Alright, after thinking about it I believe I have a means to cross scale. Now recall that given PoC Timeline's only difference is purely the events of PoC happening therein in a
multiverse where divergences range from either minor to major. Events that don't contradict or disallow the lead up events to
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (
I want to press again that Tony has never proven that the 2023 FAQ here is false or unusable simply because it is a previous one as the current FAQ isn't actually contradicting the previous one. Now the current FAQ states that the story of PoC and I quote "It's an alternate story inspired by the DMC Universe." However, this explanation in and of itself doesn't contradict anything because an alternate timeline technically is not connected to the story of the main timeline and would thus be disconnected as multiple FAQs in the past clarify. Additionally, like the previous statements, the current FAQ believes that this PoC timeline is inspired by the DMC universe which is technically the same as the previous FAQ wherein the PoC timeline has elements of the mainline and would thus be inspired by it since it treads along a similar path. In short a very blatant non-sequitur on Tony's behalf I needed to expose real quick before we get back to our regularly scheduled program) and the accompanying secondary materials given the whole shared multiverse thing (barring Plutone's survival potentially, but that can always be a matter of Plutone reviving from death in l
ike manner to Vergil given that the official streams make no effort to differentiate
Plutone who died to Mundus and was responsible for the worlds being split until Mundus fused them in the main and the PoC timeline). Thus, it would be consistent to say that the presence of the demons themselves would not be the inconsistent part via Occam's as much as their interactions with particular characters as the same cosmology Nightmare threatened to be able to annihilate is the
same cosmology in PoC. Also recall that
Hellfilth fears 3 era PoC Dante,
as in his own realm he's hiding from Dante and when he attacked Vergil and Dante during their bout he does so in a
sneak attack fashion (6:20) rather then openly fighting the duo which implies a degree of inferiority.
Now with the background established, as for the actual connection, it comes down to a big problem named Argosax the Chaos or alternatively, the Despair Embodied. So recall, 5's canonicity in the PoC timeline, that means the information from
5's history slideshow is also canon given it is presumed from 5 as an entry which depicts Argosax as being a demon on par with Mundus, but there's a big problem. According to this divergence assumption we're assuming that after Mundus who was 2-C before the divergence revived then suddenly made a jump to 2-A. However, Argosax who is termed on par with Mundus (the 1 iteration of Mundus)
is unsealed real time and has no implication of gaining such a jump as well. Now someone may cry out that Argosax had years to reign over the Demonworld and could've
powered up in that time during the PoC timeline. Unfortunately, that doesn't work because the outlined timeline shift between the Main and PoC do not extend to Argosax unless proof is given. This means that the follow up from before the series to 3 is exactly the same scaling-wise to the main timeline and Argosax would have had to have been sealed as a 2-C demon no matter what yet is still compared to the modern rendition of Mundus narratively who is in turn compared to his past version directly even though Post diversion>times infinity>pre-diversion. Also don't let this distract you from the fact that after Mundus takes a knee when he was sealed prior to the events of the games, Argosax gained free reign of Hell and literally beat up all its occupants or cowed them down
into fear.
So essentially the conundrum we're left with on account of the above is that PoC Argosax=PoC pre-divergence Mundus<PoC post-divergence Mundus=PoC Argosax which is a blatant contradiction. There's no room for Argosax to multiply by infinity and the narrative of 2 which is the same as in PoC wouldn't believe so either as it points to Argosax's power as a
set-in-stone legacy being revived within the present and wholly unchanged.
It gets worse when we bring Abigail to the stage who not only experienced a similar situation to my friend Argosax here, but also contextualizes a bigger issue, namely the bigger issue of demon hierarchy and why it doesn't favor Hellfilth. Now as has been made clear Hellfilth is merely the leader of the Nightmare Space realm which makes him a higher order demon to be certain akin to Berial who
conquered the fire hells. On the other hand, our friend Abigail, like Argosax is termed as having power
rivaling the Demon King which in the context of the anime would be Mundus seeing as no one knows of Argosax quite yet in the timeline. This power is enough to push in the PoC timeline (as in the mainline) a Dante who has already defeated post-divergence Mundus and would logically scale to him seeing as no one, not even Sid differentiates current Mundus from his past iteration and calls it
top class power in the Demonworld sufficient to rule the worlds on strength alone. Only that he's a set category of king like power. Additionally,
Abigail is stated to have power so great it surpasses the four great demons which to Sid's consternation would at that point be the most powerful non-demon king entities there are and Sid is
very knowledgeable on demonic politics where strength is law. Compared to Hellfilth who at best would be one of the four great demons (probably not though) in PoC's Outlook of the og timeline) we also have to grip with the fact that Abigail was unsealed onscreen having power rivaling Mundus historically speaking so no present version of Mundus was in view as a talking point, yet considering Dante's soon to be Mundus killer feat in PoC timeline 's own iteration of the Volume 2 events it checks out.
However, there is one more thing to consider and it is the Qliphoth. Now pre-divergence in the PoC timeline the Qliphoth was what produced
the Qliphoth fruit whose power allowed Mundus to ascend to supremacy over the Demonworld as the iconic king we know him to be which prior to the "divergence" would according to some be 2-C. However, there is the unfortunate detail that the very same fruit used to make PoC Mundus supreme king is what PoC Urizen eats on top of his already post-divergence 2-A power (since he outscales Hellfilth by spades) while expecting a genuinely strong power boost; a sentiment that is directly reflected in DMC5 which paints Urizen's strength boost as
considerable despite eating what would be finite in comparison to his own infinite scale of power if we go along with the divergence scaling division logic being painted thus far. It gets worse when we learn that the Qliphoth having presumably been
cut down from its source of human blood in the past had no chance to "supe up" in strength when it reemerged in the present day to provide Urizen his heart's desire.
Thus, overall today we learned 3 simple lessons: a. That Argosax and Abigail despite being sealed away before the divergence and unsealed onscreen with no time in between to gain new power (they'd both be 2-C by the divergence in scaling multiverse logic that you are proposing) they can rival a version of Dante in the PoC timeline or at least be a respectable opponent worthy of consideration to a Dante that is ostensibly 2-A. b. Hellfilth is never assigned the class of Demon King and until it is HF cannot be narratively upscaled in his own timeline above the hierarchy. The only way around this would be in character/inverse scaling feats that don't appeal to cosmological issues given the hierarchy narrative c. The Qliphoth which would have in like manner to Argosax/Abigail remained 2-C is enough to fuel the supposedly post divergence Urizen despite no change being discernible in the product of human blood or the requirements to produce a fruit. Simply put, it's impossible to use HF to diverge things sharply seeing as seemingly 2-C characters would be relevant in the future without needing an implied upgrade which according to the logic of divergence needs to happen in verse between 3 and 1. Therefore, they were always 2-A and the events of divergence were too minor to be an issue.
This would be how I dismiss the issue of PoC being an alternate timeline as it is more consistent in this way and the only argument against is to contend a different continuity which is a claim with 0 evidence. FIN.
