Fate/Grand Order Story and Lore (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

[Rafflesiac]

I find more believable that the bleaching was done by Anastasia, since the timing with her freezing Chaldeas and the bleaching feels a bit too convenient to be anything else. Marisbilly killed himself to prevent someone from forcing him to shut down his globe, so he clearly needed it running for longer, possibly to eventually reach a level of synchronicity were erasing Chaldeas = erasing the world. And when it got to this level, Koyanskaya and Kirei brought in Anastasia, she froze the globe and the Earth got blank.

That is a truly cursed avatar.

[Zork Knight]

Tying it back to Anastasia (and consequently Kadoc) being responsible would actually be neat. And also give Kadoc more of a reason to stick around.

[Rafflesiac]

On the other hand, the Earth isn't frozen. It's scoured clean.

[Zork Knight]

Maybe the bleaching is an effect from Chaldeas itself. What it does to Earth when it stops.

Maybe Marisbilly just wanted to hold the entire world hostage for a ludicrous amount of money

[G-Man]

Maybe the bleaching is an effect from Chaldeas itself. What it does to Earth when it stops.

Maybe Marisbilly just wanted to hold the entire world hostage for a ludicrous amount of money

Except the whole reason he competed in the HGW was to wish for the money to fund Chaldea's creation. Why not cut out the middle-man that is Chaldea if all he wanted was the money?

[Blastedspider]

True form of Beast VII: Financial Security.

[neveron]

I find more believable that the bleaching was done by Anastasia, since the timing with her freezing Chaldeas and the bleaching feels a bit too convenient to be anything else. Marisbilly killed himself to prevent someone from forcing him to shut down his globe, so he clearly needed it running for longer, possibly to eventually reach a level of synchronicity were erasing Chaldeas = erasing the world. And when it got to this level, Koyanskaya and Kirei brought in Anastasia, she froze the globe and the Earth got blank.

The whole "as below, so above" too-perfect simulation idea is definitely an interesting one, yeah, although I kind of doubt it since it feels kind of high-concept and quite frankly overpowered for the setting. It would make sense with the old "Atlas tries to stop the end of the world but creates doomsday weapons in the process" idea, I guess?

Also, note that the bleaching didn't happen that soon. Antarctica was still normal while the Shadow Border was fleeing the scene (complete with an overhead zoom-out to establish the setting), and IIRC that's minutes after Chaldeas was frozen.

There's definitely something funky going on both with the bleaching and Chaldeas itself, but I'm not sure that they're directly related?
I think the focus on Chaldeas being frozen is just serving the dual purposes of
A) as a model of the Earth, it shows that Shit's Fucked (much like when it went dark in Part 1) and
B) as the way we Rayshift, it shows that there's no going back and undoing the whole thing (and this is made explicit in the text as the reason they directly attack it)

[Bobin]

I wouldn't be shocked if Chaldeas caused it, since if I remember correctly they made a big deal of Chaldeas freezing over in the prologue and even emphasized it in the opening video, but Anastasia feels like too much of a bit player to be the culprit.

Yeah, I can subscribe to it somehow being related to Chaldeas but not because of Anastasia's actions since it's seems pretty significant to Chaldea's questionable objectives as an organization that everything seems to be tying back to.

[Lily Emilio]

On the other hand, the Earth isn't frozen. It's scoured clean.

Not entirely clean. The human order is still there, just frozen. Find some ways to recover it once the alien god and all LBs are gone and we get all back.

[the god of world-0]

Simply freezing the earth doesn't explain the "always day" alien sky situation

[fumei]

I remember some old crack theory that basically posited that olga was actually a prototype of Chaldeas itself. It didn't go that much further into theorizing about what that would actually mean for the story, but it was backed up by a lot of questions rather than concrete answers. Like how lostroom mats say marisbilly subjected all his other children to demiservant experiments, but why not olga? And how he had some grand plan for olga that's dropped in non-FGO timelines (and in FGO timelines, did it already happen?) after he found out about the grail not being able to grant his wish (or actually, it was a bit after that, during the london beheadings I'm pretty sure). Basically it was based a lot on the explanation of how rayshifting works, and saying that since rayshifting requires you to set the subject to "absent" within time, that would be impossible with olga if she was a prototype of chaldeas, because she would be equivalent to the soul of the planet itself, and it wouldn't be possible for that to be absent, and that's why she couldn't rayshift (until she died and her soul got dragged along).

But then I'm pretty sure this also led into another theory which said that marisbilly's theory was to create a "cerebral corpus of the planet", and actually that hasn't exactly been disproven yet. Rasputin also mentions at one point that chaldea is a means to reach the root, and we haven't really seen that explained yet either, so there's still potential here.

[Lolly Battory]

That reminds me of the theory that pointed that that the Spiritron Accelerators in Tsuki no Sango which were described as perpetual motion machines sort of looked like Fantasy Trees/Rhongo and that the Specimen E in Area 51 is described as looking like a withered tree by Bluebook so sort of like the non human looking parts of the artificial brain of the moon in that as well.

