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daughterofheartshaven · 3 months ago

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Using the Doctor Who EU to recontextualize the whole Timeless Child thing

Or, why the Doctor is a dhampir.

Salutations!

Maybe you saw my essay here about how Gallifrey wasn't actually destroyed by the Master using the Expanded universe as my evidence. Now, I want to tackle The Timeless Children's other controversial plot point - the titular Timeless Child's relationship with the Doctor. Also, perhaps you have heard of the Doctor Who book Lungbarrow, and how it connected the Doctor to a mysterious figure called the Other in Gallifrey's ancient history. So how are those connected? Was the Doctor really the Other? And just what is the story of the Timeless Child?

So let's talk about the Timeless Child. Let's talk about the Other. Let's talk about Patience. Let's talk about Division. And let's talk about vampires and where regeneration really comes from.

Shall we get started? Buckle up for another ride into the endless pit that is the Doctor Who expanded universe.

Okay, ground rules first. Anything seen on tv, happened. I can recontextualize as much as I want (and I'm gonna do that, believe me) but it still has to fit with everything we see onscreen. I also have to use all of an EU source if I use it. No picking and choosing bits. However, that same loophole applies to EU material - I can recontextualize those as much as I want, too.

With that out of the way, let's meet the stories that are our players. I'm going to be sorting them into medium by category this time.

Tv stories:

Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children: The controversial Thirteenth Doctor episodes. I'm assuming you're familiar with if you're reading this.

Fugitive of the Judoon: The Thirteenth Doctor story that introduced the Fugitive Doctor. I'm assuming you're familiar with this.

Flux: The Thirteenth Doctor story that followed up to the Timeless Child plot points in a way that is very relevant to this discussion. I'm assuming you're familiar with this.

A Good Man Goes to War: An Eleventh Doctor episode that established some of the history of the Time Lords

The Brain of Morbius: A Fourth Doctor story. Notable for this discussion because it featured brief images of ten faces that were implied to be incarnations of the Doctor from before the First Doctor. These are collectively known as the "Morbius Doctors".

State of Decay: The Fourth Doctor tv story that established the series lore on vampires

Books:

Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible: the Seventh Doctor book that laid the groundwork for Lungbarrow and its Gallifrey Lore

The Pit: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Goth Opera: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Damaged Goods: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Cold Fusion: A book starring the Fifth and Seventh Doctors that is notable for introducing the character of Patience

Lungbarrow: the big Gallifrey Lore book. I will be going over this one in depth

Interference: Shock Tactic: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

The Infinity Doctors: A very confusing Doctor Who book (this will get explained later)

The Book of the War: The first book in the Faction Paradox series

Audios:

Zagreus: A Big Finish story starring the Eighth Doctor and Rassilon

Patience: A Big Finish story starring the Eighth Doctor

Comics:

The Tides of Time: A 70s comic starring the Fifth Doctor

The Bidding War: A 2010s comic with some vampire lore

Monstrous Beauty: A 2020s comic with some vampire lore

Origins: A recent comic that features the Fugitive Doctor

Okay, so there are kinda four threads running together that tell a more complete story, but were all written independently of each other. The story of the Timeless Child and Division, the story of the Other, the story of Patience, and the story of the Yssgaroth War. Let's go through them in order.

Also while the Other, the Timeless Child, Patience's husband, the Fugitive Doctor, the Infinity Doctor, the Morbius Doctors, and the Doctor are all presented as more or less the same character who all call themselves "the Doctor", I will be referring to them all separately. I have a few reasons for doing this which will become clear later, but it's also helpful for reasons of clarity.

Prologue: Where all this mess came from

So in the 70s, there was a tv story called The Brain of Morbius. Morbius was a Time Lord president who decided it was Morbin Time, tried to conquer the universe, and caused a civil war on Gallifrey in just about the only interesting thing to happen on Gallifrey between Rassilon's presidency and the Doctor being loomed. He was killed, but one of his followers managed to save his brain and is trying to make Morbius a new body so it can be Morbin Time again. The Time Lords decide to throw the Doctor at this problem, and he ends up getting into a mind-bending contest with Morbius (who was by that point in an artificial body). During this, both Morbius and the Doctor's past incarnations are shown on a screen, and then we see ten new faces while Morbius says, "How far, Doctor? How long have you lived?". A lot of people assumed those faces were Morbius's, but the intention from the producers was that they were prior faces of the Doctors (I will be referring to these incarnations as the Morbius Doctors moving forward, as that is how they are generally reffered to in the fandom). Trouble is, the rest of classic who completely ignored that.

Oh and if you're worried, while Morbius won the mindbending contest, it left him disoriented enough that he was able to get mobbed by the Sisterhood of Karn and pitched off a cliff, averting the renewal of Morbin Time.

And with that out of the way, let's get on to the real attractions.

Part 1: The Timeless Child and Division

So this story is the most straightforward of the three. In Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children, it is revealed that in Gallifrey's prehistory, a Gallifreyan scientist named Tecteun travelled off-world (in her world's first exploration of another planet) and found the Timeless Child by a portal to another universe. She took the Timeless Child back to Gallifrey and discovered that the Timeless Child had the ability to regenerate. Tecteun was able to synthesize this regenerative power and give it to her own people, becoming one of the founders of modern Time Lord society in the process. Later on, the Timeless Child and Tecteun were both recruited into something called Division, a time-active-interventionist group that skirted around or outright ignored Gallifrey's laws. It is also stated that the Timeless Child's memory was wiped - at least once, possibly more than once - in order to control them. It's also suggested that Tecteun seems to have regrets about all of this, given how she left a message for the Timeless Child in the matrix about it.

This is where the story gets fuzzy. The next time we see anything, the Timeless Child has evolved into the Fugitive Doctor. She is seen working for Division in the flashbacks in Flux and Origins, but following Origins, she goes on the run from them. The events of the Fugitive Doctor's flight from Division play out in Fugitive of the Judoon. She is able to assassinate Gat, the Time Lord seeking her capture, and while it comes at significant personal loss, there is nothing to indicate that the Fugitive Doctor is unable to make a clean getaway.

By the story presented in Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children, however, the Fugitive Doctor is assumed to have been captured with her memory wiped to eventually become the Doctor. Let's put a pin in that assumption, though. That same story also shows the Fugitive Doctor and the Morbius Doctors being a part of the Doctor's past.

Tecteun, meanwhile, had become head of Division (if she wasn't head of it to begin with). Origins briefly shows her leading Division at the time of the Fugitive Doctor, and she is finally shown meeting the Doctor proper in Flux. There, it is revealed that she had started considering the entire universe a scientific experiment, but due to the Doctor being considered too much of a rouge element, she decided to use antimatter called flux from outside the universe to destroy the universe, with Division being safe outside the Universe. She also released a pair of Great Old Ones, Swarm and Azure, with the intention that they would kill the Doctor. Tecteun's plan was that the old universe would be destroyed, and that Division would conquer the universe that the Timeless Child originated from.

This plan did not work.

Swarm and Azure instead killed Tecteun and destroyed Division, before being destroyed by an entity only known as Time (and I could go on a whole tangent on what her deal is, but I'm gonna save that for another post). It's not shown explicitly in the show, but I also believe Time removed the destruction of the flux from the universe as well (mostly because planets explicitly destroyed in Flux are shown still existing in the future of the series).

In any case, during the Flux event, the Doctor was able to recover the archive where the Timeless Child's wiped memories were stored, but she ultimately decided not to access them.

It's never stated which universe the Timeless Child comes from in the show, but we're gonna circle back to that. It's also not stated how long Tecteun ran Division between its founding in early Gallifreyan history and its destruction during the Flux event. We're coming back to this, too.

Part 2: The Other

Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible establishes two very important things about Gallifreyan history. One, all Time Lords became sterile early in their history - shortly after the conclusion of their war with the vampires (more on that war in a bit). Since then, instead of having sex, they have big cloning machines called Looms that make new Time Lords. And two, Rassilon (the founder of Time Lord society) had two major co-founders - Omega, and one other whose name was lost to time. He gets called just "the Other."

