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help i'm trapped in a poll i don't know why i'm here i'm so scared someone please help

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Total Members Voted: 50

[flabort]

egads! remind me to look over Cain's story again later

[flame99]

Also if Cinder is posting his I may as well post my shittier version

Still being worked on of course.

[flabort]

Here's my theory:

Spoiler: Why does Oric want Ciro dead? (click to show/hide)

First things first: We know very little about Riltia's/Oric's mysterious story here:




What prison? Let's turn to Cain's story of Oric.

Once upon a time, the Devil herself looked around and said: "Sheeeeeeeeit, if we keep eatin everything, there won't be nothin left! Yo, Devil Jr., find someone smarter 'fore we run out." That someone is the Thief. You may know him as Oric the Awful.

Not long after the Thief found the Warrens, a little cherub approached him and told him he'd been chosen to rule over the place... at a price. See, the Thief had to find some way to fuel the entire underworld, as it needed power to keep moving and consuming. He came up with a genius plan: use HIS cohorts as batteries! A tense alliance was formed between the Devils and the humans.

The Thief was trusted with an unbelievably powerful Soul Star. It granted him dominance over the Devil and ALL her sinister siblings. He could manage them, tell them exactly what they needed to do to run the place HIS way, under threat of retaliation. There were three such Soul Stars, but that's another story.

However... after the first run of his 'experiment', the Devil told him: they know what they need to do, meaning the Thief himself was no longer needed. Keeping him alive was a useless power drain for no return. He'd been fired.

The Thief, gazing up at the quick and permanent death between the Devil's teeth, simply said: "No."

With an impossible strike of his spirit hammer, the Devil's arms were sliced off, a wretched scream erupting from her thousand yard throat. The Thief ascended to Level Seven and SLEW the Devil's sibling there. He ascended to Level Six and SLEW the Devil's sibling there. By Level One, all that remained of this once-powerful race was the crying, mutilated Last Devil herself. The Thief offered her a trade: use the soul power my system grants you to do as I please, and I'll keep you alive. Thus the Last Devil watched over (and became the conduit for) ALL souls passing through her once-powerful dungeon.

The Thief took her minions - her cherubs - as tribute. Just as allegedly immortal as their elders, the cherubs helped watch over the dungeon, ensuring all went according to the Thief's plans. None dared to face Oric's Hammer. The end.

There are a couple key points from there that I'd like to point out.

Not long after the Thief found the Warrens, a little cherub approached him and told him he'd been chosen to rule over the place... at a price.

Hmm, this one is important. Let's compare it. Oric is trapped in a little cell... the Warrens? There's a voice in the other cell, who then tells him it's time to go from the cell. Oric was granted rulership of the Warrens, freed from being a prisoner. What did he do?

With an impossible strike of his spirit hammer, the Devil's arms were sliced off, a wretched scream erupting from her thousand yard throat. The Thief ascended to Level Seven and SLEW the Devil's sibling there. He ascended to Level Six and SLEW the Devil's sibling there. By Level One, all that remained of this once-powerful race was the crying, mutilated Last Devil herself. The Thief offered her a trade: use the soul power my system grants you to do as I please, and I'll keep you alive. Thus the Last Devil watched over (and became the conduit for) ALL souls passing through her once-powerful dungeon.

He went on a RAMPAGE. He could have permanently freed himself, too, but instead he enslaves and imprisons the Last Seraph/Devil, and her servants. He... Recreated the Prison, but he's the Warden now.

So what does this have to do with Oric wanting Target dead? See, the Target undertakes the same journey Oric took, going from one end of the Warrens to the Other; but Oric won, the Target never has. But one thing remains the same: the dungeon boss was left alive. But Orics real reason is his ego: He WON. He beat the big bad, cleared the dungeon. Just look at his name: Oric the Awesome. He's very egocentric, and while he doesn't know anything but life in a prison, where survival is dependant on defeating the other prisoners and heading towards the boss room, he still believes himself to be the best. So even though sending his cohorts through the dungeon over and over is effectively powering the dungeon, he believes only he is good enough to win.

