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INTRODUCTION
This thread is will serve to counter this one this one which downgraded the Future World last year. The OP never really countered the main arguments provided against their reasoning and constantly stonewalled the main point what we were trying to pass across by generalizing the mechanics of an ability and appealing to general fiction. Coupled with the fact it was derailed to hell and back by unrelated points being brought up, the thread was passed and closed before one could even give a final response.In light of a recent trend of everyone getting drunk on a bunch of downgrade threads passing for OP verses and constantly riding that drunken wave to make more and more of them, I've taking the liberty of asking staff to closely supervise the thread. Any off point, derailing comments outside the scope of the thread and I will promptly request they be deleted. I won't tolerate stonewalling from anyone (I will ignore you) especially those that border on downright narcissism. The opposition should clearly say their piece, provide their counter arguments without generalizing various fiction, whataboutism (room for debate) and preferably should source their own evidence from the work that counters this and promptly leave if they're unable to do so. This is because I do not want to see a repeat of the last one (literally about 8-10 of 14 pages was but derailing comments).
Crux of the Arguments Against the Future World
This is basically a summary of the arguments from the OP as well as other relevant points contributed later on. I might have missed some but that's natural cause I had to sift through 14 pages worth of constant derailment and bickering.- The crystal is what contains these infinite possibilities and can materialize them, but the thing is, the thing in the crystal are just possibilities and not actual worlds, the crystal can cause the possibilities to materialize in the actual world. Are possibilities alternate realities or not?
- Everything inside the crystal is made up of crystals and not real world. It is one of Naphta ability that allows her to create a domain. A world made entirely of Crystals, creating the worst possible futures for whoever she traps inside. Later on she gains the ability to project the limited world in the real one for a short amount of time. The world is essentially similar to a virtual one.
- Aside the fact that if this was true, this means everything is branching out infinitely, that would mean there are uncountable infinite Anos existing somewhere in some timelines, Anos that are as strong as the current one and stronger even. And this current Anos was able to kill all uncountable infinite of those Anos. Practically literally infinite timelines exists and infinite of those crystals exists and each also hold infinite timelines and like that, till you get to low 1-A, and to say the least there is no proof of that and it is just BS.
- Divine Domains aren't of universal size.
- The statement of infinite futures is a metaphor/ it's flowery/ purple prose/ it's just motivational and not literal etc. as well as claims of translation errors/mistranslations.
Counter Arguments and Evidence to the Contrary
1. The Crystals are just possibilities and hax (Prince of Pain), Are the possibilities said to be alternate realities? (Theglassman12)Beginning with glassman's as it's shorter and easier to handle. In short, the answer is a plain and simple yes. The evidence supporting this was directly in the MTL the OP themselves used.
The futures in Kandaquisorte are said to be equal to the shape of the world, one more possible shape of the world. The MTL used in the downgrade then ultimately said possibility is another shape of the world therefore, this question had no need to arise in that thread. It doesn't get clearer than that so moving on to pain's... she's saying that they're just probability, fate and causality hax, that the futures don't exist, including the future world which is a separate realm of it's own.
To counter this, I'll take a slightly long route to dissect Naphta's abilities. To start off, Naphta isn't someone like Yhwach and her authority isn't like the Almighty the biggest difference being that Yhwach is able to rewrite the future, while Naphta cannot. She's only able to overwrite and restrict the world, people to any of the futures she is witnessing.
Looking at the bit about Anos and the 1 in a billion chance of him not catching that spear, the use of "1 in a billion chance" here is Anos's attempt at explaining Naphta's powers, it's not actually what Naphta does. Anos is essentially saying that since there's a 1 in a billion chance of him failing to catch it, a future where he indeed failed to catch it existed which Nafta restricted them to.
Possibility/probability is a chance for an event to take place, ratio of number of positive/negative outcomes to the total number of outcomes. With Anos catching the spear, from that point onwards, the probability of failing to catch it became zero and Naphta doesn't create any future or possibility of her choice but make use of what already exists. In the same vein, Naphta cannot affect the past and the present as her authority doesn't extend there which rules out any argument of her affecting probabilities in the past. The scan below also differentiates between Anos' <Veneziara>, a spell to manifest probabilities and Naphta's powers over the future (manifesting possibility vs altering the future)
What took place in the iteration with the spear was an overwrite of the future by restricting the world to a future where Anos had failed to catch the spear. This caused the spear to slip out of his hands and surpass his speed to impale him. Manifesting a probability would simply have Anos be impaled by a an abstract spear of possibility in line with what actual probability manifestation has been shown to do in the verse. The manifested possibility remains abstract, it doesn't become physical nor does it overwrite reality but rather impacts reality by interacting with it physically meanwhile Naphta's restrictions do in fact alter reality (manifests the result directly). Anos probability manifestation can even be used on probabilities of the past.