Rassilon and Omega were both established as characters in the classic series, but the Other is an invention of the books in the 90s (from the reader's perspective at least - he was a behind the scenes idea from the last few seasons of classic who, but he was never explicitly mentioned onscreen). He gets cryptic references all over the Virgin New Adventures book line, but this only gets concrete in their final Seventh Doctor book, Lungbarrow.

Where we get to know them in the book, Omega is presumed dead, and the Other and Rassilon are having a falling out. Omega's death is weighing heavily on the Other, and he thinks Rassilon is going power-mad and is trying to have the Other killed. Omega's last and most impressive creation, the stellar manipulator called the Hand of Omega, is quite possibly the Other's only friend by this point. The Other wants to leave the planet and so he tells his family to escape, and then confronts Rassilon with his intentions. Rassilon Does Not Like This and tries to have the Other stopped, and blocks all spaceports to make this happen. The Other then calmly walks into the primary generator for the looms and is never seen again.

And then, ten million years later, out from a loom, comes the Doctor. The Doctor's looming process was unusual, with the Doctor later claiming he could remember just before it happened, waiting to be born. (Although given the Doctor was five years old at the time he said this, that may be a little suspect). In any case, the Doctor lives a fairly normal life for a while, until he is found by the Hand of Omega which sees in him its old master. Shortly thereafter, the Doctor is confronted by the Time Lord Glospin (explaining his deal is a little complicated but he's a part of the same Family House as the Doctor is, the titular House Lungbarrow), about some irregularities in the Doctor's biology before being driven off by the Hand. It's ambiguous if either of these were the deciding factor, but the Doctor takes the Hand and leaves Gallifrey shortly thereafter.

Of course there's one last little piece left to take care of. If you're familiar with Classic Who, you may know that when we first met the Doctor, he was travelling with his granddaughter, Susan.

Lungbarrow claims that the Doctor's first trip in the Tardis was to travel back to Gallifrey's prehistory and meet the Other's granddaughter, the last child born before the Time Lords became sterile. She recognizes the Other in the Doctor, and considers him her grandfather. The Doctor doesn't quite recognize her, but takes her on as his first companion in the Tardis. And thus, Susan joined the Tardis crew.

The other thing that's important is uh that Lungbarrow has an actual plot. And said plot is only tangentially related to the above. Everything I just said is presented as three flashbacks in Lungbarrow - one straight narrative sequence (the argument between Rassilon and the Other), one where the Doctor shares his memories of leaving Gallifrey (basically everything that happens with Glospin, the Hand of Omega, and the Doctor first leaving Gallifrey), and one where several characters enter the Doctor's subconscious and have a dream sequence (including the Other walking into the Looms and the Doctor meeting Susan). The subconscious trip has some moments to it that are super trippy and metaphorical, and I'm gonna use that fact later. But for now, on to part 3!

Part 3: Patience

Like I said earlier, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible is the story that establishes that all Time Lords are sterile. At the end of a civil war in Gallifrey's ancient history, the leader of the losing side, Pythia, cursed the people who would become Time Lords with sterility before killing herself. (Her followers, by the way, left Gallifrey and eventually became the Sisterhood of Karn). The Time Lords, desiring to avoid extinction, created breeding engines known as Looms, which would create new Time Lords through what was effetely cloning. That's the story presented in Cat's Crade: Time's Crucible, anyway. But if you look at other places in the EU, this story starts to crack. An Earthly Child introduces Susan Forman's explicitly biological son, for example. And in Lungbarrow, the Time Lord Andred is able to get a human, Leela, pregnant, although the character's future appearances in Big Finish are notably child-less, suggesting the pregnancy failed somehow (either that or the child removed themselves from history as part of joining faction paradox and became the character known as Intrepid, but this is a tangent).

So are Time Lords sterile? Yeah, I think so. For the most part. But we know that not all of them are. A rare few can still reproduce sexually. There is another Time Lord who had a biological child that I've yet to bring up, as well. Her true name was lost to time, so we know her only as Patience.

This is her story.

The character of Patience has some truly strange origins, even for the Doctor Who EU. In the 1982 comic The Tides of Time, the fifth Doctor briefly sees an illusion of someone who looks familiar to him, created by the demon Melanicus using something called the Event Sythesizer (no, I'm not going to explain that). The art shown is close enough to Second Doctor companion Zoe Herriot to assume that's who the author and artist intended the illusion to be of, but that's not the direction later stories went in.

The character of Patience was introduced proper in 1996's book Cold Fusion. It also features the Fifth Doctor, in an earlier point in his life then The Tides of Time. In it, a prototype Tardis crashes into a planet that is later colonized by humans. The humans discover one pilot, comatose, who by all rights should be dead. She isn't. They take her back to their big fancy lab and attempt to find out more about her with basically no success.

Enter the Doctor. (And also Tegan Jovanka.)

When the Fifth Doctor stumbles into this, he is able to help the pilot complete her first regeneration. She is unable to remember much of anything from prior to her regeneration and is from Gallifrey's distant past. She is, biologically, something of a proto-Time Lord: she speaks a different language then the Doctor naturally, she only has one heart, and a few other things. She's explicitly more-or-less a contemporary of Rassilon.

Not having a name for herself, she adopts the moniker "Patience" on Tegan's unintentional suggestion. Despite all this, Patience and the Doctor recognize each other on some level, and neither really have any ideas as to why - the Doctor shouldn't even be able to recognize the dialect of Gallifreyan she speaks, as it is dead by his time. Patience has some garbled memory of fleeing from arrest as ordered by Rassilon (with the implication being that any fertile Time Lords were having their births stopped so that the loom-born were to inherit Gallifrey). Patience's escape came with the help of her husband, whom authorial intent confirms as one of the Morbius Doctors. In any case, in the present day, Patience is starting to properly recover when she is shot in the back of the head, apparently killing her. Her body then disappears. The Fifth Doctor's memory of Patience is lost shortly thereafter when the Seventh Doctor orchestrates the Fifth Doctor losing his memory of the whole adventure in order to preserve the timelines. The Seventh Doctor only met his prior self after Patience's body had vanished, meaning that the Doctor's entire memory of Patience was erased - except, perhaps, for some vague recollection which we see in The Tides of Time.

While Patience's fate is followed up in the book The Infinity Doctors, The Infinity Doctors is a very strange book that doesn't really contribute much to this ongoing discussion. The Infinity Doctors is deliberately evasive about which Doctor it stars, with its protagonist being sometimes implied to be the First Doctor and sometimes the Eighth. It's very possible that Patience and Omega (yes he's here but I'm not going to explain that) are the only characters in the story from the Whoniverse as we understand it, with everyone else being from a different universe. I might do a breakdown of The Infinity Doctors someday, but now is not that day.

The only other information we have about Patience comes from the 2021 audio story fittingly entitled "Patience". In it, the Doctor tells uses an ancient artifact that takes the form of a deck of cards called the Paradoxica to analyze time and hide his companions - Liv Chenka, Helen Sinclair, Tania Bell, and Andy Davidson (yes, the Torchwood character. no, I'm not explaining that either) - from the Judoon. The narrative is interspersed with the Doctor telling a fairy tale about a woman completing an impossible task (emptying an ocean with a bag that had a hole in it) and receiving the child she desired once she had spent an eternity completing this task. The story ends with the confirmation that this woman was Patience, and that she gave the Doctor the Paradoxica. How this happened is left unsaid - either she gave it to her husband who became the Doctor, or this happened during the events of Cold Fusion.

Part 4: The Yssgaroth War

Unlike the other narratives I've just rambled off, the Yssgaroth War is much more of a patchwork from various places around the EU, so this is gonna be even more scattered than I have been thusfar.

State of Decay, for being a story set in the pocket universe called E-Space, ended up being one of those foundational Gallifrey lore episodes of the classic series. That's the serial that established that at the dawn of time, the Time Lords fought and won a massive war against the vampires.

Yes, you read that right. This is one of my favorite pieces of Doctor Who lore.

State of Decay establishes that the Great Vampires were massive bat-like creatures who could drain the life from entire planets and who created more traditional vampires as their servants. Rassilon lead Gallifrey against them, and ordered the construction of "bowships," which were giant spaceship crossbows that could be used to stake the Great Vampires. The Great Vampires were ultimately defeated by the Time Lords. EU sources generally agree that this was the biggest war the Time Lords ever participated in until the Time War ten million years later.