He doesn't even need to kill Target to power the dungeon. Machines can run off of soul-stars of the living. Whole dungeon levels!

Hey, it's one of those star things!

You get an ominous feeling, like whatever this star thing is, it shouldn't be stored in there. What will you do with it?

So... we've been claiming that Oric is killing the Target to keep the cycles going, but it's totally unnessesary! He could just collect some charge, head down to DL8, and plug in the Astral Influx, then go back to the top while the other siblings are revived, and do it all over again. But Oric, his ego is too big to allow anyone else to put their soul star in the main power supply, too big to allow anyone else to clear the dungeon, too big to let Target win. So he has Target killed to keep them from beating Oric's record, and the soul charge released to the Sibling who killed Ciro goes to power that dungeon level.

[Arcvasti]

re: Oric not needing the Target dead:

Perhaps not, but Soul Charge is generated in times of extreme emotion and stress. The eternal hunt for the Target provides those in ample quantities. Take Yaos. Their Soul Star drained Soul Charge constantly to power its function, eventually leading to them turning Willborn because they didn't jack up their Soul Charge with strong emotions and such. Putting someone's Soul Star in a power drainy seraphy thing for a while would probably have similar effects. People who aren't teenage girls or similarly dramatic individuals[Probably why Cherishs' Soul Star was used to power the Underside] can't consistently generate Soul Charge without external stimulation and aggravation. Plus, dying and being revived has a handy side effect: Wiping memories. Resetting FULLY after each Cycle prevents the Target, who has a powerful Soul Star, from upsetting the balance by having knowledge and power from the last time through. I agree that the primary reasons Oric wants the Target dead are fear and pride. He doesn't want the Target becoming more powerful then him. Despite his power, Oric is paranoid. He breaks up communication and cooperation between the Siblings, murders what non-Sibling allies we gather to us and is deathly afraid of the second weapon[Now mostly confirmed to be the Illborn Exchange]. Oric recreated the prison with himself as the Warden, but he remembers all too well how the Last Seraph was maimed and bound by the adventuring hero and their powerful Soul Star.

[FallacyofUrist]

AGGGH NOOOOO!!!

Every time we've solved a theory craft challenge before, it's upgraded a soul star- the soul star of the person most relevant to the question.

Ciro's soul star has already been upgraded by a theory craft.

Solving this one will upgrade Oric's Soul Star!

[monk12]

I begin to wonder if Oric's "prison cell" story was not intended for Ciro, but was instead for Riltia's benefit. Riltia's prison is the weird stalker obsession she has with Ciro, and to keep recreating it she'll side with Oric every time.

[Elephant Parade]

AGGGH NOOOOO!!!

Every time we've solved a theory craft challenge before, it's upgraded a soul star- the soul star of the person most relevant to the question.

Ciro's soul star has already been upgraded by a theory craft.

Solving this one will upgrade Oric's Soul Star!

That would be an amazing twist.

Also, we should try to Astral Influx to Riltia at some point, but with a caveat: the holder will prepare to swap perspective back to themselves once it's charged.

[flame99]

That might backfire. We lose control of characters we aren't in the perspective of--who's to say that our standing order to swap back won't be immediately forgotten once we get to Riltia?

Also, it'll probably be like the rest of the non-allied siblings; static'd out and inaccessible. Still, at the very least it might be worth taking a look at the influx's menu.

Also also, if the Influx is so powerful and important...Why did Ril steal the Exchange instead? I think we might be overselling it a little...

[Elephant Parade]

That might backfire. We lose control of characters we aren't in the perspective of--who's to say that our standing order to swap back won't be immediately forgotten once we get to Riltia?

Also, it'll probably be like the rest of the non-allied siblings; static'd out and inaccessible. Still, at the very least it might be worth taking a look at the influx's menu.

Also also, if the Influx is so powerful and important...Why did Ril steal the Exchange instead? I think we might be overselling it a little...

When have characters been that forgetful? Never, I'm pretty sure.

You can probably capture some pretty broken Illborn. For example, if not for the level cap, we could have gotten Triangle Riltia—and how do we know that we'll have the level cap forever?

