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Major EarthBound Revisions Part I: Cosmology and Stat Revisions

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Should I call some staff members here?
 
As nothing contradicts these lasers behaving as real lasers, this would put the early game cast at Speed of Light and would bump up the endgame casts to FTL since lightspeed is a single value and the characters get faster as the game progresses
That's not how Light speed ratings work. You prove they are light speed, not the other way around. This is especially important if end game enemies are using attacks that that can tag these people semi-consistently. Also the gifs you link are actually massive counter evidence since both people are set to a guard command and they just avoid it from some nebulous distance away. You don't need to be FTL to dodge a laser and you don't need to be supersonic to dodge a bullet.

As for the ratings the 2-A one is based on a manga that the game's maker gave free regin to. You want to make a manga profile that's fine, but it doesn apply to the games.

For the 2-B stuff it's honestly based on a series of massive assumptions in my view. The most I'd back is "Low 2-C, possibly 2-B".

Being transcendent over the core characters also isn't evidence of Low 1-C, but just higher 2-B without direct statements of being beyond the system of the lower dimensional universe(s).

All the lower tier ratings look fine at a glance
 
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That's not how Light speed ratings work. You prove they are light speed, not the other way around. This is especially important if end game enemies are using attacks that that can tag these people semi-consistently.

As for the ratings the 2-A one is based on a manga that the game's maker gave free regin to. You want to make a manga profile that's fine, but it doesn apply to the games.

For the 2-B stuff it's honestly based on a series of massive assumptions in my view. The most I'd back is "Low 2-, possibly 2-B".

Being transcendent over the core characters also isn't evidence of Lpw 1-C, but just higher 2-B without direct statements of being beyond the system of the lower dimensional universe(s).

All the lower tier ratings look fine at a glance
The only end game enemy that uses that is a Mother 3 enemy using a light beam that the cast dodges, the robots/UFOs shoot out a laser beam and are created by Giygas who makes scientific weaponry such as the nuclear robots.

Itoi directly used the manga as a marketing point for the main game and you can see the manga writer in the statements looked through the writing team of the game with Itoi giving his approval. I don't know how the cosmology wouldn't apply to the games.

I don't see really how it's massive assumptions? Could you elaborate more? Mother 3 is very clearly an alternate universe or it drops 50 different plot holes and Porky is stated to be locked out of all time and spaces except for the mother 3 one. His movement around should bare minimum give 2-C, possibly 2-B cosmology.

It's not transcendent over the core characters, it's transcendence over the EarthBound multiverse itself, The Player is directly beyond the universal system of fate in the Earthbound multiverse and requires an avatar to even enter the reality of Earthbound, as further evidenced by Ruffini the Dog, where the programmers have to possess an entity within the Earthbound reality in order to interact with it.

Also can you give your input on the magicants section?
 
Also the gifs you link are actually massive counter evidence since both people are set to a guard command and they just avoid it from some nebulous distance away. You don't need to be FTL to dodge a laser and you don't need to be supersonic to dodge a bullet.
The guard command is to make you take less damage in Earthbound, not to prepare you for an attack, you can still dodge the laser attack while bashing, guaridng doesn't even increase your chance of dodging:
"3. Dodging

The target has a (2*target speed - attacker speed)/500 chance of dodging the attack. If the enemy dodges, skip the remaining steps."
Dodging's also completely reliant on the speed stat, so it's not based off aim dodging like you're trying to imply, it's based off their speed.

The only reason I even did the guard command was to not kill the enemy so I could record the feat itself.
 