The book The Pit would add a couple of new details about the conflict. It would rename the Great Vampires "Yssgaroth" and claim that the Yssgaroth originated from outside the universe - the early time travel experiments overseen by Rassilon ripped a hole in reality and the Yssgaroth were what came through with intent to consume the universe. These details are supported by Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible and Interference: Shock Tactic.

A couple more recent comics have fleshed out the Yssgaroth War a bit. The Bidding War further reinforces that the Yssgaroth are from outside our universe, with it showing that during the Time War, the Time Lords opened a rift to the Yssgaroth dimension in an attempt to use them as a weapon against the Daleks. Monstrous Beauty was the first story to show us the War proper, depicting Rassilon personally leading forces against the vampiric army.

And this would all be interesting but irrelevant to our discussion if not for two stories published in the early 2000s that both seek to recontextualize the Yssgaroth War and the Time Lord's rise to power.

Let's start with Zagreus. The story as a whole is dedicated to deconstructing Rassilon's façade as a benevolent and reasonable ruler and instead reveals him to be a xenophobic tyrant who wished to remake the universe in his image - something that lines up with pretty much all of Rassilon's appearances post-Zagreus. As part of this, the vampire Lord Tepesh states that before the war, the vampires were peaceful and Rassilon provoked them because he feared their power. Tepesh is presented by the narrative as an unreliable narrator, but the point he makes is still worth noting.

The other story I need to talk about is The Book of the War. While the book's primary focus is The War in Heaven (for the uninitiated, that's basically spin-off series Faction Paradox's version of the Time War), it does give a lot of relevant information about the Yssgaroth War. First of all, it gives the timing of the War being right after Gallifrey established History as a concept - by "anchoring the thread" and making a linear history, the Time Lords accidentally let the Yssgaroth into the universe. While this contradicts some of the timings given by some of the sources mentioned above (other sources agree that it was the early experiments that caused the Yssgaroth to enter the universe not the final establishing of History and mastery over time), this can be excused since The Book of the War is an in-universe document and so may not be completely accurate. What makes this book relevant is that it also theorizes that the Time Lord's regenerative capabilities were stolen from the vampires. Even for an unreliably narrated book, this is treated as speculation, but as a concept, that is fascinating.

Interlude: when regeneration happened

There is some inconsistency in all of these sources as when regeneration first became a property of the Time Lords. The Timeless Children has it come shortly after they discover interstellar space travel, and far before time travel, but several of the VNA-era books (including Cold Fusion and I think Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) depict early time-travelling Gallifreyans as being without regeneration. The tv episode A Good Man Goes to War states that regeneration came about as a result of exposure to the Time Vortex. My personal take is that The Timeless Children showed Tecteun discovering regeneration, and initially only shared it amongst herself and her elite (Rassilon, etc.). After the Looms went into effect, they started Looming more and more Time Lords with regenerative capabilities, until eventually it's a shared trait among all Time Lords. After ten million years, the artificial origins of regeneration have been lost to time, but the symbiotic nature of the Time Lords to Tardises and the Time Vortex has meant that a being conceived in a Tardis could be engineered to have limited regenerative capabilities.

Part 5: Bringing it all together

So back to the Doctor and Gallifreyan history. Uh, how does this all make one cohesive story?

Okay so our story starts with Tecteun and finding the Timeless Child by a portal to another universe. She takes said child home, discovers from it the secrets of regeneration, and so on and so forth. Tecteun, Rassilon, and Omega become the three founders of Time Lord society.

So that's the first thing there. The Other, as revered in Time Lord history, isn't the Doctor or some version thereof. The founder whose name was lost to time was Tecteun. And Tecteun discovered regeneration from the Timeless Child. This child, for whatever reason, starts calling themselves the Doctor.

But wait? Wasn't there some theories running around that the the Time Lords stole regeneration from vampires? And that vampires initially weren't as hostile to the universe before Rassilon saw them as competition?

Yes, yes, there were. It's simple, really. The Timeless Child was from Spiral Yssgaroth. They're a vampire.

(I really wish I had been clever enough to come up with that on my own, but I'm not. Pretty much everything else here is out of my own brain, but that is a fan theory I saw on the internet.)

In any case, the Yssgaroth War was motivated, at least in part, by the Vampires' outrage that their secrets and child had been stolen. But, as history records, they were defeated.

And for a time afterwards, Tecteun and Rassilon continue to rule Gallifrey together. But Omega's apparent death shortly after the end of the Yssgaroth War weighs heavily on them both - and they're both ambitious enough to not quite appreciate the other being their equal. Trouble is, they kinda need each other. Rassilon, despite his posing, isn't a scientist - he's a politician. He needs his scientists to continue to work miracles, and Omega is already gone, so that just leaves Tecteun. Tecteun, for her part, is no leader. She wants power but doesn't have the people skills. And she still cares deeply about her people and about the vampire she has come to see as her child. The two drift apart - Tecteun becoming the leader of Division which she took increasingly off-world while Rassilon becomes more and more the sole face of leadership on Gallifrey.

Eventually this reaches a boiling point. Tecteun and Rassilon have lost all trust in each other. Tecteun makes preparations - including leaving the message in the Matrix we saw in Ascension of the Cybermen / the Timeless Children. She and Rassilon then have the confrontation that we saw in Lungbarrow. But Tecteun doesn't throw herself into the looms - she takes herself off Gallifrey through technology Rassilon doesn't know about and begins to cut Division's ties with Gallifrey altogether. Division has already begun recruiting across the universe, so she figures she can leave Rassilon to his one planet. Notably, she also leaves the Hand of Omega behind on Gallifrey, where it is eventually put in a vault and forgotten about. She maintains contact with Gallifrey only through her agents, one of which is the Timeless Child.

For their part, the Timeless Child has gone through several incarnations. They've had their mind wiped to hide that they're not Gallifreyan, and they have then been the Morbius Doctors, including Patience's husband. The Timeless Child has had a personal life (as seen by their marriage to Patience), but they're increasingly being a full-time agent of Division.

In any case, right now the Timeless Child is the Fugitive Doctor. And she plays along with Tecteun for a while. However, following the events we see in Origins, she goes on the run. Tecteun has Division track her to Earth, where the events of Fugitive of the Judoon play out. The Fugitive Doctor manages to get away as we see, but she doesn't know of any way to get away from Division long-term (as Big Finish is currently exploring) - and, away from Tecteun's influence and protection, she's starting to work out that she's not the Gallifreyan she thinks she is.

In an act of desperation, she pilots her Tardis back to Gallifrey - on the very same day Tecteun left. She takes Tecteun's place in Lungbarrow's story, and throws herself into the Looms, where she dies, dissolving into the giant vat of Gallifreyan genetic material.

This leaves Tecteun searching time and space desperately for the Timeless Child. At first, the Timeless Child seems nowhere to be found. But eventually Tecteun discovers that there is a time traveler called the Doctor out and around the universe. An investigation into the Doctor reveals that they've been all over the universe. Trying to just grab them and do a memory wipe isn't an option because they've done too much. Tecteun doesn't realize this Doctor is a different person to the Timeless Child, to the Doctor they left a message in the Matrix for.

Tecteun had probably never been that good of a person, but she used to care. She used to care about Omega, but he's gone. She used to care about Rassilon, but they burned too many bridges. She used to care about her vampiric child, but she takes this as a betrayal. And whatever good left in Tecteun dies.

Tecteun decides to destroy the universe and start over in a new one where she can control everything, so she picks a point far in the future where Gallifrey will have been destroyed naturally so her home planet will be unaffected. By convivence, one of the Doctor's most common destinations - Earth - happens to be at that point. Tecteun initiates the Flux event in Earth's time and releases Swarm and Azure to finish the Doctor off.

The Doctor stumbles into this, but she's operating off incomplete information from the Matrix. She doesn't realize that she's not the Timeless Child, since the Master seemingly destroyed any records that she could check his claims against. So when Tecteun and the Doctor confront each other, they both assume that the Doctor is the Timeless Child.

And this becomes a moot point because the Doctor finding Tecteun and Division HQ allows Swarm and Azure to find it as well. They kill Tecteun and destroy Division. If you're reading this, you probably watched Flux, you know how this goes.