Edit: Also, it doesn't need to be powerful—just cycle-breaking. Al's not from the Warrens, so his Soul Star is inherently more likely to be cycle-breaking.

[flame99]

I'm not saying it necessarily WILL happen, just that a standing order is no guarantee. Also, I wouldn't think that the Exchange would've worked on Rillborn; did we ever decide if she was Willborn or not? I mean...She didn't have her soul star drained that we directly caused, no, but it could've been something ???? and/or !!!! did remotely if they did hold her star.

As for the Exchange being cycle-breaking, that's a fair point.

[Elephant Parade]

I'm not saying it necessarily WILL happen, just that a standing order is no guarantee. Also, I wouldn't think that the Exchange would've worked on Rillborn; did we ever decide if she was Willborn or not? I mean...She didn't have her soul star drained that we directly caused, no, but it could've been something ? and/or !!!! did remotely if they did hold her star.

As for the Exchange being cycle-breaking, that's a fair point.

True. I assumed she was Illborn because we didn't Spirit Duel her, but that was more likely just because Ciro/Vi wasn't around. Willborn being near-impossible to kill without Ciro around definitely makes sense.

[javierpwn]

I'm not saying it necessarily WILL happen, just that a standing order is no guarantee. Also, I wouldn't think that the Exchange would've worked on Rillborn; did we ever decide if she was Willborn or not? I mean...She didn't have her soul star drained that we directly caused, no, but it could've been something ? and/or !!!! did remotely if they did hold her star.

As for the Exchange being cycle-breaking, that's a fair point.

True. I assumed she was Illborn because we didn't Spirit Duel her, but that was more likely just because Ciro/Vi wasn't around. Willborn being near-impossible to kill without Ciro around definitely makes sense.

Anyone with a soul star can theoretically Spirit Duel. Whether or not they know how to initiate the Combat is a different story.

[IronyOwl]

So here's a thought: Oric wants the target dead because that's what the main character is supposed to endure. The Warrens is basically one giant Oric fanfic, with Ciro as its awesome protag.

Spoiler: Part One: The Devil Is A Fuckup (click to show/hide)

Let's go back to Cain's story for a moment:

Once upon a time, the Devil herself looked around and said: "Sheeeeeeeeit, if we keep eatin everything, there won't be nothin left! Yo, Devil Jr., find someone smarter 'fore we run out." That someone is the Thief. You may know him as Oric the Awful.

Not long after the Thief found the Warrens, a little cherub approached him and told him he'd been chosen to rule over the place... at a price. See, the Thief had to find some way to fuel the entire underworld, as it needed power to keep moving and consuming. He came up with a genius plan: use HIS cohorts as batteries! A tense alliance was formed between the Devils and the humans.

The Thief was trusted with an unbelievably powerful Soul Star. It granted him dominance over the Devil and ALL her sinister siblings. He could manage them, tell them exactly what they needed to do to run the place HIS way, under threat of retaliation. There were three such Soul Stars, but that's another story.

However... after the first run of his 'experiment', the Devil told him: they know what they need to do, meaning the Thief himself was no longer needed. Keeping him alive was a useless power drain for no return. He'd been fired.

The Thief, gazing up at the quick and permanent death between the Devil's teeth, simply said: "No."

With an impossible strike of his spirit hammer, the Devil's arms were sliced off, a wretched scream erupting from her thousand yard throat. The Thief ascended to Level Seven and SLEW the Devil's sibling there. He ascended to Level Six and SLEW the Devil's sibling there. By Level One, all that remained of this once-powerful race was the crying, mutilated Last Devil herself. The Thief offered her a trade: use the soul power my system grants you to do as I please, and I'll keep you alive. Thus the Last Devil watched over (and became the conduit for) ALL souls passing through her once-powerful dungeon.

The Thief took her minions - her cherubs - as tribute. Just as allegedly immortal as their elders, the cherubs helped watch over the dungeon, ensuring all went according to the Thief's plans. None dared to face Oric's Hammer. The end.

Real quick question: Why did Oric win and the Devil lose?

I mean, sure, he was entrusted with an "incredibly powerful soul star." And he was wily and cunning enough to make the Warrens self-sufficient where the Devil and her ilk weren't.

