#...if i were smarter i would've made this a separate post with tags n all

[daz4i]

does dr ratio have a connection to the laurel wreath galaxy? is he originally from there? let's discuss!

1. most obvious detail out of the way first: he wears a laurel wreath 👍 at least a partial one (one leaf for every phd. maybe one day he'll reach a full head 😩)

these were common in ancient greece and ancient rome, cultures that his design, abilities, and eidolons are inspired by (both in aesthetic and language)

2. the laurel wreath galaxy (from what i gathered this may be a mistranslation of "star system", if that matters) was ruled by scholars - the philosopher union, until inorganic life took over during the emperor's wars. to give a very short tldr, civil war between organic and inorganic life, robots killed the head of the philosopher union, due to having no leaders the organic life of the galaxy was defeated

here we already have another obvious connection - philosophy, one of ratio's phds, that he even discusses with the trailblazer in one of his daily messages

3. one of the in-game sources about this place is the curio "rationality's fall". here is the first part of its description for you to consider:

What is truth? No one truly knows. Supposing that "stupidity" is an incurable disease in this world, then disseminating knowledge counts as a treatment for the universe.

hm. we got a) truth (aka. ratio's name) b) a description of stupidity as a disease, which is something he claims repeatedly and thus seeks to cure it, in part by distributing knowledge (which is why he joined the guild, and why he's a teacher).

3.5. only other somewhat relevant part of this description is its mention of books ("Through such absurd means, books cleansed a world of its impurities once more") but that's not necessarily related to him obviously. however it's worth pointing out that one of his interactions on the express is literally all about how much he loves books and implying that they are relatively rare these days ("The touch of a paper book is a sensation I frequently find myself missing"). just a little something to think about

4. in gold and gears, there is an occurrence - cogito hair salon: intelligentsia guild - that implies that ratio is 2000ish years old. afaik these occurrences all happen around the same time as the emperor wars, aka when all the shit went down in laurel wreath

now. if you've read literally any of my other ratio theories. you know i don't quite like this, bc i find that ratio being 2000+ years old kinda defeats his whole Thing as a character. but we can't deny that it's there (tho possibly a mistranslation from what i gathered, but i can't say for sure) so i'm gonna use it for this theory 👍

5. here's where i'm gonna become full-on conspiracy brain. don't say i didn't warn you

after the whole defeat of the union, there were followers of aha who rose against the inorganic lifeforms and infected them with what's described as a "troll virus" called Philosopher's poison. i can't quite tell you if it's poison *to* philosophers (bc from what i gathered the inorganic life of laurel wreath were also philosophers) or caused *by* philosophers (implying these followers of aha were themselves philosophers as well. i like this interpretation more tbh)

what you're supposed to get from all that^ is that there was a large number of followers of aha in this galaxy, and they were wise enough to stand against robots that tried to wipe out their people, and even overthrow their army.

it's a pretty common theory by now that ratio has connections to the elation (beyond just the worm theory :P tho a lot of relevant info was gathered by @/b1adie in said theory which is very helpful 🙏) which, if he is indeed from laurel wreath, may add another layer to his past

i'm on mobile and thus can't add visuals so for now you're just gonna have to trust me bro (or go check yourself, i'm gonna try to supply the relevant game moments in this list) but. some connections, off the top of my head:

a. has an owl mask on his right shoulder, close to where aha has an owl mask located as well + his eyes fit aha's color scheme

b. refers to himself as a "side character" in the sticker book - sampo and sparkle, our known fools, do as well

c. can basically instantly disappear when characters aren't looking at him - as seen in his conversations with aventurine - which i can say for sure sampo does as well (like in the museum mission chain), possibly sparkle too tho i can't recall a specific instance to back this up

d. bows to the audience at the end of his quest, same as sampo does at the end of the belobog storyline

e. known to work from the shadows and pull the strings to make things happen or for his observation, which is how aha is described too, as well as their followers (sparkle is literally shown pulling strings of puppets in the "it's showtime" light cone)

f. in the herta space station, he creates a bit of a panic and theoretically puts people in danger, but in the end they all turn out okay. a similar instance can be seen in the "bestial ferocity" mission, where zhongshan, another masked fool, creates chaos for her entertainment, which does end up hurting the people involved but absolutely not in major ways. in a way, at least in her view, she solved their problems too. while ratio probably doesn't cause chaos just for entertainment, but rather for information, you can argue these cases are similar, especially when at the end of the day they do end up helping these people in their own way. you can also claim that sparkle does a similar thing in penacony. and sampo in the whole entire story fr :P aka this is very common for masked fools

g. a smaller thing, but, the main part of his kit is follow-up attacks, which is aha's thing in the simulated universe

h. is his headpiece considered a mask? in his first conversation with tb on the astral express, he ends by saying "With this mask on, I intend to keep the world at bay". this is in reply to tb saying "i hope you are swayed by the express", and given ratio's main uses for his headpiece (dull his senses and block out stupid people), it makes most sense that he's referring to that here.

also he has a mask on his shoulder. as already pointed out. so. not beating the masked fool allegations

^all this was actually to make you fall for the fool ratio theory. sorry. but i swear it's related to this post's main theory

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so to connect this back to laurel wreath. the followers of aha used a virus. one of ratio's phds is in engineering, so he could've used that to create the virus. it might even be one of the achievements attributed to him that caused him to be recognized by the university as eligible for teaching in the first place, who knows

combining everything laid out here, you can probably see where i'm going with this - was ratio one of the followers of aha who took down the inorganic lifeforms of laurel wreath using this virus?

[EDIT: i forgot to add!!!!!! less of an information thing more headcanon. given that the one who caused the whole destruction of this galaxy was a genius society member, this could add a layer to ratio's disdain towards them]

who knows! but i'm adding this to the folder of ratio theories i'm keeping inside my head until any information arises to debunk it.

forgot the laurel wreath galaxy existed. the ratio theories conspiracy board in my head is expanding as we speak