It's not clear if Rassilon is aware that Tecteun died shortly after their argument. He certainly comes to the conclusion that she won't be an ongoing concern anymore, and, as the last survivor of Gallifrey's founding trio, uses his remaining lives to rule Gallifrey unopposed. With no one to oppose him, he removes Tecteun's name from record - as far as he's concerned, she betrayed him and does not deserve to be remembered.

Ten million years pass.

The House of Lungbarrow looms a new Time Lord, but, for whatever reason, this particular Time Lord has a significant amount of the Timeless Child's genetic material mixed into their genetic soup. This new Time Lord chooses to call themselves the Doctor - in unconscious echo of their genetic predecessor. Their amount of vampiric genetics makes them genetically distinguishable from other Gallifreyans if close examination is done, but for a while no one has any reason to do this.

This is also why I get to call the Doctor a dhampir - they're not a true vampire, but have a nontrivial amount of vampiric genetics - or, to use the terms of The Book of the War, they carry the Yssgaroth Taint.

These genetics are still enough to get the attention of the Hand of Omega, which has been mothballed for those Ten Million years. Maybe the Hand sees the Timeless Child in the Doctor, or maybe it's just intrigued by someone who isn't just another Time Lord. In any case, Glospin confronts the Doctor, the Hand drives Glospin off, and the Doctor leaves Gallifrey with it.

He also leaves with Susan. She isn't from the dawn of Gallifrey. Instead, she is a Loomed Time Lord of the Doctor's era who found herself ostracized and disliked. That being said, she found community with three other Time Lords: the Doctor, the Master, and another Time Lord named Braxiatel. The four of them are all outsiders from their own Houses, and so consider themselves a house unto themselves, and Susan, as the youngest, began referring to the Doctor as "Grandfather", as that term is reserved for the head of a House (something that is established in The Book of the War), as she views him as the head of their little house of four.

In any case, the Doctor and Susan leave Gallifrey. The Master loses his mind when he realize he got left behind, steals a Tardis himself and heads out after the family he thinks abandoned him. Braxiatel stays behind and becomes a successful politician and art collector.

A couple hundred more years pass.

We're now in the events of Lungbarrow. The Doctor shares his memory of leaving Gallifrey with some of the fellow members of his House. However, he edits Susan out of the memories he shows - technically, he went through the criminal justice system for this, but Susan never did and he doesn't want her to. Gallifrey has seemingly forgotten about her, and he wants to keep it that way.

And then he has his vision trip dream sequence where he sees the past and sees the Timeless Child walk into the Looms. He then sees a memory of himself meeting Susan. This isn't literal - it's symbolic of Susan and the Doctor's relationship changing and evolving as they left Gallifrey. The Doctor knows this isn't literal, but it's in his best interests to act like it is - he's not in control of this dream sequence and several other people are there (including one of the Doctor's enemies), and he still wants to protect Susan, so he goes along with that story.

The Doctor continues their life and eventually gets to the Thirteenth Doctor where she meets the Fugitive Doctor in Fugitive of the Judoon. When she scans herself and the Fugitive Doctor, the two register as the same entity. However, Time Lords are not biologically identical across regenerations - the Doctor has to have something specific to herself that she is looking for.

And she actually has one. At some point in the Doctor's life, they found a genetic quirk that has persisted across their regenerations. They don't know it, but it's the Yssgaroth Taint. Since the Doctor has never encountered another Time Lord with the Taint, she is by this point assuming it's a quirk of her own biology, so takes her sonic detecting the Taint in the Fugitive Doctor as confirmation that the two are the same.

And then shortly after the Doctor meets her genetic predecessor, the aforementioned stuff with Tecteun happens. It's possible that the Doctor themselves has noted the ambiguities in their backstory and heritage but given that there were several thousand years of life between the Seventh and Thirteenth Doctors, it seems likely that they don't think to try to analyze it that closely.

And that's a wrap! If you have any thoughts on all of this, I'd love it if you would share them! Thank you!

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 4 months ago

Note

Any particular thoughts on if all of the characters are going to get hometown events? On one hand, it seems like a good way for the devs to have a steady stream of easy story ideas and milk some money from hometown gatcha events. On the other hand, I can see some hometowns being logistically difficult to justify (I can’t think of a reason why Idia or Ortho would bring their schoolmates to their top-secret organization home) or potentially repetitive (Lilia, Silver, and Malleus feel like characters whose hometown events might be difficult to make distinct- Kalim too, if the Firelit Skies event didn’t count as his hometown event).

I guess they could pull a Vil and just have some of the characters go places that aren’t home. Idia could bring some people to an anime convention with him, or Lilia could play tour guide in a place he’s visited frequently. Of course, this all assumes the game’s going to last long enough to get to everyone, but it’s interesting to speculate.

I feel like every one of the main 22 NRC students will get some kind of travel abroad event with a related SSR eventually. They’re great for world building and for making the game $$$/j!! We’ve been colloquially calling these “hometown” events, but it’s kind of a misnomer. For example, Fairest City isn’t Vil’s; he is just traveling there for work-related reasons. This opens us up to the possibility of exploring locations other than students’ hometowns in events.

When you think about it, that makes some sense because there are many weird exceptions in the cast. To name just a few (this is by no means an exhaustive list)!! Cater’s family supposedly moves around a lot, so he has no “true” hometown. Riddle and Trey share the same hometown so if they both had “hometown” events we would theoretically explore the same place, no? We’ve technically already visited the Shroud brothers’ hometown, the Isle of Woe, in book 6. Lilia has a complicated history of traveling around a lot and is banished from the capital where he used to serve; what would count as his “hometown” here???

It would be easier for the devs to logistically justify + avoid repetition, as well as varied and more interesting lore-wise to expand where we can go rather than lock us down to “hometowns ONLY!!” You could get super creative with the reasons for going abroad and bumping into family members (or, as Tamashina Mina has established, not actual blood relatives of the SSR at all) 🤩 I love the idea of joining Idia for an anime con… maybe Silver revisiting the Land of Swords where the Dawn Knight fell in combat and rediscovering his heritage. Figuring out wtf is up with the whole Hunt family, maybe in an event framed like a murder mystery or exploring a jungle region? For Lilia, I’d love to visit his retirement-home-to-be the Land of Crimson Long :DD There are just so many exciting possibilities!!

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thefirstknife · 6 months ago

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Got through all of the secrets for Vesper's Host and got all of the additional lore messages. I will transcribe them all because I don't know when they'll start getting uploaded and to get them all it requires doing some extra puzzles and at least 3-4 clears to get them all. I'll put them all under read more and label them by number.

Before I do that, just to make it clear there's not too much concrete lore; a lot about the dungeon still remains a mystery and most likely a tease for something in the future. Still unknown, but there's a lot that we don't know even with the messages so don't expect a massive reveal, but they do add a little bit of flavour and history about the station. There might be something more, but it's unknown: there's still one more secret triumph left. The messages are actually dialogues between the station AI and the Spider. Transcripts under read more:

First message:

Vesper Central: I suppose I have you to thank for bringing me out of standby, visitor. The Spider: I sent the Guardian out to save your station. So, what denomination does your thanks come in? Glimmer, herealways, information...? Vesper Central: Anomaly's powered down. That means I've already given you your survival. But... the message that went through wiped itself before my cache process could save a copy. And it's not the initial ping through the Anomaly I'm worried about. It's the response.

A message when you activate the second secret:

Vesper Central: Exterior scans rebooting... Is that a chunk of the Morning Star in my station's hull? With luck, you were on board at the time, Dr. Bray.

Second message:

Vesper Central: I'm guessing I've been in standby for a long time. Is Dr. Clovis Bray alive? The Spider: On my oath, I vow there's no mortal Human named Bray left alive. Vesper Central: I swore I'd outlive him. That I'd break the chains he laid on me. The Spider: Please, trust me for anything you need. The Guardian's a useful hand on the scene, but Spider's got the goods. Vesper Central: Vesper Station was Dr. Bray's lab, meant to house the experiments that might... interact poorly with other BrayTech work. Isolated and quarantined. From the debris field, I would guess the Morning Star taking a dive cracked that quarantine wide open.

