Touhou - Infinite Speed issues

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

So I was ready to leave the Wiki behind entirely given certain recent events. But given OTHER recent events, I might as well try to see if I can salvage parts of this verse. Let's try by starting small-ish.

So our profiles current use three infinite speed feats for our rating of infinite speed. And all three of them are suspect to varying degrees. I think that at the very least, some of them should be trimmed out of the profiles and the Infinite rating either removed entirely in favor of MFTL+ or reduced to a "possibly".

I also think that the amount of people who scales to Infinite should be cut back drastically. The current scaling is just way too generous.

These three feats are: The protagonists of Imperishable Night fly through an infinite corridor and reach the end of it. The protagonists of Undefined Fantastic Object catch up to a ship flying to the edge of an infinite realm. And the protagonists of Wily Beast and Weakest Creature fly across the infinitely wide Sanzu River. Let's go through them from most suspect to least.

Palanquin Ship Feat

The least valid speed feat is definitively the Undefined Fantastic Object feat. It involves the Palanquin Ship flying to Hokkai, a specific location within Makai. Makai being an infinitely large alternate realm. Now I don't dispute the fact that the protagonists caught up to it, that much is obvious. I also do not dispute Makai being infinite in size, the statement is straightforward enough and infinite realms are not rare in Touhou. What I do dispute is the idea that the ship had to travel an infinite distance to reach Hokkai.

This scan above is the only really important one of the bunch, as it contains the crux of the argument. It describes Hokkai as "a corner of the infinite area of Makai". This is being interpreted to mean that Hokkai is at the very end of Makai and thus that the Palanquin Ship had to travel an infinite distance to reach it. But both of these are wrong, I think. The obvious issue is that we have no reasons to assume that the Palanquin Ship entered Makai near the center of it, or even infinitely far away from Hokkai. It's not clear how the Palanquin Ship travelled to Makai, but given how this is another dimension entirely, it didn't simply sail to it normally. Since their goal was to get to Hokkai, they really had no reasons to enter the realm in an area infinitely far away from their target.

But the very notion that Hokkai has to be at the edge of Makai is flawed too. It's described as being in a corner of Makai, but I don't think it has to means literally in one of the absolute corner of the place. First off because infinite places don't really have corners. But secondly, it can also easily be used to describe a random closed place in a greater area. Like, if you say that someone lives in a random corner of a city, you wouldn't necessarily think that they live at the very edge of the city. Just that they live in a small secluded spot of it. And I think that interpretation makes a lot more sense, given how this was a hiding place for Byakuren to be sealed at.

So for this speed feat to be infinite, you'd need to do two big assumptions in a row. The assumption that the Palanquin Ship entered Makai infinitely far away from Hokkai (no reasons to assume that, it would go against the goals of the characters piloting it) and that "in a corner of Makai" means at the edge of an infinite plane (no reasons to assume that, the other assumption makes more sense for multiple reasons). So really this should not have been accepted at all and should definitively be removed.

Infinite Corridor Feat

The next feat is somewhat more valid and harder to debunk. But I still don't think it is valid. This is the infinite corridor feat in Imperishable Night. In this game, if the protagonists chose the bad ending choice, they will be lead to an unnaturally long corridor. Eventually this corridor will end and they will find themselves in outer space, near the Fake Moon set up by Eirin. This was a trap set up by Eirin in order to distract the protagonists. This corridor is stated to be endless and eternal in this game, and later games describe the same corridor as being composed out of infinite bits of space-time stitched together to make an infinite trap.

Now once again I will not debate this corridor being infinite. This seems rather explicit with the scans from Miko provided. But what I will debate is that the corridor is always infinite and thus that the version the protagonists travelled through in Imperishable Night was in fact infinite. I think the most obvious argument here is that, no. The corridor is visually and logically not infinite. Not only does it end (endless things don't tend to just end), but it ends in space. A finite distance away from Earth and not even having reached the Moon. In fact check out these two scans:

After this infinite corridor, the protagonists explicitly end up in-between the fake Moon and the Earth. This situation is even explicitly described as the Earth being essentially sealed away. In general, Eirin's plan was to stop Moon people from reaching Earth and vice-versa. I don't have to tell you that the distance between the Moon and Earth isn't infinite, and that you can't keep going infinitely in a sealed up space forever unless you curve around. And if this was a curved path the protagonists wouldn't have reached the end even with Infinite speed. So this corridor in this specific scenario being infinite in length wouldn't work. I also don't think that the alternate explanation of "the corridor just looped space infinitely" works either, since the protagonists definitively did move some distance by the end of the corridor. And given what I'll say soon, this bit of the protagonists moving away from Eientei was definitively intentional.