As for the ratings the 2-A one is based on a manga that the game's maker gave free regin to. You want to make a manga profile that's fine, but it doesn apply to the games.
Except that the manga has the direct contribution of Itoi himself, so is canon like PokeSpe is to the main Pokémon, so moot argument.
For the 2-B stuff it's honestly based on a series of massive assumptions in my view. The most I'd back is "Low 2-C, possibly 2-B".
Multiverse is already a thing in the Mother 3 events, since is stated that Porky jumped between parallel timelines.
Being transcendent over the core characters also isn't evidence of Low 1-C, but just higher 2-B without direct statements of being beyond the system of the lower dimensional universe(s).
The Real World sees 4D beings as Giygas and Ness as mere fiction since they're viewed as the same with the 3D characters in the same screen, plus what Giver said.

Not gonna touch the FTL things tho, SoL is already fine from me.
 
Being transcendent over the core characters also isn't evidence of Low 1-C, but just higher 2-B without direct statements of being beyond the system of the lower dimensional universe(s).

Hmm. In the case of EarthBound, these people that reside in the real world have already displayed creation abilities as they literally write and code the verse into existence. This can be seen in the interview with Itoi where he specifically mentions that Claus pulling the final needle was something he couldn’t write in as it would mean the end of all of existence, including himself. There’s also the fact that they have already been shown to use avatars to interact with the EarthBound reality, similarly to Ness, an entire universe that they of course view as pieces of fiction. Giygas as well, an entire dimension who already exist beyond the universes space-time and detached from reality is seen as nothing but a game in the eyes of The Player. Once again repeating what’s on the CRT, The player is described as an entity that are “behind the background that is pulling the strings”, which I would think would further strengthen this argument.

As for the ratings the 2-A one is based on a manga that the game's maker gave free regin to. You want to make a manga profile that's fine, but it doesn apply to the games.

Not going to repeat Giver’s argument, but you should probably explain a bit more as to why you believe it wouldn’t be canon to the main series. Keep in mind that Mother 3 establishes an entire multiverse of unknown size, taking the M2 manga into consideration would solve that issue easily. It’s also worth mentioning how both the M2 manga and the game both share the same art director. Itoi, the writer, and mentioned Art directior were all featured in an interview at the end too, don’t know if it means much but it was something worth bringing up.

For the 2-B stuff it's honestly based on a series of massive assumptions in my view. The most I'd back is "Low 2-C, possibly 2-B".

When you say “2-B”, are you also including the quantum stuff? As in Wave particle duality and what not?
 
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Dodging's also completely reliant on the speed stat, so it's not based off aim dodging like you're trying to imply, it's based off their speed.
Even then my other point stands. You don't need to be FTL to dodge a SoL attack and the distance being nebulous means that there's no hard confirmation that they're moving at FTL speeds rather than Relativistic speeds.
Itoi directly used the manga as a marketing point for the main game and you can see the manga writer in the statements looked through the writing team of the game with Itoi giving his approval. I don't know how the cosmology wouldn't apply to the games
Because as mentioned he was given free regin and the main material doesn't reference the same aspect of it.

But it being 2-B as a possibly rating is fine as I said previously.

I'm honestly still not sold on Low 1-C but, if I'm outvoted its whatever.
 
Even then my other point stands. You don't need to be FTL to dodge a SoL attack and the distance being nebulous means that there's no hard confirmation that they're moving at FTL speeds rather than Relativistic speeds.

Because as mentioned he was given free regin and the main material doesn't reference the same aspect of it.

But it being 2-B as a possibly rating is fine as I said previously.

I'm honestly still not sold on Low 1-C but, if I'm outvoted its whatever.
The first part misunderstands why they're FTL, they're not FTL for dodging the laser, the laser dodge nets them speed of light, the FTL reasoning is because they canonically get stronger and faster as they go along their journey and since speed of light is a single value they get FTL via that since any increase in speed from SoL would net FTL. Also from what I remember on how the site handles light dodging feats that you don't visually see you assume SoL.

I don't see what you mean by this? If he has full aspect to do what he wants with a manga meant to promote the game Earthbound and he has understanding of the game itself along with the art director helping him out who helped out Itoi with his game I don't see why we can't consider this an alternate universe in a verse that is a multiverse.