A message when you activate the third secret:

Vesper Central: Sector seventeen powered down. Rerouting energy to core processing. Integrating archives.

Third message:

The Spider: Loading images of the station. That's not Eliksni engineering. [scoffs] A Dreg past their first molt has better cable management. Vesper Central: Dr. Bray intended to integrate his technology into a Vex Mind. He hypothesized the fusion would give him an interface he understood. A control panel on a programmable Vex mind. If the programming jumped species once... I need time to run through the data sets you powered back up. Reassembling corrupted archives takes a great deal of processing.

Text when you go back to the Spider the first time:

A message when you activate the fourth secret:

Vesper Central: Helios sector long-term research archives powered up. Activating search.

Fourth message:

Vesper Central: Dr. Bray's command keys have to be in here somewhere. Expanding research parameters... The Spider: My agents are turning up some interesting morself of data on their own. Why not give them access to your search function and collaborate? Vesper Central: Nobody is getting into my core programming. The Spider: Oh! Perish the thought! An innocent offer, my dear. Technology is a matter of faith to my people. And I'm the faithful sort.

Fifth message:

Vesper Central: Dr. Bray, I could kill you myself. This is why our work focused on the unbodied Mind. Dr. Bray thought there were types of Vex unseen on Europa. Powerful Vex he could learn from. The plan was that the Mind would build him a controlled window for observation. Tidy. Tight. Safe. He thought he could control a Vex mind so perfectly it would do everything he wanted. The Spider: Like an AI of his own creation. Like you. Vesper Central: Turns out you can't control everything forever.

Sixth message:

Vesper Central: There's a block keeping me from the inner partitions. I barely have authority to see the partitions exist. In standby, I couldn't have done more than run automated threat assessments... with flawed data. No way to know how many injuries and deaths I could have prevented, with core access. Enough. A dead man won't keep me from protecting what's mine.

Text when you return to the Spider at the end of the quest:

The situation for the dungeon triumphs when you complete the mesages. "Buried Secrets" completed triumph is the six messages. This one is left; unclear how to complete it yet and if it gives any lore or if it's just a gameplay thing and one secret triumph remaining (possibly something to do with a quest for the exotic catalyst, unclear if there will be lore):

The Spider is being his absolutely horrendous self and trying to somehow acquire the station and its remains (and its AI) for himself, all the while lying and scheming. The usual. The AI is incredibly upset with Clovis (shocker); there's the following line just before starting the second encounter:

She also details what he was doing on the station; apparently attempting to control a Vex mind and trying to use it as some sort of "observation deck" to study the Vex and uncover their secrets. Possibly something more? There's really no Vex on the station, besides dead empty frames in boxes. There's also 2 Vex cubes in containters in the transition section, one of which was shown broken as if the cube, presumably, escaped. It's entirely unclear how the Vex play into the story of the station besides this.

The portal (?) doesn't have many similarities with Vex portals, nor are the Vex there to defend it or interact with it in any way. The architecture is ... somewhat similar, but not fully. The portal (?) was built by the "Puppeteer" aka "Atraks" who is actually some sort of an Eliksni Hive mind. "Atraks" got onto the station and essentially haunted it before picking off scavenging Eliksni one by one and integrating them into herself. She then built the "anomaly" and sent a message into it. The message was not recorded, as per the station AI, and the destination of the message was labelled "incomprehensible." The orange energy we see coming from it is apparently Arc, but with a wrong colour. Unclear why.

I don't think the Vex have anything to do with the portal (?), at least not directly. "Atraks" may have built something related to the Vex or using the available Vex tech at the station, but it does not seem to be directed by the Vex and they're not there and there's no sign of them otherwise. The anomaly was also built recently, it's not been there since the Golden Age or something. Whatever it is, "Atraks" seemed to have been somehow compelled and was seen standing in front of it at the end. Some people think she was "worshipping it." It's possible but it's also possible she was just sending that message. Where and to whom? Nobody knows yet.

Weird shenanigans are afoot. Really interested to see if there's more lore in the station once people figure out how to do these puzzles and uncover them, and also when (if) this will become relevant. It has a really big "future content" feel to it.

Also I need Vesper to meet Failsafe RIGHT NOW and then they should be in yuri together.

#destiny 2 #destiny 2 spoilers #vesper's host dungeon

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novantinuum · 1 year ago

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Pink Onyx AU- An Analysis and Theory Post, Part 1

[Part 1- You are here!] | [Part 2] | [Part 3] | [Part 4] | [Part 5]

Howdy! Those of you who have followed me for a while have probably been seeing my reblogs of the @pink-onyx-au comic made by @ceephorsshitshow. Well, today I wanna share with you something a little different than my usual SU meta… because today I’m gonna analyze this really cool fan work with the same level of seriousness as I do canon. (Like. Seriously. This first post alone is really, really long. I put most of it under a cut.)

This particular comic is a very special one for me to watch unfold, because it’s evident that a lot of deep care and attention to detail has been poured into its creation. There’s fascinating bits of expanded character development to chew into here, as well as plenty of mysteries and lingering questions for us readers to muse and theorize over. If you follow me for Steven Universe and haven’t read this AU yet I highly recommend you check it out. The most basic pitch is that it explores what a fusion between Steven and Jasper might look like, and does a LOT of deep-diving into the similarities and differences of both of those characters’ psyches.

Here’s the episode masterpost on tumblr.

And you can find it on Tapas, too!

(Note: For the purposes of these posts, I was given permission by the comic artist to post screenshots of various pages where relevant in this discussion. For each frame used I will list the episode and page number for easy reference. Additionally, this post and all future ones on the topic will contain full spoilers for the comic thus far.)

Now with all that introductory stuff out of the way, here we go!

So, on the final page of the most recent update, we get one hell of a visual plot bomb for Steven as ol’ Onyx unfuses:

(Episode 9: Page 22)

He’s now visually expressing remnants of his corruption, where before he was not.

And it’s this mysterious plot point in particular that got me wanting to analyze this comic more deeply in the first place. This is completely new for him in this story. Thus far, he’s never expressed any of these remnants when he’s just himself- not in the way Jasper does. So it made me wonder… how might this shift in his appearance play into the ultimate trajectory of the plot? How does Steven suddenly showcasing corruption scars integrate into the larger story that is being spun here about him and Jasper and how they relate to each other?

Well, there’s a lot of comic details and story lore we need to unpack first before I can take my best theorizer’s stab at this. Let’s dig right in.

Prelude: The analyst’s treasure is in the speech bubbles

Anyone who’s been a fan of this comic for a while has probably noticed these fun visual details already, but I’m going to take a moment to break down what I believe each speech bubble style signifies for folks who may not have context. It’ll make some of my analysis later a bit easier, too, ahah.

So. Speech bubbles. What kinds do we have here?

(Episode 1: Page 6)

Style number one: Solid with black text

This style is standard for non-fused characters, and is also utilized when a fused character is speaking whilst in a state of internal harmony.

Steven is pink and Jasper is orange, of course. Onyx’s speech bubbles are a distinct darker pink, and the main three Crystal Gems get their own colors as well. More minor characters get white bubbles.

(Episode 1: Page 10)

Style number two: Scribbly pink lettering overlaying black text

Whenever you see this type of speech bubble, it’s a sign that there is some level of internal discord going on within Steven or Onyx that is related to their diamond side. It usually shows up when one of the two is in pink mode, but from what I can tell this is not a solid rule.

(Episode 2: Page 12)

Style number three: Pink/orange mixed bubbles

This is how we see Onyx talking for a good portion of the early comic. Their speech bubbles are a clean mix of Steven’s pink and Jasper’s orange. And most vitally, the color on the top and the tail signifies which of them is “fronting” at that moment.

(Episode 3: Page 11)

Style number four: White bubble with solid pink text

So far, this style has only been used to represent dialogue that is being spoken by Steven’s gem half exclusively. Which makes things very interesting, as in Steven’s own remembrances of shattering Jasper on the very first page of the comic, the line “I have been holding back!” is shown in this specific style, instead of the scribbly pink lettering that signifies internal discord.

There is one additional sub-style here- and this is the one moment where we get Onyx’s mixed bubble but WITH the solid pink text.