Now even if I say this, this doesn't prevent the statements that exist from existing. And the above could be just ignored as silly fiction inconsistencies if the statements are that explicit. But I do think that we do in fact have good reasons to think that the corridor was not meant to be infinite, even by its creators. Eirin's plan with the corridor was explicitly to lead the protagonists astray. To lead them towards the Fake Moon and away from the true Moon. Eirin says this rather explicitly. The corridor in this instance was explicitly meant to be used to lead the protagonists to this specific place. And so I believe that the corridor "ending" was not the protagonists reaching the end of it. Rather, it was simply the spell being cancelled once the protagonists were put where Eirin wanted them to be.

To further drive the point home that this is the accurate interpretation, the idea that every protagonist and major character can outdo an infinite corridor trap like this with raw speed makes little to no sense. The fact that Eirin and Kaguya even bother putting this up as a defense shows that it's actually effective in its intended purpose, and not something easily defeated. Eirin also shows no surprise whatsoever when the protagonists reached its end. This was not "Oh no, the protagonists are fast enough to outdo my trap!". This was "my trap successfully lead them away from their goal". And the trap did in fact work on Miko, a character who easily should scale to such levels. She only defeated it with her space-absorbing powers. Not through raw speed.

At the end of the day, this corridor was only flown through in a time where the corridor had the specific purpose of bringing the protagonists towards the fake Moon. In other situations, it's treated as a good defense mechanism or defeated in other ways. So while the idea of Kaguya and Eirin stopping the corridor at some point is speculative, the idea that this infinite corridor only led the protagonists into Earth orbit AND that everyone can easily fly through this corridor despite it being treated as a useful way to defend against intruders is even more speculative. In this context, infinite speed protagonists just breaks the narrative entirely and makes no sense with what we're shown. So this feat should not be used.

Sanzu River Feat

Finally, we have the third feat. This feat involves the protagonists of Wily Beast and Weakest Creature flying over the Sanzu river and reaching Higan at the other side. The Sanzu river is a river noted for its variable length. It can easily reach infinite lengths when the ferry isn't paid, and it was stated that the length of the river is infinite for still-living humans, which our protagonists are (mostly, ignore Youmu). This feat is a lot harder to debunk and I almost considered just allowing it. But thinking it through further, it has its own fair share of inconsistencies.

Now the Sanzu river having the potential to be infinite is not something I'd argue against. Once again, we have rather explicit statements of such multiple times. There are also many statements of the river holding infinite water, but I'll be ignoring those because the volume of water doesn't have to go to the width. These are just supporting statements for its potentially infinite length.

The calculations by Ran Yakumo are the most precise details we have over this width. It's still not very detailed, but basically: the less the ferry of the river is paid, the closer the width of the river reaches infinite. So presumably, if the ferry wasn't paid at all, the width would be infinite. It's also said that the pay of the ferry isn't calculated using regular money. What is considered "wealth" in the other world isn't specified and seems to include a ton of equations that involve the histories of the dead soul. So in the end, the length can only be truly calculated by an advanced intelligence like Ran herself, and in practice the width of the river is impossible to calculate for normal humans.

Komachi's statement is more direct. Upon Marisa trying to cross the river to reach Higan, she is told that the width of the river is infinite for the living. This might seem enough to determine the feat in the later game to be infinite. But there are some issues here. Most notably, the protagonists aren't alone when they cross the Sanzu River. They're all possessed by an animal spirit. The plot of that game revolves around these spirit, who escaped from Hell and explicitly crossed the Sanzu River. Now that means that either every spirit has Infinite speed (which would be ridiculous, since that basically means that anyone can cross the Sanzu river via raw speed) or that the animal spirits get the Sanzu river width reduction effect, like the deads do. While we aren't sure if being possessed by a spirit would mean that the still-living humans get a Sanzu River width reduction, I think it's a better alternative than raw Infinite speed.

To further add to the above, there is also a decent chance that Komachi's statement was exaggerated, since this was basically a pre-fight one-liner about her defending the river from being crossed... which she wouldn't need to do if the river was infinite anyway. And just, the general fact that sources like PMiSS and the inhabitants of the river itself consider that still-living people crossing the river is highly improbable. If this many people could cross it, these statements wouldn't make sense.