“Veneziara is a spell that realizes possibilities."
“Realizes possibilities? What are you saying?"
“Don’t you understand? When Levyngilma is in its sheath, there is a possibility for it to be drawn and a possibility for it not to be drawn. Using Veneziara, I made both of those possibilities come to be at once.”
“Veneziara.”
My shifting body crossed positions. There was a brief moment of silence. Then, part of the God of Traces’ body started to slide. His divine body had been split into two. Leviangilma was still in its sheath, but its blade of possibilities had slashed apart the Heaven Splitter and enemy before me.
“Running now would only guarantee Jiorhaze’s destruction.” I held out my hand and Arcana handed me Leviangilma. “Veneziara.”
My body started moving in a wave, swaying to and fro. The body of possibilities leaped from the ground and flew towards the falling earthrain.
One flash later, Leviangilma cut through the falling boulders.
Of course, the result was what had occurred. In reality, I never moved from where I stood in Jiorhaze. The falling earthrain was reduced to dust that scattered in the air.
I activated Veneziara and approached him with the choice between my hand and my sword. He was still caught off-balance, so whichever option he chose to defend himself against would result in the other striking him.
“Heh.”
Ceris laughed, then cast a spell—the spell Veneziara. His body shifted between two possibilities, erasing the possibility of both my hand and my sword.
“Veneziara.”
Magic circle crossed with sword for the briefest moment, spell formula and sword stance shifting faintly. Ceris was required to read my next move from the constantly changing possibilities of the future. If his Eyes misread my strike, he would promptly be cut down.
Immediately after, a fatal strike was drawn out of the multiple possibilities of my blade.
Out of all the possibilities, Ceris chose to use the freely adjustable length of the Sword of a Thousand Bolts to aim for the moment when I drew Leviangilma. Gauddigemon sent bolts of purple lightning up Leviangilma’s sheath, repelling my Veneziara. Possibilities canceled out possibilities, erasing the chance of Leviangilma being unsheathed.
The spherical magic circle was sliced apart, and the Sword of a Thousand Bolts was split in two. Ceris’s smile didn’t falter, but his gaze became harsher.
“Huh... Was that the Veneziara you used earlier, perhaps?” he asked.
“Well spotted. I cast Veneziara on the Veneziara you deflected earlier.”
Ceris had used the possibilities of the Sword of a Thousand Bolts to repel me and seal Leviangilma. But to think of this another way, in contrast to the reality in which I was right beside him, there was a possibility that I had been repelled and moved a short distance away. That possibility normally would have disappeared, but I had used Veneziara on it to turn it into reality.
“Realizes possibilities? What are you saying?"
“Don’t you understand? When Levyngilma is in its sheath, there is a possibility for it to be drawn and a possibility for it not to be drawn. Using Veneziara, I made both of those possibilities come to be at once.”
“Veneziara.”
My shifting body crossed positions. There was a brief moment of silence. Then, part of the God of Traces’ body started to slide. His divine body had been split into two. Leviangilma was still in its sheath, but its blade of possibilities had slashed apart the Heaven Splitter and enemy before me.
“Running now would only guarantee Jiorhaze’s destruction.” I held out my hand and Arcana handed me Leviangilma. “Veneziara.”
My body started moving in a wave, swaying to and fro. The body of possibilities leaped from the ground and flew towards the falling earthrain.
One flash later, Leviangilma cut through the falling boulders.
Of course, the result was what had occurred. In reality, I never moved from where I stood in Jiorhaze. The falling earthrain was reduced to dust that scattered in the air.
I activated Veneziara and approached him with the choice between my hand and my sword. He was still caught off-balance, so whichever option he chose to defend himself against would result in the other striking him.
“Heh.”
Ceris laughed, then cast a spell—the spell Veneziara. His body shifted between two possibilities, erasing the possibility of both my hand and my sword.
“Veneziara.”