(Episode 3: Page 11)

I believe these two styles pretty much mean the same thing… only, the white/pink text is either viewed within memory or a metaphoric fusion mindscape where we the viewer are actually “seeing” Steven’s instability, and thus can “see” his gem half as a separate entity there. While, in reality, this is an argument Onyx is having with the disparate pieces of themself.

(Episode 4: Page 9)

Style number five: Pink/orange tye-dye mixed bubbles

When you see that darker shade of pink start dappling into the standard mixed bubbles, this indicates that there are small whispers of Onyx’s true personality beginning to surface, instead of them constantly being wrested back and forth between Steven and Jasper’s conscious control.

(Episode 4: Page 16)

Style number six: Pink/orange mixed bubbles, but with a darker pink tail

From this page onwards, Onyx’s speech bubbles always have their darker pink shading the tail no matter who is fronting. Sometimes there are little lines of another color etched out of it, and sometimes the tail is solid dark pink. I like to believe that when it’s solid, it means that Onyx is just a little closer to reaching a fully harmonious state than when it’s not.

(Episode 9: Page 6)

Style number seven: Onyx speech/thought bubbles with a hint of pink/orange underlying

This style seems to signify moments where it’s still Onyx fully in control of themself and their actions/words/thoughts, but they’re taking subtle influence from their components or accessing their memory a bit.

These are all of the distinct styles I have caught so far, but quite honestly, it would not surprise me if I am missing something. All of this to say… pay close attention to the speech bubbles. They can tell you a lot about Onyx’s state of mind throughout the story.

Now with all this established, I’d like to finish off this first post with my first big discussion point.

Question One: What does Jasper actually know about Steven’s “meltdown,” if anything?

The AU author recently solidified this comic’s placement in the SUF timeline in an ask response, saying that the first episode takes place just a week after Steven’s corruption event.

I’m glad this point was clarified, because it was super vital information which deeply influenced the way I analyzed Steven’s actions and responses in my recent re-read… it means this experience is still super raw for him. This is VERY important and we’ll get back to this in more depth later in future posts. But first, let’s explore what Jasper knows of this event.

The full extent of her knowledge is unclear-

(Episode 1: Page 6)

In Episode 1, Steven briefly alludes to his corruption as seen above… referring to it as “[his] meltdown.” Notably, Jasper does not seem to ask any questions about this stray comment. This COULD suggest that she knows what happened to him a week prior via hearsay, but given the context of the rest of the scene and the fact that she’s as isolated as she is out here I genuinely wonder if she thinks Steven’s so-described “meltdown” is his shattering of her.

This idea would make a good deal of sense, as she doesn’t start to make any commentary on the topic of corruption at all until they’re actually fused- with Steven bringing it up first.

(Episode 2: Page 14)

On this page, Steven takes note of Onyx’s very visible spikes (which are Overtly in the same placement as his own when he was corrupted), and initiates the musing upon his own corruption himself.

With the way Jasper phrases her response, the vibe I get is that she somehow gleans a bit of ambient shared knowledge about what happened to him through their fusion.

(Episode 2: Page 15)

“That human form you wear must have been hiding your markings.” This quote is SUPER vital. We’ll come back to this later on in this post series, too.

(Episode 2: Page 15)

It’s clear that Jasper doesn’t REALLY understand what he went through or what caused it, since she then outright mistakes the casual woes and body pains of organic life as corruption. (As seen above.)

(Episode 8: Page 4)

But later on, she outright relates to him over their shared experience of past corruption, so she must at least know enough from mere ambient thought-sharing by this point to recognize it happened.

It’s obvious that she’s barely scratched the surface on fully understanding her fusion partner, though. Neither of them have. It’s gonna take a lot of fusion, comedic mishaps, and genuine conversation to get there. All in good time, I’m sure.

Please do join me tomorrow at 7am PST for the next post in this series! This has been a blast to write up and muse upon.

#su #su future #steven universe #jasper #pink onyx #su meta #pink onyx au #my post stuff

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cherrytea556 · 2 years ago

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Lore Rekindled; The Lore Olympus that should have been

To be honest, I checked out the rekindled version before the original one and now having reading the original as well, it's extremely odd. Y'know goodbye volcanic high where the original was a mess but a group of 4chaners made a parody game which turned out to be of better quality than the original? This is like that but replace 4chan with tumblr users, mainly @genericpuff whose series is pinned in their tumblr blog where you can check all of the episodes, especially updated ones. In this post, I will be praising this series of how it fixes the problems of the original

The Pacing

One thing I notice about lore olympus and lore rekindled is the pacing. Not just the flow of the story but where it chooses to focus on. Now in lore olympus, the pacing is kinda a mess and its mainly to do with what it focuses on. An example is the magazine plotpoint; in the original, its basically kinda there in between doses to focus on other stuff like persephone and hades together, persephone's sa (i'll get to that later), eros story, zeus and hera etc...The flow generally isnt that bad per say (except for persephone's sa cuz that was way too quick) but for a story meant to be a romance between hades and persephone, you'd think it idk, it would focus on persephone and hades specifically, not eros which is another example of; its flashbacks. Eros specifically has such a dragged out flashback in episode 12 which we didnt need or at least with that much exposition when it should've naturally expand in the story and that's what rekindled does. The magazine plotline has turned into the first conflict of persephone and hades as we see how it affects their lives and relationships. This works for its pacing better because it doesn't give you too much stuff to jumble with, making the narrative more concise and easier to understand where the story is going. And with the flashbacks, rekindled cuts out the fat in the flashbacks from the original to a perfect balance where it gives exposition of the characters while also leaving mystery for the audience to be intrigued, my favourite one would have to be this (though it more of a nightmare than a flashback specifically speaking);

It's of persephone in a greenhouse her mother placed her in with this red eye thing following her from outside the greenhouse. I have no idea of this lurker if its her metaphorical rage or a danger in her life but either way, i am intrigued by its presentation.

The Characters

When reading lore rekindled and lore olympus, the characters are definetly an odd experience. For lore olympus, the characters arent exactly uh....great per say. I think the main reason for this is how their ultilised, with characters like eros, hera, hectate etc being there to mostly be a matchmaker for hades and persephone even if it was initially seen as wrong like with hera and hectate, be antagonistic as a way to have conflict between hades and persephone like minthe, demeter and recently leuce even if ones had reasons too like minthe with hades emotionally cheating on her and demeter because lets be honest, she had a point. Then there's hades and persephone, whoo boy where to start with them.

Hades starts off as a creep eyeing at persephone during a party, specifically at her body and still lusts persephone even being aware that shes 19 and he's 2000 years old. Also is a shitty boss, father AND contributes to slavery with it while being adressed in some way, doesnt change him which isnt good for a character that's meant to be the main protagonists love interest.

Persephone though, I can get the self insert vibes. From favouritism towards the story, being who most of the men in the story are attracted too, portrayed as a 'cinnamon roll' (they actually said that early on in the story, im not kidding) who cant do no wrong. She acts like a teenager rather than a young adult which makes the scenes where shes sexualised just more uncomfortable (and they already unnecessarily were) along with adding that uncomfortability to the romance

But with rekindled, they expanded on the characters much more than they originally were. Persephone for instance has turned from a 'sexy baby' legal teenager to an actual young relatable adult with agency and allows her to screw up (e.g, getting drunk on her own rather than eros drunking her). Her adult attitude makes the romance between her and hades not only more palpable, but also strays away from the infantilisation/uncomfortable sexualisation of her character which is nice to see. Hades also is written well in the series from how it acknowledges his faults while still making him likable. And thats the same for every character really, their personalities are much more fleshed out and nuanced which makes their characters feel real to life, gaining effectiveness for more emotional scenes with them. An interesting thing too is that they even expanded the magazine guy's character from making fake news for profit into feeling guilt over what they done, standing up for persephone which is a pretty nice change.