You never really elaborated on my issues with your possibly 2-B point. Why would we assume a Low 2-C cosmology and what are you saying 2-B requires too many assumptions too, the wave particles or the idea that Porky traveled to a 1001 diff universes? Please elaborate.

Can you elaborate on why please?
 
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Don't know the verse so I'm going in blind just from what's in the OP.

Level 1 - Alternate Universes
This is the most conservative estimate of the verse’s cosmology and it deals with the number of universes that exist. On the surface, it appears that the series only takes place in a single timeline, with Mother 3 being assumed to take place far in the future. This viewpoint is somewhat supported by the fact that Porky only ever mentions traveling to “different eras” and never directly saying he had gone to other universes, though it is actually easier to infer that parallel universes exist despite this. The main reason this is the case is the existence of Ness. As has already been established, Ness’s consciousness overlapped with the universe itself, and as such he should have the supernatural abilities of everything within the universe as they are all a part of himself. This however is contradicted by the fact that he completely lacks the abilities of the Dark Dragon, a being that is capable of erasing the concept of evil from the world and would easily be able to erase Giygas. If he had these abilities, he would effortlessly wipe out Giygas without the assistance of prayers, though he very obviously can’t as he is hopelessly outclassed and can barely do anything to him. This would seem to infer that the Dark Dragon does not exist in this universe, but rather a separate universe where Mother 3 takes place. Another point to further justify the separation of the Mother 1+2 universe and the Mother 3 universe is the total absence of Ness in Mother 3. Ness is the conscious mind of the universe who manifests a physical avatar of himself to save the world, yet he never reappears in Mother 3 even though the world would’ve desperately needed his help during the events of the game. You could say that Ness’s physical avatar is not immortal and that he died of old age long before the events of Mother 3, though there is no reason that the system of fate protecting the universe wouldn’t allow Ness to be born again in this scenario, especially since Ness with his true powers awakened would effortlessly destroy Porky’s army and stop him for good. The separation of these games into two different universes is supported by the fact that Leder tells Lucas that Porky was “shut out from all other times and spaces”, which in this context would seem to imply that Porky was hopping from world to world and had eventually messed with time so much that he had somehow been banished to one last universe, which makes a bit more sense than him being dumped at a random time in the universe’s history that happens to be long after the events of Mother 2. So with this out of the way, there are two parallel universes that are confirmed to exist, being the Mother 1+2 universe and the Mother 3 universe. While these are the only two universes that have been confirmed, there are more that have been implied to exist due to Porky’s meddling with time travel. As stated earlier, Leder tells Lucas that Porky was shut out from all times and spaces, which would imply he had been hopping between worlds quite a lot. While we can’t pin an exact number on the total, we can at least make some reasonable guesses given a few factors. To start, Porky had become immortal sometime after he had left the world of Mother 1+2, giving him plenty of time to travel to different worlds as well as mess with them. Porky never gives us an exact age for himself, claiming that he doesn’t even know how old he is and that he may 1,000 years old or even be 10,000 years old. If we assume this figure to be a reliable estimate, that would mean Porky had been messing with time for about 1,000 to 10,000 years. As for how this correlates to the number of universes, we must consider that Porky is mentally still a child and would get bored of messing with any individual universe rather quickly, so even assuming that he would spend as much time as 1 year in one is unlikely, meaning there are at least thousands of universes that exist that he has traveled to, if not more. Given these estimations, the appropriate tier to assign to a cosmology of this size would be “At least 2-C, likely 2-B”.
There's a lot of assumptions being made here with no scans to back it up. There's only 4 scans provided in this whole paragraph, and 2 of them have nothing to do with alternate universes.

A scan that confirms the games are different universes would be nice.

