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Introduction
Two weeks after the surprisingly smooth giga-thread that was Part 1, we're back for Part 2. Once again, thanks to the same individuals that made this come to fruition, this would've been impossible to accomplish on one's lonesome. So, let's get into things.
The Scaling
Given that the Low 1-C scaling of the Four Heavenly Kings outlined in the past thread is fairly straightforward and makes no significant changes to the scaling, the only thing we ought to tackle is the obvious: Who scales to 1-A, and why. So, let's get into it.
1-A
As outlined in the previous thread, the chain of 1-A in Megami Tensei starts with Elohim, one of the Names of YHVH, who himself both rules over and personifies Chokmah, one of the Sefirot that comprise the world of Atziluth in the Tree of Life. Elohim's only appearance is in Shin Megami Tensei II, where he is fought at the end of the game alongside other avatars of YHVH, these being Shaddai and Sabaoth, the former of whom, in turn, is said to metaphysically be the same entity as Metatron in the SMT II Demon Encyclopedia, thus meaning Metatron receives scaling from Elohim.
We then move on to Beelzebub, which in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne in particular is repeatedly alluded to as being comparable to Metatron, and his equivalent among Lucifer's armies. For instance, they are fought single dungeons apart, with Beelzebub occupying the end of the Fourth Kalpa in the Labyrinth of Amala and Metatron occupying the Fifth, and likewise, Beelzebub is stated to be "chief among those who fell from Heaven" and to lead the armies of chaos alongside Lucifer himself, contrasted with Metatron, who is referred to as "the mightiest warrior of light" by the Lady-in-Black. And, to top it all off, they are both the exact same level in-game, namely level 95.
Mind you, leveling up is canon in Megami Tensei, and while they do admitedly vary between games, scaling demons within the context of a single entry should be fine, especially if actually supported by lore.
Beelzebub, in turn, is just a debased, demonized form of Baal, who is in the majority of his appearances considered weaker than him, such as in Apocalypse, where Beelzebub deems his current state to be a reduced shell of what he used to be, and Megami Tensei II, where Baal can only be reformed once Beelzebub and Bael merge together. Baal, in turn, has his equal, twin and direct counterpart in Mot, as the Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE Compendium states:
megamitensei.fandom.com
And Mot, in turn, is defeated every year by Anat, Baal's wife and sister:
megamitensei.fandom.com
And in Strange Journey Redux, Anat is shown to be weaker than Kali Ma, being only the second strongest warden of the Womb of Grief that precedes Kali herself (And is in turn preceded by Volvo and Cybele). And Kali, in turn, is just an aspect of Parvati, Shiva's wife and equal in power as a member of the Tridevi:
megamitensei.fandom.com
And both Shiva and Parvati are aspects of a greater deity: Ardhanarishvara, who represents all of their characteristics and attributes combined into a single being. We also have Harihara, who is the fusion of Vishnu and Shiva instead.
And then, of course, we have the big-names of Shin Megami Tensei, who occupy the upper rungs of the Abrahamic hierarchy. First among those is Demiurge, who is stated in Strange Journey to be the most powerful of YHVH's fragments that remained after the Mother Goddesses tore him to shreds and sealed away his avatars in the Schwarzwelt, and he himself demonstrates that by casually swatting Metatron away with a slap.
In the same ballpark as Demiurge, we have Sanat and The Ancient of Days, who are, in their only appearance in the entire series, placed on the same in-game level as him (95), with the latter also having Metatron as a component of its fusion recipe.
And above him, we have Mem Aleph, the primordial Mother Goddess, herself the very archetype of the Great Mother, which is stated to be one of the most important and significant of all infinite archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, and to hold all Mother Goddesses as local interpretations of itself, given more concrete, anthropomorphized features that set them apart from its fully abstract nature:
Mem Aleph, in Strange Journey's backstory, was responsible for tearing apart a weakened form of YHVH and sealing away the remaining shards all across the Schwarzwelt, and given the above, she is by definition more powerful than the unknown goddess who communicates with the player character shortly before his fight with the Demiurge, who managed to seal away an unstable form of a fusion between him and Metatron. Given her aforementioned feat, Mem Aleph is most certainly above the completed fusion as well.