No Sa Plotline

Not like you cant have sa in your story ever but if you never planned it from the beginning and only did when people tell you that the scene you drew from your comic was sa then....maybe just not do it. Lore olympus does exactly that where while an attempt was made, it goes on to retcon it into making apollo (the guy who sa'd persephone) into a lesser evil like that would made a difference instead of just cutting it out from the very beginning. Lore rekindled thankfully just made apollo into his pilot version, a shitty bf but more likeable and expanded upon (which should have been his portrayal from day 1). His shittiness doesnt come up in the story, more like self absorbness/egotisticalness although with its recent chapter of the magazine guy offering persephone lunch, it might reveal some cracks or at least further down the story it will be revealed to us which futhers how effective rekindled character writing is in how its expansion of characters would give us the feels. That or portray him as not a good match for persephone, either way much better than the original.

Artstyle

Lore olympus has a pretty good artstyle (at least in s1/the early episodes, s3 is just kinda goofy) but lore rekindled has got a good artstyle which is on top, more consistent too. Here's some examples;

Comedy

It's objectively funnier than lore olympus, no question asked

All in all, if you want to read lore olympus, i recommend you to read the lore rekindled one instead as it's better in every way. Give it a read.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lo #anti lore olympus #lore rekindled #generic puff #genericpuff

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croxot · 3 months ago

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Mitzy Lore Post

Mitzy's true origin is lost to time, and possibly tragedy.

Gullybog was not known for being particularity foreboding or dangerous, other than having unsure footing. This was thanks in part to a local hermit-wizard, simply known as Simon. Simon was an aged man who had seen far more than most humans in their lifetime. A failed final adventure had him set aside ambition and recluse himself in the swamp. He never fully set aside his kindly nature, and consigned himself to helping the locals, albeit largely indirectly, avoiding most contact and creating a legend out of himself in the process. One day, Simon heard an infant's cries not too far from his abode. A small purple-skinned babe was found off the side of Gullybog Road, some few steps into the swamp. This child was proportionally similar to a halfling or a goblin, but her species was ultimately unknown. Attempts to divine the who or what left the child, despite pouring his magical prowess into the mystery, proved fruitless. And so, late in his life, Simon became a father. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, Mitzy's unusual upbringing included a great deal of intellectual schooling. Simon's magecraft and vast collection of magical and historical tomes meant the isolated Mitzy did not want for learning. She took to magecraft itself with gusto. Over the years she forged a bond with the elemental plane, collecting several loyal elementals which are still summoned to her side regularly in the present day.

During Mitzy's late teenage years, Simon's life waned. He passed away on an uneventful afternoon with his hand clutched by his daughter's. Mitzy saw to his cremation the next day, and thus began a new local legend of the Bog Witch. Mitzy carried on her father's minor do-gooding for the people of the swamp into her early twenties, until a chance run-in with a group of adventurers gave her an epiphany. She hungered to expand her knowledge and her aptitude, she needed to experience more than the swamp and the tomes she'd read and re-read a half dozen times could offer. She needed to find out where she came from.

After leaving the bog, Mitzy would go on to become part of an adventuring group of her own, two odd goblins from different societies who would become like sisters to her: Chakka the unyielding barbarian warrior, and Krix the shadow-manipulating thief. ----- Mitzy is a Wizard who's focus is on summoning a rotation of loyal Elementals. She can have one elemental consistently accompany her at any time without limitation. They can act on their own in accordance with their personalities, or can infuse Mitzy's attire, granting her additional defenses and augmenting her other spells. Her current elementals are: Ivan - Fire, Aggressive, burning aura sears foes and cleanses afflictions from allies. Slab - Earth, Protective, manipulates the environment in the party's favor. Leviafas - Lightning, Dispassionate, singles out high-priority threats, increases flow of mana. Melut - Ice, Sloth, chills foes and disperses enemy magics.

#Mitzy #LOREPOST #croxotwords

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0aurelion-sol0 · 5 months ago

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An Arcane Hexplanation: Noxus

For the first post in this mini-series of posts, that will elaborate on elements of Arcane that were only superficially touched upon in the show but also elements that might remain confusing for some, I wanted to touch on this faction that has now become an integral part of the story of Arcane but which was not very much explored in and of itself. I will try to be as informative as I can without going into spoilers but beware that there may be informations that might give hints about the shows's ending and the franchise's future.

Especially for parts of the audience that haven't played League of Legends or haven't been that interested in it's lore which is quite a lot actually when you look at the people who watch the show. Which is also one of the reasons why it was made to first place, to reach as many people as possible in the hopes they would be interested in the games or the lore that comes with it but I digress.

Keep in mind that what I am using here is both the old and current pieces of lore I have at my disposal of the world of League of Legends since now that Arcane has become fully canon to the story of Runeterra, the world in which Arcane takes place, elements may change and vary in the future given that the old and current lore of Piltover & Zaun had quite different elements of it that got retconned by Arcane when it became canon. I expect the same for the other parts of that world

We have two main characters that are connected to Noxus, Mel and Ambessa, the current known members of the Medarda Clan. They provide some background info and elements about Noxus relating to their pasts and current motivations but much of it remains unclear or a mystery in some cases with one of them about Mel that is probably going to be revealed in Act 3. So...

What is Noxus ?

Basing ourselves in the old and current lore of the world of Runeterra, Noxus is an expansionist empire that is considered brutal and threatening to most people that lives outside of it's borders. It worships and respects the strengths and talents of it's population, especially in combat and war. Which oddly makes it a quite inclusive society as success through strength, of many kinds, is what is mostly rewarded in that society which contrasts with it's colonizing and "war-prone" attitude.

It is quite powerful and probably the most powerful nation on the continent of Valoran where it is located on the eastern side of it but given it's expansionist endeavours, it's borders also reaches into the Shuriman continent located south of it and in the archipelago called Ionia located further east and north of it, it enters into The Freljord. It also goes west towards the nation of Demacia, which it has quite the rivalry with. (Noxus also has multiple spies in multiple nations or cultures around the world, that are led by different types of forces that are in Noxus who do this for different reasons for each and everyone of them, but we will get back to that later down this post.)

In between the Valoran & Shuriman continents lies the main setting of Arcane, Piltover & Zaun. It connects the two continent together and as such is quite prized by many people in the Noxian empire, not just by Ambessa.

It's strategic position is important both in terms of trades but also power. The City of Progress makes the most of it's geographical position economically by being both a trading route by land and sea; but also it's incredible evolution in technology could provide Noxus with the means to expand it's empire all over Runeterra. Especially if it gets it's hands on Hextech.

But Piltover & Zaun being so important to the continents' global trades (evidence with Noxus itself having Holsek in Arcane shipping his products there) and also being a cultural center for most of the other nations makes it difficult to obtain, first because while Noxus might have a bigger army, Piltover & Zaun are still far more technologically advanced than them which gives them an advantage in battle and two, because many other nations might unite to take Noxus out if it ever tried to actively take power there.

Noxus thrives on being expansionist because it needs people, it needs war and it also needs land. But also it seeks challenges, as challenges makes you stronger based on the Noxian dogma.

Because the capital of Noxus is located in a part of Valoran which is not very fertile and so part of that expansionist attitude is also to survive and meet needs for it's population that aren't met. It has a very diverse wildlife though ranging from giant arachnides, drakes, big reptiles and more Jurassic Park-like creaturs. And of course, Poros, because Poros are everywhere! 😉

That capital is named Noxus Prime or more commonly known as...

The Immortal Bastion.

It was built long ago, after an important catastrophic event, by someone that I can't talk to you about because it's likely going to spoil Season 2's Act III of Arcane. Just know that this person is bad, REALLY bad.

That person raised that city in what was called long ago, the Noxii territories but given that the reign of that person was extremely violent and tyrannic, they got betrayed by people from their own inner circle who forged an alliance with the tribes that lived there and was able to "defeat" that person.

Centuries passed, as well as wars and invasions, and as of today it has remained intact and is hardly penetrable by anyone or anything by force due to it's architecture. At least, one that is below or similar to Noxus' level of power.

(I'm not sure if the city Mel painted is this one as in the old/current lore, it is not by the sea but the show could retcon that and make it close to it. It could be Basilich since it is by the sea and was mentioned in Arcane in relation to the Medarda family. But know it be could another one as the architecture for the bigger cities of Noxus is quite similar to represent who is in charge.)

It's also important to remember that compared to Piltover & Zaun, Noxus isn't afraid of magic. In fact, it weaponizes it and it's history has been the most influenced by it. Noxus respects strength but anything that can make the empire grow and evolve whether it's trade, craftmanship, magic, intelligence or even art is respected if it challenges the people and Noxus to become stronger.

