Grand Unified Theory: CHALDEA

[TresserT]

I feel like Marsibury's personality has been pretty well examined in story. We've seen plenty of examples of how his love for humanity leads him to committing atrocious acts that he doesn't even bat an eye at. He looks at the forest but misses the trees. He performed cruel experiments on designer babies like Mash (which lead to Galahad and Da Vinci rejecting him). Seraphix is basically run on orphan souls. He basically raised Olga for some as of het unspecified purpose, and stopped caring about her as soon as that purpose was unachievable.

Based on his past actions, I have a strong feeling that, even if my personal theories are wrong, Marisbury's crime is sacrificing humans for the sake of humanity- if you've ever read "The Ones who Walk From Omelas", Marisbury would see this as an ideal world. And I think that's why Goetia was so vehemently against it- Goetia detests human suffering, so subjecting humans to that kind of suffering for the sake of humanity as a whole is worse than the destruction of humanity in his eyes.

[InsertNameHere]

I feel like Marsibury's personality has been pretty well examined in story. We've seen plenty of examples of how his love for humanity leads him to committing atrocious acts that he doesn't even bat an eye at. He looks at the forest but misses the trees. He performed cruel experiments on designer babies like Mash (which lead to Galahad and Da Vinci rejecting him). Seraphix is basically run on orphan souls. He basically raised Olga for some as of het unspecified purpose, and stopped caring about her as soon as that purpose was unachievable.

Based on his past actions, I have a strong feeling that, even if my personal theories are wrong, Marisbury's crime is sacrificing humans for the sake of humanity- if you've ever read "The Ones who Walk From Omelas", Marisbury would see this as an ideal world. And I think that's why Goetia was so vehemently against it- Goetia detests human suffering, so subjecting humans to that kind of suffering for the sake of humanity as a whole is worse than the destruction of humanity in his eyes.

And ironically, Goetia became guilty of doing the same thing in a marginally different form, sacrificing both humans and humanity in the name of an ideal world whose cost would be too great to ever justify and causing suffering on unprecedented scales in the name of ending suffering.

[TresserT]

From our perspective it is only marginally different, but I think from Goetia's it's a world of difference. Goetia's basically just mass murdering everyone, but it should be painless. The people of 2015 didn't even know that the incineration had happened, which was a point in part 2 prologue. People couldn't believe that a year had just been lost, and only knew the truth based on Chaldea's records.

Meanwhile, Marisbury has shown to be willing to inflict real continuous suffering on humans for the sake of humanity as a whole. To Goetia, that would be a huge difference even if to use it's mostly all the same.

[sentence]

And as I said, if he only wanted to reach the Root he wouldn't have insisted so strongly on doing it his own specific way. The method is obviously important enough that his plans would have been derailed if he had just used the Grail to reach the Root, although why that would be the case is itself unclear- logically, the only difference between ways of reaching the Root is that successfully opening a path to the Root and taking it denies that route to anyone else who tries it.

The difference is that a new path allows to get new True Magic.

[Arete]

I feel like Marsibury's personality has been pretty well examined in story. We've seen plenty of examples of how his love for humanity leads him to committing atrocious acts that he doesn't even bat an eye at. He looks at the forest but misses the trees. He performed cruel experiments on designer babies like Mash (which lead to Galahad and Da Vinci rejecting him). Seraphix is basically run on orphan souls. He basically raised Olga for some as of het unspecified purpose, and stopped caring about her as soon as that purpose was unachievable.

Inb4 it turn out that he was actually doing all this to save Olga.

if you've ever read "The Ones who Walk From Omelas"

Of if you've read Angra's backstory. It's the same thing but more relevant. And we know that such attitude on humanity's part can lead to the creation of a Beast. Maybe that is what Marisbury was after? Nasu loves to use the "world against the individual" plot point a lot, and we face it in most lostbelts, so the theme is definitely present in the story.

[tipoima]

From our perspective it is only marginally different, but I think from Goetia's it's a world of difference. Goetia's basically just mass murdering everyone, but it should be painless. The people of 2015 didn't even know that the incineration had happened, which was a point in part 2 prologue. People couldn't believe that a year had just been lost, and only knew the truth based on Chaldea's records.

