There is a problem here. Eficiente is actually sensical but I've observed that people are misunderstanding his ideas due to them being written in a needlessly complicated manner and like usual people are not taking Eficiente seriously because he expresses his ideas in a haughty manner. Those traits of his are infamous on the VS Battles Wiki but it doesn't change the value in his arguments, so for your reading pleasure, I can disprove the original post in a manner that explains things in a way most people easily understand and in a manner that doesn't make you want to defend your motive behind the revision.
Timelines and RESETs
This is essentially saying that there is a single timeline just being rewritten over and over, which isn’t exactly the case, I believe, and kind of ignores statements throughout the game.
“*Everyone will be ripped from this timeline...
*…and sent back before all of this ever happened.
*Nobody will remember anything.”
This statement does not exactly contradict the existence of multiple timelines at all. It is saying that the current timeline now stops, and that another timeline is starting anew via RESET.
I don't have much to work with for this paragraph since you didn't go into detail about "statements throughout the game". Think of it this way: When observing an
Undertale playthrough in its entirety, there were different timelines at some points in existence, but in-continuity there were not multiple timelines in existence at the same time and there ended up being only one existing timeline for reasons that Eficiente's blog post explains well and for reasons I will explain in subsequent paragraphs.
Roachman40 said:
Not exactly important but something worthy to note is that flowey says this timeline, not the timeline, which also kind of implies that there isn't just a singular timeline.
Flowey saying "this timeline" referred to the timeline that existed at the moment when he said that. Since he is aware of the Save and Load functions, he knows that there are other potential timelines that can exist by doing different actions after turning back time, thus meaning he can refer to a single timeline as "this timeline". Those potential timelines didn't exist when he said "this timeline", meaning his statement doesn't contradict the conclusion in Eficiente's blog post.
Roachman40 said:
Sans Statement
Sans said timelines in PLURAL buddy, NOT singular, if it was just one timeline being rewritten over and over I feel sans of all people, who is definitely more knowledgeable than most of the cast, would have specified that. The part of ‘timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting’ also fits perfectly in what I said above in the Timelines and RESETS segment, that an old timeline ends and a new timeline begins.
A "timeline" in this sense is the sequence of events related to a subject that is being observed, with the subject in this case being the world of
Undertale. There can be different sequences of events in the game
Undertale especially clear depending on what route the player takes, but the actions can be undone without a trace. Sure there are many possible timelines, but some characters can control the existing timeline so that a timeline that could've continued ended up stopping for a different one's start. This means that all the possible alternate timelines don't exist at the same time, and plural grammar can be used by characters when referring to the timeline without contradicting the conclusion in Eficiente's blog post.
Roachman40 said:
Fun Values
Before I actually go into this in more depth, I would like to mention that Fun Values can only be changed if a RESET has been made, things such as SAVing and LOADing will not change the value at all. (Yes, you can go into the games files and change them manually, but I don't think that was really intended)
Alright all of these points are kinda headcanon-y. Goner Kid’s dialogue is about a world where he doesn't exist, which is evidently seen by the fact there are timelines with a different fun value than the one needed to meet him. It's easier and makes much more sense to go with this interpretation than trying to contrive something from this dialogue that doesn't really make much sense otherwise.
It's not wrong that Goner Kid could've been referring to alternate timelines, but it's unwise to treat that interpretation of his words as the one and only canon one, since Goner Kid is a very mysterious character that we know basically no definite information about. That interpretation signifies that fun values are canon despite both Goner Kid and fun values being mysterious, meanwhile there are other interpretations of Goner Kid's words that are simpler and less mysterious, which the VS Battles Wiki is better off using. Eficiente wasn't using headcanon, he was providing interpretations of a mysterious character that people weren't thinking of. The interpretations are all good possibilities.
There isn't evidence suggesting that fun values are meaningful like how you portray them. Fun values seem to be nothing more than non-canon game mechanics that trigger random events within the single existing timeline that the player is currently playing in. They are never referenced during the game at all. Many players likely won't see all the events that trigger by having a fun value that activates them, but that doesn't mean the events make alternate timelines. You can compare this to how few players will receive every enemy's attack in the exact same fashion because many enemies randomly select which attack they will use when it is their turn to attack because of how the game works, and this is an aspect that is beyond the Save and Load functions of the game. That aspect of the game isn't canon, and is just game mechanics. I doubt anyone suspected it to be canon simply because they didn't think of the idea. Some people suspect fun values to be canon because a character possibly implied it to be canon, making people think of the idea, but that isn't concrete evidence.
Roachman40 said:
Alphys Statement
I mean
alphys never believed anime was real in the first place, so her believing Mew Mew Kissy Cutie is somehow real out there contradicts that entirely. This also ignores the fact that Alphys is rather knowledgeable and supposedly works faster than even gaster, so her word should definitely be taken into consideration.
This may be a good observation, but in the conversation where Alphys claimed that there exists alternate universes, her saying that was compared to her saying that anime is real. Although Alphys later revealed that she lied about anime being real to impress Undyne, Alphys not believing what she formerly claimed doesn’t change the fact that she has lied a lot, especially since she hasn’t only lied about anime. In fact,
during that conversation with Undyne, she said that she has been lying about everything. It wasn't just about anime. This means Alphys probably also lied about there being alternate universes. She was likely referencing a work of fiction that a human wrote that has alternate universes involved.