[CO9p5JMGv!p9]

That reminds me of the theory that pointed that that the Spiritron Accelerators in Tsuki no Sango which were described as perpetual motion machines sort of looked like Fantasy Trees/Rhongo and that the Specimen E in Area 51 is described as looking like a withered tree by Bluebook so sort of like the non human looking parts of the artificial brain of the moon in that as well.

this is just a wild mental image but when i think of a "withered tree" on an operating table, this springs to mind

[Reign]

Lostroom Mats said Marisbury had other kids?

[Dragolord09]

Actually, where are the Lostroom Mat translations on this site?

[Comun]

Lostroom Mats said Marisbury had other kids?

If you mean "had" as in "owned" instead of as in "fathered", Camelot prologue said he had other children besides Mash but Mash was the only one who actually worked.

I remember some old crack theory that basically posited that olga was actually a prototype of Chaldeas itself. It didn't go that much further into theorizing about what that would actually mean for the story, but it was backed up by a lot of questions rather than concrete answers. Like how lostroom mats say marisbilly subjected all his other children to demiservant experiments, but why not olga? And how he had some grand plan for olga that's dropped in non-FGO timelines (and in FGO timelines, did it already happen?) after he found out about the grail not being able to grant his wish (or actually, it was a bit after that, during the london beheadings I'm pretty sure). Basically it was based a lot on the explanation of how rayshifting works, and saying that since rayshifting requires you to set the subject to "absent" within time, that would be impossible with olga if she was a prototype of chaldeas, because she would be equivalent to the soul of the planet itself, and it wouldn't be possible for that to be absent, and that's why she couldn't rayshift (until she died and her soul got dragged along).

Huh, I also thought of this myself, but through a completely different (an admittedly much weaker) set of hints. What I had is:
- Olga is the only supposedly human character whose birthday is listed as unknown in the Elmo2 Mats.
- Her middle name is アースミレイト (at least in the Elmo2 timelines), romanized as something else in the anime subs, but easily romanizable as Earthmilate (Earth assimilate? Earth simulate?)
- Hibiki is also implied to be a miniature of the planet, so there could be precedent set for miniatures of the planet being little girls.
-In the Animusphere chant, Animus is "shape of myself", so Animusphere -> the shape of myself is a sphere -> Olga is the globe.

But then I'm pretty sure this also led into another theory which said that marisbilly's theory was to create a "cerebral corpus of the planet", and actually that hasn't exactly been disproven yet. Rasputin also mentions at one point that chaldea is a means to reach the root, and we haven't really seen that explained yet either, so there's still potential here.

Marisbilly aiming for the Root would be really stupid because we've seen him actively and knowingly rejecting a won opportunity in favor of wishing for enough money to turn on his globe.
アースミレイト

[fumei]

Marisbilly aiming for the Root would be really stupid because we've seen him actively and knowingly rejecting a won opportunity in favor of wishing for enough money to turn on his globe.
アースミレイト

I must be going crazy. I was sure Rasputin had said something like this, but can't seem to find it (at least not quickly looking through LB1 or a quick search in my discord messages), and JP wiki only mentions this:

天体科のロードとして独自の方法で根源に至ることを目的としており、他の魔術師の理論に乗るなどと有り得な いとして、アインツベルンの大聖杯による根源への到達は拒否し、カルデアを設立した。

- - - Updated - - -

Huh, I also thought of this myself, but through a completely different (an admittedly much weaker) set of hints. What I had is:
- Olga is the only supposedly human character whose birthday is listed as unknown in the Elmo2 Mats.
- Her middle name is アースミレイト (at least in the Elmo2 timelines), romanized as something else in the anime subs, but easily romanizable as Earthmilate (Earth assimilate? Earth simulate?)
- Hibiki is also implied to be a miniature of the planet, so there could be precedent set for miniatures of the planet being little girls.
-In the Animusphere chant, Animus is "shape of myself", so Animusphere -> the shape of myself is a sphere -> Olga is the globe.

Well these all just support this thing even more. I'm very excited to see how this plays out, even if it's practically never the same as these crack theories (except that one time after Okeanos when You called that Romani was Solomon or whatever).

[Comun]

天体科のロードとして独自の方法で根源に至ることを目的としており、他の魔術師の理論に乗るな どと有り得な いとして、アインツベルンの大聖杯による根源への到達は拒否し、カルデアを設立した。

I honestly hope silly mage pride doesn't actually reach these levels of ridiculousness.

[AmADo VII]

I honestly hope silly mage pride doesn't actually reach these levels of ridiculousness.

he asked for money to the grail tho.

[Lelo]

Didn't he said exactly that to Solomon, when they won the war? "I want to reach the Root in my own ways and not using this thing made by others, what I want is the completion of Chaldea" or something along those lines.