Meanwhile, Marisbury has shown to be willing to inflict real continuous suffering on humans for the sake of humanity as a whole. To Goetia, that would be a huge difference even if to use it's mostly all the same.

I've always seen it as Goetia just sweeping all the problems under the time travel rug. "By remaking the Earth in the past not only do I prevent future suffering, but undo all the past suffering as well! I am so smart."
If he wasn't concerned about the past suffering, it'd be MUCH easier to just modify humans as is. Hell, I bet he'd manage to push humanity into the Age of Will in all that time he spent setting up Incineration.

[You]

I've always seen it as Goetia just sweeping all the problems under the time travel rug. "By remaking the Earth in the past not only do I prevent future suffering, but undo all the past suffering as well! I am so smart."
If he wasn't concerned about the past suffering, it'd be MUCH easier to just modify humans as is. Hell, I bet he'd manage to push humanity into the Age of Will in all that time he spent setting up Incineration.

Go Along The Cheek 2015

[InsertNameHere]

The difference is that a new path allows to get new True Magic.

True, but getting new True Magic doesn't seem to be his objective.

[TresserT]

Reaching the Root is synonymous with achieving true magic. True magic is literally what happens when you reach the Root (but don't touch it because touching it [DATA LOST]s you, which wouldn't line up with Marisbury wanting to help humanity by reaching the Root) or is whatever path is taken to reach the Root.

Personally I think that the Sixth Magic falls under "path to reach the Root" rather than "Achieved from reaching the Root", and that whatever Marisbury did to cause the events of this game is that path.

Zepia was stated to have nearly achieved the Sixth when he took over Arcueid's body and obtained Marble Phantasm (which was his ultimate goal), and the Alien God seems to be able to superimpose simulations onto reality (thus, if she can successfully simulate it, she can make it happen), so my guess is that the Sixth True Magic just either Marble Phantasm or derived from it. Marble Phantasm being "if something is possible, no matter how unlikely, I can make it happen".

[Sath]

Seraphix is basically run on orphan souls.

Not to mention he sacrificed Master candidates against their will in the thousands in cruel human experiments to get Seraphix's communications with the planet online to begin with. Even his "A Team" Master candidates spared of this fate were all implanted with suicide bombs.

[Petrikow]

So, there's been this little theory I've been ruminating on these past weeks. I wasn't really planning on adding anything to GUT until LB7 was done, and that still stands true, but given that I think this one doesn't really have much relevance to what'll be revealed in LB7, I might as well give a little glimpse in. That said, it is practically entirely "GUT compatible", so to speak. It doesn't actually alter much of the theory of at all. Also, I'm lazy so no references unless absolutely necessary.

Anyway, this concerns a little object known as the Near-Future Observation Lens SHEBA. So, in case you're unfamiliar, SHEBA is the instrument Chaldea use in order to actually see what's going on with CHALDEAS. In terms of visuals, its represented by the floating screens always hovering around CHALDEAS when it's active. Apparently it was frozen in the attack on Chaldea together with CHALDEAS.

As for its history, Lostroom materials tells us that it was completed in 1999, as is mentioned several times throughout F/GO, Lev Lainur is the one who invented it.

One of the strange few things we learn about it comes from Salem. Here, Raum has a brief monologue where he reveals that the Queen of Sheba was actually summoned on SHEBA's directive. Flauros (Lev, in this case) apparently put in a feature that would try and prevent any action unforeseen by the Goetia collective. It also alerted Chaldea to the existence of Salem on its own initiative. This often gets overlooked, perhaps because it's so hard to explain, but it's actually quite wild! SHEBA has some sort of intelligence, and even the ability to initiate the Heroic Spirit Summoning System on its own!

As I said, Lev is its inventor, but there is a small caveat to this: this only comes up once, but in Fuyuki, Olga Marie mentions that she and Lev actually worked on it together. It's hard to guess exactly what she did, given that it never comes up again.