Magic circle crossed with sword for the briefest moment, spell formula and sword stance shifting faintly. Ceris was required to read my next move from the constantly changing possibilities of the future. If his Eyes misread my strike, he would promptly be cut down.
Immediately after, a fatal strike was drawn out of the multiple possibilities of my blade.
Out of all the possibilities, Ceris chose to use the freely adjustable length of the Sword of a Thousand Bolts to aim for the moment when I drew Leviangilma. Gauddigemon sent bolts of purple lightning up Leviangilma’s sheath, repelling my Veneziara. Possibilities canceled out possibilities, erasing the chance of Leviangilma being unsheathed.
The spherical magic circle was sliced apart, and the Sword of a Thousand Bolts was split in two. Ceris’s smile didn’t falter, but his gaze became harsher.
“Huh... Was that the Veneziara you used earlier, perhaps?” he asked.
“Well spotted. I cast Veneziara on the Veneziara you deflected earlier.”
Ceris had used the possibilities of the Sword of a Thousand Bolts to repel me and seal Leviangilma. But to think of this another way, in contrast to the reality in which I was right beside him, there was a possibility that I had been repelled and moved a short distance away. That possibility normally would have disappeared, but I had used Veneziara on it to turn it into reality.
Beyond that is Anos feat of destroying the future world which pain wrote off as merely destroying possibilities in other words, hax which is untrue. The sheer confidence and mental gymnastics needed to say this is just baffling. For one, clear physical destruction is shown along with varying elements existing within the future world.
Anos says even if Naphta were to restrict his spell properly, the future world will be destroyed in the best case scenario and were she to fail in restricting it, the entire world of Militia will be destroyed in the worst case scenario. This gives a clear picture of the destruction spreading and not only affecting what is claimed to be hax.
To limit this spell Naphta to open her eyes (she can limit the amount of futures she sees by closing them), gaze at all the futures available and limit the destruction to them in other words, Egil Grone Angdroa is actively destroying each future Naphta is restricting it to, spreading in an attempt to engulf the entire world in flames.
Lastly, just as Kandaquizorte/ the future world cannot be permanently destroyed without destroying all futures, Naphta too can not be permanently destroyed without doing in every future where she is alive/survives. Anos by destroying every future was causing Naphta's existence to come to an end as all that awaited her in every future was destruction, her existence adhered to that order since Gods are orderly beings and can't defy it.
None of the above matters much considering the futures Naphta sees are confirmed to exist.
Sorry about the lengthy scan but the context behind it was necessary. There's direct confirmation that the future's Naphta sees do exist which leads me to my second point and the most damning evidence for this thread... Naphta doesn't have precognition, she has clairvoyance. She doesn't see the future from the present but sees the present from the past, that is to say the present she is currently seeing is what her past self sees as the future.
Take a line with points A, B & C being the past, present and future respectively. Standard precog is seeing point C from B but Naphta's precognition works by seeing point B from A. Since this is so, Naphta should only be able to see 1 future but she sees billions, countless of them which can only be possible if multiple presents are actually happening (she should only be able to see point B1 from A not seeing B1, B2, B3...Bn).
Now the only counter provided by the OP and Theglassman12 for this second part was this (something similar in glassman's case)
This is the generalization I spoke of. Naphta's precog been established to be different from general precog for one and the underlying principle behind it seems to have gone over their heads. The scan doesn't place emphasis on her existence or not. They'd have some wiggle room to make this generalization if that's all that was said but it goes farther to mention whether or not her eyes were functioning, Naphta still exists but she has lost her eyesight. She saw many other futures up to and beyond that point but never Anos destroying her eyes. That future was entirely invisible to her because her eyes were not in it hence even from a far earlier point in the past, she never saw Anos destroying her eyes. By removing the eyes which see and show the present to her past self, that entire timeline became invisible to her. In other words she has two blind spots to her eyes which when you think about it is still one and they're her existence or the existence of her eyes which see the future.
Anyone who continues to make this argument is either just being obtuse or plainly stonewalling.
2. Everything inside the crystal is made up of crystals and not real world. The world is essentially a virtual one.
I honestly didn't and still don't get the point of this one. The material it's made of for one is inconsequential, after all we tier intangible/non-physical stuff like space, time, voids etc and either way, it's not like the crystals makeup the framework of the domain itself which I'll get back to later.
Now about being virtual...it's nothing but falsehood brought about by ignorance, not paying attention to context. There's an MTL where in a conversation they called it virtual but that's wasn't even in reference to the Futures Naphta sees.
