, and humans and monsters live together in harmony. :3