Equal in power to Mem Aleph, then, is Shekinah, the feminine aspect of YHVH and embodiment of His divine presence & countenant.
Lucifer, naturally, should be superior to both of them, or at the very least, comparable, since he outright describes himself as "the supreme power of darkness," which should place him on the same league as Mem Aleph, who is herself a chaos-aligned entity (The chaotic side of the Will of the Earth, in fact, contrasted with Shekinah, who is its lawful aspect). Not to mention that he arguably perceived the events of Strange Journey as a movie, though this scan might have some side-effects on the scaling, so it is up to further discussion.
Standing above Lucifer as the de-facto strongest facet of YHVH and the one who stands the closest to His glory, is Satan, with this statement being corroborated by Lucifer being extremely warry of his return during the events of SMT II and noting that a fight against Satan could result in his death. This same sentiment is repeated in Majin Tensei II, where Lucifer, despite acknowledging the protagonists' powers as having surpassed his own, still considers the chance of them defeating Satan to be slim, to the point he refers to the ensuing battle as a gamble they must take.
Brahman in turn, emanates the information that comprises and defines the entire universe, all of which is eventually reabsorbed back into it in order to be recreated anew in endless metempsychosis, with it being referred to as "the CPU of the world" because of this. Satan's data is not excluded from this process, and in fact, was reabsorbed into Brahman alongside everything else after being defeated by the main cast.
But even this form of Brahman is heavily implied to be just a manifestation, and after defeating it, Seraph still acknowledges themselves as being a part of God, with their own understanding of his nature and eventual unification into it being what allows them to attain Nirvana to begin with. In fact, we see the aforementioned manifestation emerging from the golden space that serves as the backdrop of the fight, and Seraph's attainment of Nirvana is represented by said background entering their body, thus allowing us to say with certainty that this is what Brahman truly is, and not the tangible spaceship fought at the end.
Brahman's true, abstract form, as you can see by the video above, is essentially the underlying oneness at the basis of everything, with which every living being is identified at the core, and even the theme of its boss fight reflects that with its name: Divine Identity, and the PSP remake of Eternal Punishment discusses its nature at length during Tatsuya's Scenario. Not only that, but the game also directly identifies it with the archetypal world itself.
Most specifically, during the segment where the main cast wanders into Kadath Mandala, we get this exchange between them and Vairocana, the King of the Asuras:
Basically just reiterating what was said above: That is, the fact that Atman (Man, the microcosmos) and Brahman (The universe, the macrocosm) are fundamentally identical, and that any distinction between the two is ultimately illusory. Something which is echoed in Kadath's very structure, as it, specifically, is shaped like the junction of a Pentagram and an Hexagram, which are respectively said to symbolize Microcosm and Macrocosm, and earlier in the story, Zula actually makes direct reference to an "all-in-one and one-in-all, who is limitless both in self and being," a direct allusion to Yog-Sothoth's original role in the Cthulhu Mythos, which some of you may already know as being basically a copy-pasted version of how Hinduism defines Brahman.
And as was agreed upon in the last thread, Kadath itself is just another name for the archetypal world, which has been identified with the kabbalistic concept of the realm of "Atziluth" in other, more mainline parts of the series. This is important for the character we are about to tackle, namely: The Kuzuryu. To put it simply, in Shin Megami Tensei II, Kuzuryu was a living, extremely powerful superweapon assigned to YHVH by Lucifer, possessing nine heads in total, with a single one of them allegedly being enough to swiftly dispatch Satan.
Not only that, but its full, nine-headed form is also stated to have enough destructive power to wipe out everything in the Abyss, according to Lucifer. And the Abyss, in the context of Shin Megami Tensei II, encompasses the whole Tree of Life, up to and including Atziluth.
And Kuzuryu itself is a demon of the Shinrei race, or, in English, a Godly Spirit, and thus is a fragment of YHVH's Manifestation as well. And YHVH, in turn, is rivalled by Lucifer's Demon Lord form, which is said to be equal to God himself, and to be his truest form.