Virtual/ theoretical call it what you may, Naphta simply arranged a simulation of a prophecy that's impossible to overturn using Lay and Misa as theoretical Misfits (Anos) and Nate and Sylvia as theoretical Prophets (Naphta & Deidrich). It didn't matter if this prophecy was possible to overturn, the point was to prove it is possible to overturn it. This is also an important plot point, that being Anos' theories concerning Naphta having a blind spot to her eyes and proving it which I will also end up revisiting again. Worth to note as well that part of Anos theory was proven true and Naphta did in fact have two blind spots in her eyes.
3. Practically literally infinite timelines exists and infinite of those crystals exists and each also hold infinite timelines and like that, till you get to low 1-A, and to say the least there is no proof of that and it is just BS.
Pure and simple argument from incredulity. Any character that destroys space-times is essentially also destroying an uncountably infinite amount of themselves too, including one's stronger than them so why is this suddenly an issue? This make all tier 2 and above feats impossible as well so this was frankly a stupid point presented out of desperation.
Secondly, where is it a fact that the future world cannot be Low 1-A? This is simply using the possibility of a far higher rating to garner support for the downgrade. Occam's Razor pretty much exists for stuff like this. The author possibly created something that might keep branching continuously to that extent without further elaboration, do we now take the open ended interpretation or the simplest interpretation of it? Simple as that, the one with less assumptions is the far better choice though I'd have no problem opening a thread to make it Low 1-A should people continue to persist on this point.
4. Divine Domains aren't of Universal Size
Now this one comes from the fact that inside Naphta's future world only describes a city along with other divine domains being called cities, islands, volcanoes etc.. welp, I'll showcase two quotes and give context from the official translation showing how this is once again another falsity. Do with the untranslated ones as you wish and ride that crestfallen wave if you pushed this point.
When Anos destroys the Future World, it's was split into two at first and the chasm/rift created was said to be bottomless.
The Land of Traces is called endless, and said to be infinite
When this was brought up, the OP simply switched to trying to discredit the size of both realms scaling to each other despite both being said to be "microcosms of the world", all having the same structure as the world and were both mentioned in tandem when explaining why another domain manifested. There's also the fact that the same bottomless rift appeared in the Land of Traces
But that's that for the translated stuff, let's jump into the untranslated ones is what I would like to do but after putting all the scans in my sandbox, I decided to remove them so the thread won't derail into scaling those domains, the world or the full cosmology so far. So I instead decided to leave only the ones indicating all divine domain do scale to each other.
The sprouting city isn't just the city, it's the entire dimension between the gates leading to the divine realm and the divine realm itself and Ennesuone's domain is merely one of them.
God's are abstract existences that are manifestations of Order and so are their domains. Ennesuone's domain materialized from the birth of her Order. The Land of Traces is the materialization of the Order of Traces, the Future World the Materialization of the Order of the Future and this process is repeated for every Order that exists be it space, order, creation, destruction, causality, stagnation, light, sound, heat etc.
Direct statement equalizing all the Divine Domains once again
Once again, every divine domain is said to be the same as the Future World, Land of Traces, Sprouting City etc. They're all manifestations of Order, possess the same structure/framework as the world but on a miniature level.
This is the only scan with an endless statement I decided to leave. It shows Misha creating a world of ice (referencing point 3 of Naphta's domain being made of crystals and only being a city). Sasha destroys all the ice but the world isn't affected. Anos does the same and sweeps away everything, but the framework/structure of the world itself remains intact. The material the domain is made of is irrelevant as it's fundamental structure still remains the same as a space-time itself. The only reason one sees cities, islands and what not is probably because there is no space-time distortion while they are manifested in the Azure sky. Another thing of note is Misha created this within Ennesuone's domain. Divine domains are not only of universal size but plain infinite. Seeing these constructs as cities, islands, volcanoes etc. as viewed from a space that's qualitatively larger doesn't refute their established size after all, the universe as a whole containing all of them while being infinite on the outside as well are merely seen as bubbles.
The Keeper of Time Eugo la Raviaz cuts through space and time to get to the mortal realm from the divine realm. Before even arriving, he creates his domain which is isolated from the rest of the world (mortal realm) and a notable feature about this is the fact that a spell <Tel> which just accurately tells the time of the world stops moving yet time is still flowing which shows they've been isolated from the mortal world's space and time. One would think mentions of these domains structure or framework would've been enough to show they're separate space-times of their own.