Not much to say otherwise, the only thing of substance here is that one quote about being "shut out from all other times and spaces", but considering the plot is about a far future as said in the beginning of this paragraph this quote at face value just means different times in the current timeline on its own.
Level 2 - Quantum States
This interpretation of the verse’s cosmology is a bit more expansive and deals with a very specific idea brought up in Mother 2. As I’m sure most people are aware, the supreme being of the Mother series is the Truth of the Universe, a being embodying knowledge and fate that governs reality with its universal system. The important factor to consider here is the very nature of its being. In the original Japanese script of Mother 2, Talah Rama describes the Truth of the Universe as something that travels through time and space “like a grain and like a wave”. This is a direct and obvious reference to a phenomenon in quantum physics known as “wave-particle duality”, in which quantum entities exist as waves of possibility encompassing every state they could be in simultaneously before collapsing down to just one of their single states, in which they become a particle. This mention implies that wave-particle duality is not only a property of physics that applies to the verse, but is integral to its cosmology due to its relation to the Truth of the Universe. As the Truth of the Universe itself is described in part as a wave, this would imply that it simultaneously exists in every possible macrostate that the universe could be in at any given point in time. Regardless of whether these alternate quantum macrostates are physically real or not, they are still being encompassed by the Truth of the Universe and would contribute to its size; if we consider a single macrostate to be analogous to its own timeline, the Truth of the Universe exists across a countless number of possible universes. Because of this, the appropriate tier to assign to the cosmology in this interpretation would be countlessly into 2-B.
Same like the previous one, just a whole lot of assumptions and no evidence to back them up. There's only one scan provided here and it just says "like a grain and like a wave". And because it mentions the word "wave" it's for some reason is automatically linked the quantum physics and that proves a 2-B multiverse? Yeah... that's not going to fly.
Level 3 - Many Worlds Multiverse
This interpretation is very similar to the last one, only instead of the size coming from the possible universal macrostates that the Truth of the Universe encompasses, these possible universes are physically real and exist parallel to one another as alternate timelines. Before Mother 2 was released, a manga was written to serve as promotional material for the game. While its canonicity is never specified, Itoi gave its writer complete freedom in interpreting Mother 2 the way he wanted. The reason why the manga is relevant at all to the cosmology of the verse is the fact that it confirms the existence of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which every single possibility exists as its own universe. It is directly stated by Jeff that different possible universes exist parallel to each other infinitely, with new worlds constantly being born from every possible different action. The main point of contention with this interpretation of the cosmology is the manga’s canonical status relative to the games, though here we will be assuming that the manga is one of the infinite parallel timelines that exist alongside the games. As such, this would simply warrant a 2-A rating for the cosmology.
Well here is a pretty blatant statement of 2-A. Seems fine if this is canon. But it looks like that's debated.
The Real World
This is the final step in tiering the verse’s cosmology and will undoubtedly come across as the most controversial one. The Player is an important character within the narrative of the Mother series, playing a major direct role in the story of both Mother 2 and Mother 3. They are the being that controls the protagonists and guides them along their journeys, essentially acting as the catalyst for the system of fate. Their very existence implies that the entire multiverse is simply part of a game due to the Player viewing it as such and seeing the characters and settings as no more than mere pieces of fiction. The player comes from their own world, which we have dubbed the “real world” due to its relationship with the game world, the existence of which is confirmed by the ending of Mother 3 since both the Mother 3 universe and the real world were reset by the Dark Dragon, the Player themself even appearing physically to interact with the characters using an avatar. Itoi further elaborates on this idea in an interview, even stating that the Dark Dragon would have destroyed all of reality, including itself, had it been awakened by Claus, and that because of this there is no way he would be able to write this as a conclusion since it would mean that he too would be destroyed. This interpretation simply runs with the idea that the level of transcendence the real world has over the game world is enough to warrant the equivalent of a dimensional gap, which would land the totality of the cosmology at Low 1-C regardless of what the size of the game world is accepted to be. Of course, this idea will not go uncontested as fiction to reality barriers are quite common in fiction, though it is worth noting that the elements of the real world go beyond simple fourth wall breaking, as the real world itself is a location that has been confirmed to exist within the cosmology and the Player is directly responsible for the defeat of Giygas, something that would’ve been impossible without their intervention.
There's a lot of assumptions being made here too, but this one shows a lot of promise because it outright says "player that holds the controller". As long as it's literal and not just a meta joke or something, I might be fine with Low 1-C.