While this statement may seem a little unreliable, given Lucifer's established status as a discarded fragment of YHVH, it is actually perfectly justifiable. Take a look at this interview with Kaneko, for instance;
megatengaku.wordpress.com
As you can see, in it, Kaneko establishes that Lucifer's truest form is the dark side of the world itself, and further states that YHVH and him are simply personas of one another, taking the roles of creator and destroyer, Alpha and Omega, respectively. Thus, justifying Lucifer's aforementioned state as the Demon Lord being said to equal God. Moreover, the fact that it can only be achieved by Lucifer combining his power with that of a human is significant as well, since the status of the human race as the faction with the most potential for growth in MegaTen is already well-known.
And finally, we arrive at the peak of the mainline scaling chain: Masakado, who, in Shin Megami Tensei IV, is established as being so powerful that even a human would be capable of stopping the war between Lucifer and Merkabah with him on their side. Not only that, but, while in a weakened state, Masakado explains that regaining his full power would require him to consume The Great Spirit of Spite, The Great Spirit of Goodwill, and The Great Spirit of Hope, the former two being said to be what gave birth to both Lucifer and Merkabah to begin with.
Others
Since we have agreed to merge Persona and Shin Megami Tensei back into a single verse, it naturally follows that the two will from now on be treated as the same cosmology. As a consequence of that, a few verse-specific powers will need to be merged. In that case, say hello to the new pages: Cognitive Physiology and Understanding, the former of which being inclusive of both Personas, Shadows and Demons.
We have a new verse page, too, as well as previews of some profiles, in which the outdated ones will be updated after this CRT.
Let's get started, from Wild Cards to Messiahs. Art credit to Bayung99.
Two weeks after the surprisingly smooth giga-thread that was Part 1, we're back for Part 2. Once again, thanks to the same individuals that made this come to fruition, this would've been impossible to accomplish on one's lonesome. So, let's get into things.
The Scaling
Given that the Low 1-C scaling of the Four Heavenly Kings outlined in the past thread is fairly straightforward and makes no significant changes to the scaling, the only thing we ought to tackle is the obvious: Who scales to 1-A, and why. So, let's get into it.
1-A
As outlined in the previous thread, the chain of 1-A in Megami Tensei starts with Elohim, one of the Names of YHVH, who himself both rules over and personifies Chokmah, one of the Sefirot that comprise the world of Atziluth in the Tree of Life. Elohim's only appearance is in Shin Megami Tensei II, where he is fought at the end of the game alongside other avatars of YHVH, these being Shaddai and Sabaoth, the former of whom, in turn, is said to metaphysically be the same entity as Metatron in the SMT II Demon Encyclopedia, thus meaning Metatron receives scaling from Elohim.
We then move on to Beelzebub, which in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne in particular is repeatedly alluded to as being comparable to Metatron, and his equivalent among Lucifer's armies. For instance, they are fought single dungeons apart, with Beelzebub occupying the end of the Fourth Kalpa in the Labyrinth of Amala and Metatron occupying the Fifth, and likewise, Beelzebub is stated to be "chief among those who fell from Heaven" and to lead the armies of chaos alongside Lucifer himself, contrasted with Metatron, who is referred to as "the mightiest warrior of light" by the Lady-in-Black. And, to top it all off, they are both the exact same level in-game, namely level 95.
Mind you, leveling up is canon in Megami Tensei, and while they do admitedly vary between games, scaling demons within the context of a single entry should be fine, especially if actually supported by lore.
Beelzebub, in turn, is just a debased, demonized form of Baal, who is in the majority of his appearances considered weaker than him, such as in Apocalypse, where Beelzebub deems his current state to be a reduced shell of what he used to be, and Megami Tensei II, where Baal can only be reformed once Beelzebub and Bael merge together. Baal, in turn, has his equal, twin and direct counterpart in Mot, as the Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE Compendium states:
Mot
Mot is a demon in the series. Mot, also known as Mavet, is the Canaanite personification of death, also associated with infertility, drought and the underworld. He "lives in the throne city which goes by the name Hemry, a pit is his throne, and Filth is the land of his heritage." According to...