5. Metaphor / Mistranslation / Flowery Language
So part way through the thread (page 5) , Chase came along and said the translation of a scan used to claim there are infinite futures was wrong
After which the thread devolved into bashing both sides over this issue. Arguments for and against this were thrown back and forth, rinse and repeat but then 3 pages after Chase's bombshell, he comes back to say this:
With this possibilities aren't spreading endlessly rather, endless possibilities are spreading however, if one were to read from that point on, not a single soul acknowledges this instead they maintain the old status quo of "mistranslation, spreading endlessly" and then switch to "it's metaphorical, purple prose (chase), motivational speech (pain) which are all wrong.
Calling this metaphorical is just wrong which one would understand if they sat down to read or didn't conveniently leave out the context. Reading while concentrating on the plot points of volume 7 & 10 and one wouldn't have the confidence to say this is metaphorical or motivational.
Love is actually a power system in the verse and these are some of the things it's been shown to do.
I said I'll get back to this in point 3 concerning Anos' theories on Naphta having a blind spot. The next part basically confirms all of Anos theories about it (one proven already), Naphta not actually seeing all futures, futures that exist that Naphta can't see as they've indeed reached a future even she didn't see.
Towards the end of volume 7, something changed within Naphta and she stopped seeing predetermined fixed futures that were fated to happen but instead began to see constantly changing futures. Naphta theorizes those fixed futures are still there but now there's a flood of new futures not predetermined nor fixed she couldn't see prior. This theory is proven in vol 10 where she made the statement of endless/infinite futures spreading.
So yes, Love is a power system and it has affected Naphta's powers but one might say that this is all a theory and that is where the statement of infinite futures in volume 10 comes into this.
The above provides context up to the statement in question and was translated to English from vergil lucifer's Russian translation (it's basically better than translating to English directly) and I've also asked for one to be done by the wiki translators. It gives us the same thing chase said, it also now loops back to the epilogue of volume 7. Because the future is constantly changing thanks to Naphta's love, there are infinite futures spreading forth and because there are infinite futures, no single one is decided.
Now Gatenaros is the God of transformation/transfiguration/change who can turn his order into that of other gods and he imitates Naphta's Order
Anos previously theorizes from Naphta's simulation that;
- Naphta has a blind spot (proven correct, there were 2 of them)
- She didn't see every future there was (confirmed correct in the epilogue of vol 7)
- She simply believes that she can see every future. Under the assumption her theoretical prophets (Nate and Sylvia) were not told they couldn't see every future, they like Naphta would believe there was no future they couldn't see. TL,DR there can be an existence who sees the future better than Naphta (currently pending).
- She doesn't rewrite the future to her whims, all she does is limit it to any of the other one's she sees.
- She can't make 0 become 1, if something is impossible, there's no restriction she could perform to overcome that.
- To limit the future, she must be able to see it.
This exchange proves the last point in Anos hypothesis and all of Naphta and Deidrich's theories on what changed within Naphta. Gatenaros essentially became the previous Naphta who believed she could see everything and the current Naphta (with love and kindness) had become the existence who Anos hypothesized can see the future better than her former self.
By gaining love and kindness, Naphta's eyes began to observe infinite futures. She's telling the knights of her country that because there are infinite futures, no future is decided nor predetermined. The future they are hopeful for exists and as long as they hold onto that hope, she will find and materialize such a future for them.
All theories were proven true and several plot points played out and reconnected with each other. Previously, Naphta could see and process countless futures so when her current self who sees more broadly says infinite/endless possibilities/futures are spreading she is very much being literal about it considering it's not that she can no longer see the future but rather the futures she seeing are so vast they overwhelm her capability to observe and process them in real time.
Summary / Conclusion
It's a yap session already so I'll once again say that the downgrade thread was an absolute hogwash built on ignorance, lacking context and insight, narcissism(?) and a false sense of certainty. The points in this thread that need to be disproven are;
- The futures/possibilities outrightly being equal to the world, called another reality.
- The futures are clearly stated to exist along with the intricacies and mechanisms of Naphta's powers not being reliant on and differentiated from manifestation of probabilities.
- Naphta's Clairvoyance.
- Size of domains being infinite.
- Validity of infinite futures statement.
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Power of Love 