Is there more context on the real world?
 
Don't know the verse so I'm going in blind just from what's in the OP.


There's a lot of assumptions being made here with no scans to back it up. There's only 4 scans provided in this whole paragraph, and 2 of them have nothing to do with alternate universes.

A scan that confirms the games are different universes would be nice.

Not much to say otherwise, the only thing of substance here is that one quote about being "shut out from all other times and spaces", but considering the plot is about a far future as said in the beginning of this paragraph this quote at face value just means different times in the current timeline on its own.

Same like the previous one, just a whole lot of assumptions and no evidence to back them up. There's only one scan provided here and it just says "like a grain and like a wave". And because it mentions the word "wave" it's for some reason is automatically linked the quantum physics and that proves a 2-B multiverse? Yeah... that's not going to fly.

Well here is a pretty blatant statement of 2-A. Seems fine if this is canon. But it looks like that's debated.

There's a lot of assumptions being made here too, but this one shows a lot of promise because it outright says "player that holds the controller". As long as it's literal and not just a meta joke or something, I might be fine with Low 1-C.

Is there more context on the real world?
I don't see why only 4 scans suddenly devaules the conclusion? The 4 scans point out how Porky is axed out from all times and spaces and he's left here. There's no direct scan of the games being different universes but there's clear plot holes and continuity errors not only if they're the same universe but also the statmeent of all times and spaces seems to imply a lot more. Also your time and spaces point has one major issue, why would it be referring to time periods when if he's shut off from all other time and spaces then the minute a second pasts he should still be in the past of that conversation between Lucas and Leder? It seems that with the plot inconcisties and my major issue I brought up with using the time and spaces thing as different times, can you see the reason we lead to alt universes rather then different time periods?

For your issues on the possibility of a meta joke I can confirm that nothing about the real world in EB is a meta joke, the player is a blatantly canon character that's the very reason for the defeat of Giygas in Mother 2, a church segment in Mother 3 where they have the player enter their name and remark to them to continue to enjoy the game, along with erasing their memories of every praying in the church, etc.
 
Alright, I'm awake now. I've been reading through and GiverOfThePeace pretty much said what was needed. Although, it seems as if the level 2 version of the cosmology is too much of a stretch to be accepted, so I will go ahead and remove it from the CRT.
 
I don't see why only 4 scans suddenly devaules the conclusion? The 4 scans point out how Porky is axed out from all times and spaces and he's left here.
They devalue the conclusion because it was a huge paragraph stating a lot of things but nothing to back it up. And out of the only pieces of evidence that were provided, 50% of them had nothing to do with the point being made.

There's no direct scan of the games being different universes but there's clear plot holes and continuity errors not only if they're the same universe but also the statmeent of all times and spaces seems to imply a lot more.
This is again the same problem, speculation but not a lot of stuff is provided to back it up.
Also your time and spaces point has one major issue, why would it be referring to time periods when if he's shut off from all other time and spaces then the minute a second pasts he should still be in the past of that conversation between Lucas and Leder?
Or it could just mean different eras from a time travel perspective, as it has already been established. That's just taking it super literally, when we already have precedent being set on how we could interpret this statement from time travel being involved in the game. Introducing stuff like "this is alternate universes" is, again, just pure assumption.
the player is a blatantly canon character that's the very reason for the defeat of Giygas in Mother 2
Where exactly is the player character mentioned here? I watched the segment up to where they were teleported to the rocks or something and defeated the boss I didn't see mention of the player. Not sure what I'm supposed to be watching.
 