megamitensei.fandom.com
And Mot, in turn, is defeated every year by Anat, Baal's wife and sister:
Anat
Anat is a recurring demon in the series. Anat, also known as Anath, Anant, Anit, Anti, Anaitis, Anait, Anthat or Antit, is a western Semitic goddess of war and mistress of wild animals, also associated with love and sex. In mythical texts, she is famous for having a violent temperament and for...
megamitensei.fandom.com
And in Strange Journey Redux, Anat is shown to be weaker than Kali Ma, being only the second strongest warden of the Womb of Grief that precedes Kali herself (And is in turn preceded by Volvo and Cybele). And Kali, in turn, is just an aspect of Parvati, Shiva's wife and equal in power as a member of the Tridevi:
Kali
Kali is a demon in the series. Kali is a Hindu goddess associated with death, time and destruction. The name Kali means "black," but has by folk etymology come to mean "force of time (kala)." The name "Kali" means "black one" and is derived from the word "kala" (black), but has also come to mean...
megamitensei.fandom.com
And both Shiva and Parvati are aspects of a greater deity: Ardhanarishvara, who represents all of their characteristics and attributes combined into a single being. We also have Harihara, who is the fusion of Vishnu and Shiva instead.
And then, of course, we have the big-names of Shin Megami Tensei, who occupy the upper rungs of the Abrahamic hierarchy. First among those is Demiurge, who is stated in Strange Journey to be the most powerful of YHVH's fragments that remained after the Mother Goddesses tore him to shreds and sealed away his avatars in the Schwarzwelt, and he himself demonstrates that by casually swatting Metatron away with a slap.
In the same ballpark as Demiurge, we have Sanat and The Ancient of Days, who are, in their only appearance in the entire series, placed on the same in-game level as him (95), with the latter also having Metatron as a component of its fusion recipe.
And above him, we have Mem Aleph, the primordial Mother Goddess, herself the very archetype of the Great Mother, which is stated to be one of the most important and significant of all infinite archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, and to hold all Mother Goddesses as local interpretations of itself, given more concrete, anthropomorphized features that set them apart from its fully abstract nature:
Mem Aleph, in Strange Journey's backstory, was responsible for tearing apart a weakened form of YHVH and sealing away the remaining shards all across the Schwarzwelt, and given the above, she is by definition more powerful than the unknown goddess who communicates with the player character shortly before his fight with the Demiurge, who managed to seal away an unstable form of a fusion between him and Metatron. Given her aforementioned feat, Mem Aleph is most certainly above the completed fusion as well.
Equal in power to Mem Aleph, then, is Shekinah, the feminine aspect of YHVH and embodiment of His divine presence & countenant.
Lucifer, naturally, should be superior to both of them, or at the very least, comparable, since he outright describes himself as "the supreme power of darkness," which should place him on the same league as Mem Aleph, who is herself a chaos-aligned entity (The chaotic side of the Will of the Earth, in fact, contrasted with Shekinah, who is its lawful aspect). Not to mention that he arguably perceived the events of Strange Journey as a movie, though this scan might have some side-effects on the scaling, so it is up to further discussion.
Standing above Lucifer as the de-facto strongest facet of YHVH and the one who stands the closest to His glory, is Satan, with this statement being corroborated by Lucifer being extremely warry of his return during the events of SMT II and noting that a fight against Satan could result in his death. This same sentiment is repeated in Majin Tensei II, where Lucifer, despite acknowledging the protagonists' powers as having surpassed his own, still considers the chance of them defeating Satan to be slim, to the point he refers to the ensuing battle as a gamble they must take.
Brahman in turn, emanates the information that comprises and defines the entire universe, all of which is eventually reabsorbed back into it in order to be recreated anew in endless metempsychosis, with it being referred to as "the CPU of the world" because of this. Satan's data is not excluded from this process, and in fact, was reabsorbed into Brahman alongside everything else after being defeated by the main cast.
But even this form of Brahman is heavily implied to be just a manifestation, and after defeating it, Seraph still acknowledges themselves as being a part of God, with their own understanding of his nature and eventual unification into it being what allows them to attain Nirvana to begin with. In fact, we see the aforementioned manifestation emerging from the golden space that serves as the backdrop of the fight, and Seraph's attainment of Nirvana is represented by said background entering their body, thus allowing us to say with certainty that this is what Brahman truly is, and not the tangible spaceship fought at the end.