But given this information, I think any inquisitive mind might start to wonder how that is even possible given how long ago Lev made it. After all, back in 1999 Olga was probably yet to hit her teens. There shouldn't have been that much for her to contribute, unless it was modified later, perhaps. So was it? Well, we can sort of intuit something to that effect. In the Solomon flashback with Marisbury, he reveals that the completion of CHALDEAS would allow SHEBA to see the past. Perhaps this is what Olga helped out with?

But wait, if you've read my theory I'm sure you're wondering how that adds up with the other thing I've said about Olga at this point in time. As I put it "Marisbury fashioned Olga Marie into an observer of CHALDEAS", which was the birth of the so-called Alien Priestess. So really, the conclusion is quite obvious: since SHEBA is the observer of CHALDEAS, SHEBA is also the Alien Priestess, who is also Olga Marie. This is the nature of her involvement in the development of SHEBA.

There is some other faint evidence to this effect. One of the most visible features on the Alien Priestess is the strange disk-like object seated squarely on her forehead. It's shiny and, oh god, it's just a lens, isn't it? The two features that the Alien Priestess most embody is "cosmos" and "observing", after all. If the Alien Priestess is SHEBA it would also explain what happens in Salem quite nicely, which in turn would serve as additional evidence to the fact that the Alien Priestess is the one who summoned the Apostles, etc.

This theory doesn't exactly add very much in terms of conclusions, but I think it has a fairly high possibility of turning out to be true, so I'll put it out there.

[Nanaya]

One big "You mean it is all Olga? Always was" meme.

[fumei]

Apparently it was frozen in the attack on Chaldea together with CHALDEAS.

Was it? They still have it in Novum Chaldea and on the Storm Border, and Mashu can even do readings in the field still. Or was that the thing where the "main unit" was frozen but they had like a "subsection" of it that they could carry around like a portable installation of linux on a flash drive?

[TomPen94]

It didn't rly look like it was portable so it only makes sense it was still around CHALDEAS when the Ice Nation attacked, getting frozen alongside it.
Maybe the shield has a limited ability of observation, or yea Da Vinci either found a portable unit or managed to make one just in case.

[OnesFleetingGlory]

Was it? They still have it in Novum Chaldea and on the Storm Border, and Mashu can even do readings in the field still. Or was that the thing where the "main unit" was frozen but they had like a "subsection" of it that they could carry around like a portable installation of linux on a flash drive?

They're using Paper Moon to perform SHEBA's functions.

[Petrikow]

Was it? They still have it in Novum Chaldea and on the Storm Border, and Mashu can even do readings in the field still. Or was that the thing where the "main unit" was frozen but they had like a "subsection" of it that they could carry around like a portable installation of linux on a flash drive?

The SHEBA used by Chaldea right now is just a copy made by Sion. She talks about it at the start of 5.5.

[Arete]

There is some other faint evidence to this effect. One of the most visible features on the Alien Priestess is the strange disk-like object seated squarely on her forehead. It's shiny and, oh god, it's just a lens, isn't it?

Reminder that the official translations of it in English swapped between SHEBA and SHIVA till Salem released I believe. I remember a lot of people leaning on the side of it being SHIVA because one of the most notable things about him is the third eye which is for observing things others can't see and for destroying meddling gods of desire. I always wondered if the ambiguity and flip flopping was actually intentional and if the theory proved true, then I'd argue that's foreshadowing.

But given it's frozen like you said, that poses a bit of a hole in the theory. Although the Priestess did free the first fantasy tree, but I think that is more likely something different.

[madarra]

well, given that the moment Queen of Sheba turned up, she was instantly linked to the lens, while when Kama showed up complaining about being burned by Shiva`s eye there was no mention of it, its probably just Sheba

[Petrikow]

But given it's frozen like you said, that poses a bit of a hole in the theory. Although the Priestess did free the first fantasy tree, but I think that is more likely something different.

Maybe the machinery is, but the ghost in the shell isn't.

[Arete]

well, given that the moment Queen of Sheba turned up, she was instantly linked to the lens, while when Kama showed up complaining about being burned by Shiva`s eye there was no mention of it, its probably just Sheba

You mean the Kama that showed up after SHEBA had been frozen? I don't see why she would have mentioned it when it's no longer having any effect. And the FP didn't show up in that chapter.