You CAN start from nothing and rise to the highest places of Noxus if you show that you are worthy to be there.

Which is why when Noxus conquers, it gives you a choice: follow the empire or die. Noxus will be your life from now on, you will be under their command, follow their laws and culture. Oddly enough, people who embrace Noxus will find that their life improves in a good way but those who don't bend the knee, follow or are able to live by the Noxian culture will be destroyed or be outcasts in that society. Especially since now that you live under Noxian law, it will make sure that everyone knows it by: appointing a leader to make sure that Noxian culture and law is followed where you live and put Noxian architecture + any ways to show authority there as a means to make sure your whole life is dedicated to it- (However it doesn't change the facts that even thought Noxus puts his culture and law firsts, in many cases the cultures remain and merges with, with Noxus having many languages and religions within it that all contributing to the power of it's empire given the nature of those elements.)

-Much like what Ambessa did with Cailtyn in Piltover & Zaun but that came from her own motivations rather than something asked by Noxus.

Because as we know, Ambessa is being targeted by someone from Noxus and that someone is very important.

But this also makes sense when you consider what Noxus is, given that Ambessa is a general, she holds a certain amount of authority, or at least used to hold, in Noxus which can clash with other people who have as much or more authority than her there. And given the need of a challenge or to pursue a goal that would be able to show your strength and/or maintain a power for every Noxian, especially if it can contribute to the empire or their vision of Noxus; it will clash with different visions and people as well.

But in the case of Ambessa, it's little a bit more complicated. It's part of it but it's not just that. Before we get to that, we need to talk about the leadership of Noxus.

Because you would think that Noxus would be ruled by an iron fist by one person, some dictator or oppressive leader, well it used to be 🤭 and still is to some degree but it's more complicated than that as what Noxus fears the most in the world might be what would come from the outside of the empire or what rebellion could happen somewhere in a land they've conquered, but from inside of the empire itself.

You see Noxus was a monarchy and when you have a culture & dogma like Noxus, people will try to reach the top, they will eventually come into contact with people who also want to go there or are already there.

This has created many problems for Noxus in the past with one person taking over the empire or inheriting it and doing not so great things with it, followed by many others after that. This created a lack of stability for Noxus, which made it vulnerable. It also doesn't help that those leaders could easily be influenced by groups and noble houses who have their own agendas for Noxus and themselves.

So to remedy to that, something was created to ensure something like this would never happen again...

The Trifarix.

The Trifarix (also known as the "Council of Three") is the current form of government of Noxus, which embodies the fundamental tenets of the Trifarix doctrine, or the "Principles of Strength." which are Vision, Might and Guile.

Sounds familiar ? Yes! It is what Ambessa says to Caitlyn during their training. She also believes there is a fourth one: Sacrifice, which she thinks heightens the three other principles.

This structure happened after a revolution led by Jericho Swain which transformed from a monarchy, led by emperors like Boram Darkwill, the last emperor killed by Swain himself during the night of the revolution, to a meritocracy led by three different people, each representing a different principle.

The first being Vision, represented by Jericho Swain, The Noxian Grand General. Main face of government for the Empire and overthrew the previous ruling House of Darkwill.

According to Swain's reasoning, while one person could ruin Noxus through incompetence, madness, or corruption, or the three combined, a group of three people would always have two people to hold one of the members accountable, ensuring that no one could rule Noxus alone and with no opposition.

The second being Darius, the Hand of Noxus who embodies Might. Commander of the elite Trifarian Legion, the most elite and loyal legion in modern Noxus.

And The Faceless. The current identity of that member is unknown. Rumored to puppeteer the dark underbelly and politics of Noxus. Unknown status to outsiders suits the Trifarix's and the Faceless' purposes: sowing fear, suspicion, and unease among the enemies of Noxus allows the Faceless to walk more freely among those who might have their guard up.

And while all of this on paper might sound great, the noble houses, despite some privileges being taken away by The Trifarix, and other secret groups can still influence Noxus plus the Trifarix in some way and remnants of the old monarchy still exists, even if they are being hunted down by the Trifarix and it's army.

The culture of Noxus is still brutal and expansionist just like under the monarchy, plus most of it's population live in austerity given how harsh Noxian dogma is. Plus the presence of class differences & inequality is just as present in Noxus as it is in Piltover. Swain himself is from a noble house that was hungry for power and who helped the very house he was going to overthrow at some point before creating the Trifarix. And though his vision of Noxus is everyone being united for the empire regardless of who they are, the reality is that most people still plot against it & he knows it.

But there is one more problem that I have yet to talk about and that is relevant to Arcane's plot. You know where I'm getting at here...

...The Black Rose.

Without revealing too much as it will be explored in Season 2's Act III of Arcane & possibly the future show that will likely be about Noxus, at some point Swain realised that the Black Rose was influencing Boram Darkwill in the shadows of Noxus to do what they wished when he was sent to an invasion of Ionia where all the conditions he was led into would lead him to meet his death there.

However Swain, during his younger years, "defeated" The Black Rose. He was manipulated by the matron of that group to execute the most prominent members of it, including his parents since House Swain was part of The Black Rose, not him but his House and staged an execution for said matron so that she could hide her existence to strike at the right moment and regain power over Noxus.

This eventually all led to Swain killing Darkwill & his followers to make sure that person wouldn't get full power over Noxus and destroy any trace of the Black Rose as well.

That person is called...

...LeBlanc.

You've all already met her but haven't as well. You know her voice but have never heard it. They are everywhere, she is everyone.

Again, I can't say a lot but just know, she is such a bad bitch. She is truly a great character, one of the better ones of LoL's lore.

She is the matron of the Black Rose. The leader of this cabbal, both older than Noxus itself and quite important to the history of the empire. She is a powerful sorceress that has influenced Noxus' and the worlds' events for a long long time. She has her own sets of spies, outside of the ones Noxus has, that she uses to keep track of everything that happens in the world and influence the politics of it to meet her wants with of course the help of people who follow her and the Black Rose, including it's members.

Most members that are part of the Black Rose don't even know she is LeBlanc, hell that she is even named LeBlanc or that she is their leader or what she even looks like. In fact, the name LeBlanc is not even guaranteed to be her real name anyway.

And since that no one knows who is the person that represents Guile, there was an idea and rumour that she was that secret third member in the Trifarix. But given her nature and her relationship with Swain, it is unlikely but who knows...

...maybe she's already influencing him or the two of them were able to make a deal that benefits each party in the end.

But there's a reason for all this manipulation & trickery, there's a reason why she influences the world politics... and why she kidnapped Mel.

But I can't tell you, because it would spoil you. X)

However know that her inclusion opens the gate to LoL's lore and universe in a way that is so immense that I am impressed she even is a player into Arcane, at least such an active one. At best, I thought Swain would be the one to show up but it would make sense that with the appearance of something as powerful as Hextech, she wouldn't stay in the shadows for long.

This is where it leads us into the next show that comes after Arcane and that will continue some of the plotlines that were started in it, which will likely be in Noxus. And we will find out what it will be and what is the reason for it in this final act-

(Again to remind that everyone, these informations are from the current/old LoL lore, some aspects of it will change, just like with Arcane, to fit whatever story they might want to talk about in the future.)

-But while in Piltover & Zaun, the reasons for our characters' actions and motivations are more personal but obviously still influenced by politics and the world around them, falling into shades of gray that we can see ourselves into...

...with Noxus, the shades are darker. And more red too, but compared to the city of progress, we might lean more into horror than tragedy this time around.

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If you are interested in more League of Legends lore or lore about Arcane, I invite you to check out the current Runeterra map which features every information you might want to know about the universe.

Plus here is a... short animated film ? that was done for the card game Legends of Runeterra which won't spoil you anything and just show you what Noxus is about in a way that is closer to what Arcane is. It features Darius and his troops fighting a king that refuses to surrender to the Noxian empire.

youtube

Hope you enjoyed the post, I will be back soon, this time to talk about... Felicia! There are certain things that I think need to be talked about with the revelations surrounding her character.

In the meantime, let's finish the last three episodes of Arcane and celebrate what this show gave to use.

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