Where exactly is the player character mentioned here? I watched the segment up to where they were teleported to the rocks or something and defeated the boss I didn't see mention of the player. Not sure what I'm supposed to be watching.
the segment is 32:10 and the player is named All of Us cause that is what the youtuber put as the player's name
 
They devalue the conclusion because it was a huge paragraph stating a lot of things but nothing to back it up. And out of the only pieces of evidence that were provided, 50% of them had nothing to do with the point being made.


This is again the same problem, speculation but not a lot of stuff is provided to back it up.

Or it could just mean different eras from a time travel perspective, as it has already been established. That's just taking it super literally, when we already have precedent being set on how we could interpret this statement from time travel being involved in the game. Introducing stuff like "this is alternate universes" is, again, just pure assumption.

Where exactly is the player character mentioned here? I watched the segment up to where they were teleported to the rocks or something and defeated the boss I didn't see mention of the player. Not sure what I'm supposed to be watching.
They were all there to explain the very concept around why Porky's time traveling happened in the first place and to establish context to the conclusion of whether Porky went through different time periods or universes.

What doesn't back it up though? Leder directly confirms to us that he was banished from different points of times and spaces rather then saying different time eras. That's not taking it super literally either, all points of time and space would be what I just described. So the minute even a second passes, he is no longer int he same time and space as Lucas and Leder, hell I can be even more conservative and say a year passes and he is no longer in the same time and space as Lucas and Leder, to even go more conservative I could say 3 whole years have passed and he would not be in the same time era as Lucas or Leder and in the context of Mother 3 there is a timeskip of a couple of years that happens. For your conclusion to work we would need to give Lucas and co. range that can affect someone that's fighting them while in the past. The introduction of this is ana lternate universe is because Leder very likely is saying that Porky is banished from all other spaced-times then the conclusion of time periods as that wouldn't work with the story. Add on also that once again, the previous conclusion of mere time travel creates massive plot holes in the continuity. So saying time travel is also pure assumption if we go by this.

To provide further context when chugga's character says "All of us kept praying" it is the player character, at one point in Summers Tony will call Ness and talk directly to the player asking for his name and at the end of the game the name you listed is what is praying to defeat Giygas. This scan is in the original CRT I can even quote the part for you:
"and guides them along their journeys, essentially acting as the catalyst for the system of fate."
 
Alright, I'm awake now. I've been reading through and GiverOfThePeace pretty much said what was needed. Although, it seems as if the level 2 version of the cosmology is too much of a stretch to be accepted, so I will go ahead and remove it from the CRT.
dont remove it. Let more mods give input
 
Hmm. In the case of EarthBound, these people that reside in the real world have already displayed creation abilities as they literally write and code the verse into existence. This can be seen in the interview with Itoi where he specifically mentions that Claus pulling the final needle was something he couldn’t write in as it would mean the end of all of existence, including himself. There’s also the fact that they have already been shown to use avatars to interact with the EarthBound reality, similarly to Ness, an entire universe that they of course view as pieces of fiction. Giygas as well, an entire dimension who already exist beyond the universes space-time and detached from reality is seen as nothing but a game in the eyes of The Player. Once again repeating what’s on the CRT, The player is described as an entity that are “behind the background that is pulling the strings”, which I would think would further strengthen this argument

^^ Refer to this in one of my previous post, I think it should provide more explanation toward the real world
 
Qawsedf234 and Ogbunabali:

Thank you for helping out.
 
These two are probably enough.

Have they reached any conclusions yet?
 
These two are probably enough.

Have they reached any conclusions yet?
We haven't discussed the cosmology thoroughly enough to reach a concrete conclusion, unfortunately. The most I can say is that level 2 is not happening because the assumptions are not grounded solidly enough. However, it does seem that people are open to the idea of accepting 2-A alongside "possibly Low 1-C". More mod input might be necessary if possible.
 
Okay. I cannot force more of our staff members to be interested in this thread though.
 
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