But the story doesn't go "And then Oric was really clever and used his superior infrastructure to defeat the Devil economically over a six-quarter period." It goes "the Devil tried to kill him instantly thinking that would work, and instead he cut all her limbs off and then murdered her siblings." That sounds like a rather severe discrepancy between expected and observed power levels.

So what could have caused this? Any number of things, but here's a thought: What if Oric had way more Soul Charge than anticipated? We know it's roughly analogous to Power down here, and Oric going Willborn would certainly have been an exponential power boost. And maybe he could have gotten it by eating all this soul charge he was harvesting, maybe, because we're actually not entirely certain how that works.

But what if the reason Oric was so powerful, and the reason the Devil didn't know he was so powerful, was because the charge wasn't stolen? It was his, earned the way soul charge is usually earned, by suffering through emotional highs and lows. Which he was able to do and which the Devil didn't think he'd be able to do because he remembered what it was like to be in the prison he was now creating. Because he was able to empathize with the little morsels he had running around, trying and failing and suffering loss and joy and so on.

As a bonus point, this would also help explain why the Devils could never figure out "create a rat maze and juice soul charge from it;" they lacked the empathy and broken self-association necessary to double-dip like Oric could.

Spoiler: Part Two: Fanfiction > Original (click to show/hide)

We all remember this infamous line:

Especially since flabort linked it and a bunch of other stuff like 8 posts ago. Thanks flabort!

But the general vibe has been focused on Oric recreating the prison in a literal sense. What if he's recreating it by proxy instead? He's placing himself as the warden, setting up a heroic protagonist to run through it, and then watching the epic tale unfold?

This would also match Riltia's apparent goals- she wants the Cycles to continue. Why? Because it helps her be with Ciro, apparently. So she's in on Oric's little fanfiction romp as a blatant self-insert of herself. Sometimes senpai even notices her!


Bonus paranoia: What if Oric's star is hideously powerful because it allows or empowers Oric to gain empathic soul charge? We know Ciro's star grants narrative control- this is obviously rather fitting for what is literally the main character of a story. Oric would presumably be the author, then, complete with self-insert main character.

The third star (are Oric's and Ciro's stars two of the ultimate power ones? I have forgotten) is believed to be... Al's Illborn Exchange. Which, interestingly, appears to affect... NPCs, more or less. So we've got a POV/main character star (again, assuming I'm remembering this right), an NPC star (which is apparently very dangerous), and Oric's ultimate weapon, whatever that is.


If true, this helps explain a lot about why the Warrens is set up in a dangerous and organic yet suspiciously narratively friendly manner. With the exception of Proxxy who's just kind of dumb and in the dark about everything, most people here aren't stupid or ignorant per se; even some of the Illborn appear to be more than mook shopkeepers (ohgod) or mindless sentries. We even have overt, conflicting goals running around; Siblings and Seraphs running around looking for things or trying to accomplish objectives, and of course Cain who wouldn't go along with things and so was shackled up so as not to mess with anything.

And yet, the whole thing's clearly set up like an RPG, with discrete levels and bosses who aren't supposed to move and so on. Or, perhaps more literally, like a story, where the hero climbs the tower more or less at his leisure, in sequential order, on his terms and so forth. The prevailing explanation for this is that Ciro's a hamster on a wheel, generating charge in herself and others via her struggles and advancement. But that would, somewhat curiously, put all of the onus on Ciro to do that. Others have mentioned that there are probably more efficient ways of making people feel things.

Now if only I had some evidence for it.

The other major problem is that we know the Warrens' main source of power is shucking soul stars. That's why it nibbles chunks out of other worlds and generates Illborn in the first place. A variant on the "Warrens is a soul charge generator" idea doesn't help reconcile what the difference is supposed to be or how they interact (idle thought: keeping up power so as to outrank the Cherubs?).