Brahman's true, abstract form, as you can see by the video above, is essentially the underlying oneness at the basis of everything, with which every living being is identified at the core, and even the theme of its boss fight reflects that with its name: Divine Identity, and the PSP remake of Eternal Punishment discusses its nature at length during Tatsuya's Scenario. Not only that, but the game also directly identifies it with the archetypal world itself.
Most specifically, during the segment where the main cast wanders into Kadath Mandala, we get this exchange between them and Vairocana, the King of the Asuras:
Basically just reiterating what was said above: That is, the fact that Atman (Man, the microcosmos) and Brahman (The universe, the macrocosm) are fundamentally identical, and that any distinction between the two is ultimately illusory. Something which is echoed in Kadath's very structure, as it, specifically, is shaped like the junction of a Pentagram and an Hexagram, which are respectively said to symbolize Microcosm and Macrocosm, and earlier in the story, Zula actually makes direct reference to an "all-in-one and one-in-all, who is limitless both in self and being," a direct allusion to Yog-Sothoth's original role in the Cthulhu Mythos, which some of you may already know as being basically a copy-pasted version of how Hinduism defines Brahman.
And as was agreed upon in the last thread, Kadath itself is just another name for the archetypal world, which has been identified with the kabbalistic concept of the realm of "Atziluth" in other, more mainline parts of the series. This is important for the character we are about to tackle, namely: The Kuzuryu. To put it simply, in Shin Megami Tensei II, Kuzuryu was a living, extremely powerful superweapon assigned to YHVH by Lucifer, possessing nine heads in total, with a single one of them allegedly being enough to swiftly dispatch Satan.
Not only that, but its full, nine-headed form is also stated to have enough destructive power to wipe out everything in the Abyss, according to Lucifer. And the Abyss, in the context of Shin Megami Tensei II, encompasses the whole Tree of Life, up to and including Atziluth.
And Kuzuryu itself is a demon of the Shinrei race, or, in English, a Godly Spirit, and thus is a fragment of YHVH's Manifestation as well. And YHVH, in turn, is rivalled by Lucifer's Demon Lord form, which is said to be equal to God himself, and to be his truest form.
While this statement may seem a little unreliable, given Lucifer's established status as a discarded fragment of YHVH, it is actually perfectly justifiable. Take a look at this interview with Kaneko, for instance;
1UP: “In Character: Kazuma Kaneko”
Nich Maragos. “In Character: Kazuma Kaneko”. 1UP, 20 September 2004. < Though it’s not until recently that technology has allowed their work to be fully expressed within the ac…
megatengaku.wordpress.com
As you can see, in it, Kaneko establishes that Lucifer's truest form is the dark side of the world itself, and further states that YHVH and him are simply personas of one another, taking the roles of creator and destroyer, Alpha and Omega, respectively. Thus, justifying Lucifer's aforementioned state as the Demon Lord being said to equal God. Moreover, the fact that it can only be achieved by Lucifer combining his power with that of a human is significant as well, since the status of the human race as the faction with the most potential for growth in MegaTen is already well-known.
And finally, we arrive at the peak of the mainline scaling chain: Masakado, who, in Shin Megami Tensei IV, is established as being so powerful that even a human would be capable of stopping the war between Lucifer and Merkabah with him on their side. Not only that, but, while in a weakened state, Masakado explains that regaining his full power would require him to consume The Great Spirit of Spite, The Great Spirit of Goodwill, and The Great Spirit of Hope, the former two being said to be what gave birth to both Lucifer and Merkabah to begin with.
Others
Since we have agreed to merge Persona and Shin Megami Tensei back into a single verse, it naturally follows that the two will from now on be treated as the same cosmology. As a consequence of that, a few verse-specific powers will need to be merged. In that case, say hello to the new pages: Cognitive Physiology and Understanding, the former of which being inclusive of both Personas, Shadows and Demons.
We have a new verse page, too, as well as previews of some profiles, in which the outdated ones will be updated after this CRT.
Let's get started, from Wild Cards to Messiahs. Art credit to Bayung99.
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