For Science! (and saving the universe)

[songbird9.livejournal.com]

Alright people, I've got a job for you.
Step one: help me come up with as many different theories as you can.
Step two: Disprove as many of those theories as possible. The more we narrow it down, the easier it should be to find the solution.

Here's what I have so far...

1. The damage down to the Darkness during the Dreaming battle was so great that it caused an imbalance in the natural scale of Light and Darkness. The weather, tremors, and magical disruptions are due to the universe being thrown off kilter.

2. The removal of the borders between worlds has caused some kind of disruption resulting in the effects listed above.

3. The appearance of the Final Fantasy worlds is the cause of this disruption.
- possibly because they were originally part of a parallel universe which has now merged with this one.

4. .... damn, I know there was more.
Go on, add as many as you can. In the meantime, I'll be conducting an experiment on the power of mind over matter. This will entail curling up on my bed and seeing how well I can both distract myself from nausea and keep my mind relatively focused by daydreaming about someone with white hair, pretty brown eyes, and a really... sexy... voice.

Yes, this sounds like a very good plan. Excuse me now, for I think I must proceed with it immediately.

Comments

[lostscore.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a job for a researcher.

Lucky you have one of those working at one of the biggest libraries in all the worlds

(OOC: and one that will be in the same time zone as you in one day's time and does rather miss WR a wee bit and wouldn't mind putting in a few more months at WR before I really AM a research assistant again.)

[songbird9.livejournal.com]

Huzzah
I was just lamenting the fact that we didn't have any of the Apprentices helping. I think you make up for that.

(ooc: and you know we love to have you. You and your boomstick)

[lostscore.livejournal.com]

Well that's encouraging.

I've been having a readthrough some of the theories that have already been made and I have some base suspicions.

(drinks some tea, lights a lavendar candle, and take a tylenol preemptively)

[belegwen.livejournal.com]

Post Script to Theory 2: Possibly through splitting off from Radiant Garden--thus Aerith's not being able to hear the world.

Theory 4: Worlds' spirits are dead/sick. Their illness/transition to being soulless worlds is the cause. (Something similar in Sherri S. Tepper's The Singer from the Sea is discussed.)

Theory 5 (related to theory 1): Suppose the evil that was in Xehanort/Xemnas was not destroyed but released into the general mana of the universe, tainting it and affecting the worlds as well. Double points for this theory because it would constitute poison and not be someone we expect.

Theory 6: This is all part of Calum's plan. He's doing something or other to give himself power and all of this is just side effects.

Theory 7: Um, all of this is actually a huge fake world like the one Ansem had Roxas in, and it's glitching worse and worse. I call this the matrix theory.

And okay I have to stop for now. My head's feeling fuzzy. I'll try to think up more for you later.

Re: (drinks some tea, lights a lavendar candle, and take a tylenol preemptively)

[harpie-siren.livejournal.com]

Theory 5 (related to theory 1): Suppose the evil that was in Xehanort/Xemnas was not destroyed but released into the general mana of the universe, tainting it and affecting the worlds as well.

Kind of like Geostigma?

Re: (drinks some tea, lights a lavendar candle, and take a tylenol preemptively)

[belegwen.livejournal.com]

That was part of what I was thinking since it started here in Radiant Garden.

[harpie-siren.livejournal.com]

And about theory 2...

If they split off Radiant Garden... wouldn't they logically be VII, VIII, and X's worlds?
Which we haven't heard about yet.

[songbird9.livejournal.com]

2 - I hadn't made that connection. Interesting.
I wonder if studying the nature of Mirror Earth in relation to Earth would be useful in understanding the Final Fantasy worlds.

5 - See, I was expecting the First Darkness, 'cause I'm all about balance, as you know. I'd think Orpheus would know that about me, but there is a chance his mind was on something else when he said that.

6 - If it's Calum, then he told a few lies. Not that I expected him to be perfectly honest.

Re: (drinks some tea, lights a lavendar candle, and take a tylenol preemptively)

[lostscore.livejournal.com]

I agree with your poison theory. Knowing NOTHING else, that would be my immediate groundwork as it refers to the fact that there are things that it would take a lot of hard work to stamp out, if they are not in some way eternal already.

Clearly taking this to an extreme was what landed us in hot water the second time. But yes that's a base point. The other theories are at this time potential byproducts of such a large magical poisoning.

I think I'm going to go browse around the library for anything that really deeply refers to ancient magics - if not that, unusual anomalies in world phyisology.

[dreamwriteremmy]

....i have nothing else to add at the moment, but... I wouldn't be surprised if a few of these overlap.....

[remliel.livejournal.com]

1. We don't have any kind of 'scale' handy to measure this kind of thing. And even if this was the case, I'm not bringing Xemnas back just because a planet's come down with the sniffles.

2. The borders have been gone for a long, long time. If that's caused it, there would have been signs of it a long time before this. It might have HELPED with the spread of things, but it certainly can't be the cause.

3. This is more possible. However, I don't think anyone there is quick enough on the uptake to get right to work like that. I mean, these guys have had what, a couple months max to figure out Gummispace travel and multiversal physics?

[songbird9.livejournal.com]

All decent arguments. Got any other ideas?

As for the borders, though, some of them were down before, but my theory is that the ones around the FF worlds only dropped after the final battle. It's also possible that the borders would have come up again if we hadn't asked the world spirits to keep them open, so that could have had an effect.

[remliel.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha. We made our bed, we're sleeping in it.

Or at least getting sick in it.

Anyway, despite my punching of Theory 3, it's closest to what I'm thinking. Someone, not necessarily from one of the final Fantasy worlds, is causing these distortions.

Let's run down what traits that person (or group, can't forget that there might be multiple offenders here) would have to have:

- Ability to cause wide-scale alterations in the weather patterns of worlds.
- Ability to manipulate creatures, especially violent ones.
- Ability to cause powerful earthquakes.
- Ability to craft a magical disease.
- Ability to either: Travel between worlds on short notice, or apply said abilities on a multiversal scale. AKA, ready access to Corridors of Darkness Gummitech, or some heretofore unknown method of travel.

You know, thinking about this I have some suspicions, but there isn't quite enough evidence yet for me to nail it down and name names.

[songbird9.livejournal.com]

There is also the possibility that these things were not done with malicious intent. They could be the result of an accident, or they may not even have been caused by a conscious being. They could be natural responses to something that's happened recently.

But in this case I think you should list your hunches in detail, even if they're wild guesses. I admit I'm not at all sure about any of the theories I've listed, and some I think quite unlikely, but the point of discussing them until we're certain is to narrow down the options.