Alternate theory on that: It's not and never was about soul charge (or maybe it was when powering up Oric vs Devil, but not any more). Oric & Co are doing it because it's the only thing they can think of to do; they own the Warrens, but now what? Maybe they were so broken by captivity that they couldn't really get into the finest men and/or women they could harvest hand-feeding them the finest grape-like things they could harvest while fanning them with the most opulent plumage they could harvest, all while reclining on the finest furniture they could harvest.

This would also mean Al's coming ascension will be a holocaust of unprecedented scale.

[Elephant Parade]

I think that Oric's line about how "the good cycles are the ones where [the Target] doesn't find out until [the end, maybe? I forget.]" is pretty key to understanding his motives, but I haven't seen people say much about it.

Either it's good in that it allows for a greater Soul Charge bounty, or in that it's more fun for Oric. Or maybe for an entirely different reason!

[flame99]

So I was looking back over the Rex code, on the off chance I'd find something somebody else hadn't. No luck on actually working out what to do with it, but I do have a guess as to who made it. It's likely one made by a prior incarnation of the Mechanic. On top of that, I might have a stab at where the Siblings originated from.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The first evident clue is the Latin meaning of 'Rex', meaning King--but it's also outright stated that it wasn't the handiwork of Oric, who is, presumably, the King.

and the shoddy drilling on the compartment tells you this wasn't the work of Oric or whoever constructed the hub.

So, with him ruled out, who? Well, consider the circumstances of where it was found. First off, it's stashed away in one of the boss hubs. If it were left in a normal DL, it'd randomize and be lost before long, but instead it was placed into a sub-DL, like Proxxy's hub. It's not exactly COMPELLING evidence but who'd know the mechanics of the DL's randomization better than the Mechanic?

Proxxy also states this:

It's been hidden in a secret compartment in your hub for who knows how long

While another Sibling may have had access to the Mechanic's hub, I think it's far more likely that the Mechanic themself made that compartment and placed it there. On top of that, it uses a method of encryption that has insofar been proven uncrackable. While encryption may fall more into Ecco or Floe's territory, the Mechanic, by nature of there job, probably wouldn't be clueless. And, on top of that, it IS something left through the cycles, which seems to threaten Oric's beloved stability. The previous Voice likely would've been happy to help the Mechanic encrypt it if Ecco's rebellious nature is nothing new.

Finally, on the Memor-E Al got on cleared DL2:

You got an OricSoft MEMOR-E Cartridge!

MEMOR-E #1: SERVANT SERAPH

ORIC descends the ladder to DUNGEON LEVEL 2 to face off with his final foe: the SERVANT SERAPH. With his hard-won skills, smarts, and loot, he is prepared for the last challenge... or so he thinks. Featuring cameo appearances by REX and VI.

We know for a fact that Ciro is Vi, and as such, a lot of people seem to have latched onto the idea that Rex is another incarnation of Riltia. However, that's...Not necessarily true. While we now know that Riltia does enjoy being with the Target in various cycles, we also know that she isn't always, and on top of that, that she betrays them frequently. So, I think it's more likely Rex was a previous Mechanic. Why? The Mechanic reigns over DL2; this is the closest floor to the Target's native floor (Evidently), it's  where the Memor-E was found (And it's very very clear that clearing a DL somehow makes things from previous cycles come over; take a look at, well, pretty much ANY of the monsters fought there), and finally, Oric is descending to DL2.

Also, I kind of wonder...Is it possible that the Sinister Siblings, or anyone with a soul star, are somehow the souls of the dead Seraphim (potentially/likely split apart, a la horcruxes)? It'd explain why Ciro had to speak in rhyme to authenticate herself at the mercenary door, why Al has such a strong connection to the Last Seraph despite not even being FROM the Warrens. Finally, Rillborn seems reminiscent of what might be a seraph...



Note the giant fuck-off mouth reminiscent of Spira's monstrous form (FFS himself commented on this while confirming Theorycrafting 6 to be Winrar'd, so it's not just coincidence),



,the wings of an unknown, glowing substance (Seraphs in mythology are said to have wings of fire), and the fact that she's a worm, so she could be considered essentially a massive throat. And how does Cain describe the last Seraph?

wretched scream erupting from her thousand yard throat

No clue what to do with any of this information, but it's interesting to note, at least.