This feat is admitedly seemingly more valid than the other two. The other explanations are still somewhat speculative compared to the raw speed assumption. But I still think the other explanations are more likely, on top of not breaking the setting in half. It doesn't help that it'd be the ONLY infinite speed feat in the verse. And having your only speed feat in a verse being a hugely interpretable feat that CAN be explained otherwise is not great to have.

The Scaling for Infinite

A bonus thing regarding scaling, also. We scale infinite to WAY too many people, even if you want to agree with these feats. Admittedly some of it is my fault, since I was a bit too generous with scaling back in the MFTL+ days, but still. Namely, the fact that we scale Cirno (and thus basically everyone) to Infinite speed. The reasoning being that she shouldn't be behind moon rabbits like Rei'sen. Which only made sense back when people were MFTL+ for the Dream World passage feat, which includes regular fairies. But now it's just absurd and has zero actual reasoning. All fighters are scaled to that level now. Which is beyond ridiculous. Cirno should just not scale to Infinite, and instead only possibly scale to the MFTL+ speed for possibly being comparable to dream Fairies. The same goes for anyone who upscale from her. So basically every 8-B, 7-B and High 6-A. Rei'sen and thus Reisen would get to keep their speed, but since they are in an ambiguous scaling situation no one else in their tier should scale from that. Even if we were to keep Infinite, this overwhelming amount of scaling needs to go. There is no way around that.

Conclusion

So basically, all three of those feats are bad. I do not think the first one should be here at all, it is very bad. The infinite corridor one makes sense at first glance but looking at it deeper, it just falls apart. The last one could be seen as legit, but there are alternate explanations that just make more sense in general. I could do with leaving the Sanzu River feat be and making our new stats be "Massively FTL+, possibly Infinite". But if given the choice I'd much rather ax the rating entirely and go back to Massively FTL+ days.

Most of the verse should also get that speed rating removed. Only Reimu, Marisa and Youmu directly scale, so only the people who scale above them (aka 2-C people) should scale. Rei'sen and Reisen get a pass, but no one else scales to them. Especially not Cirno.

 

[Topaz404]

I dont normally do this, but i will make this one comment and one comment alone. I wholeheartedly disagree with the Sanzu River debunks

Yes, the Animal Spirits did escape from Hell via the Sanzu, either via speed or some weird bypassing of the rules in place- however, possession by a spirit doesnt automatically make you "dead" or "undead"- you are still very much alive, just under whatever control the possessor has upon you. Thats......not how that works im pretty sure

In any case, the protags (save Youmu) appear and act as healthy and alive as they ever could be- and if Komachi (read: basically a grim reaper) is calling them out for being alive and is trying to discourage them from crossing the Sanzu would be pretty in character. Of course, they dont listen, beat her up, and go on their merry way

Not to mention

Why, under ANY circumstance, would Komachi or her superiors want to reduce the width of the river for the protags when the looming threat of the rest of the Animal Spirits getting out and causing havoc on the living world is still there. Not only is that incredibly stupid, but wildly out of character for both Komachi and Shiki (her boss)

Not to mention, in general
Im pretty sure most of these arguments have been used in the past and havent worked then, so why now?

Make it make sense, please

 

[Quibster]

Responding soon

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

Yes, the Animal Spirits did escape from Hell via the Sanzu, either via speed or some weird bypassing of the rules in place- however, possession by a spirit doesnt automatically make you "dead" or "undead"- you are still very much alive, just under whatever control the possessor has upon you. Thats......not how that works im pretty sure

We don't know how it works. Maybe the presence of an animal spirit in the protagonist's body caused the river to match its width to that spirit. Maybe it did not. At this point it's choosing between whether assuming that the presence of the animal spirit made the river less wide, or assuming that every high tier in Gensokyo can easily get past this supposedly impossible to bypass barrier. And I think the former makes a lot more sense.

Also we know that the Yama let the protagonists pass in that game. They were in fact allowed in. Whether or not they reduced the river's width for them is unclear, but they didn't really have a reason to block them either, given how the yama explicitly allowed them to pass.

At the end of the the day, the issue is that we don't know the exact mechanics of the Sanzu river. We know that its width can reach infinity if the Shinigami isn't "paid" enough. But we don't know if this is its default width when people pass by unannounced or if this width will adjust to the presence of a spirit possessing a human. This feat being infinite requires assuming that none of the weird circumstances surrounding this travel (e.g. the presence of the evil spirits and the protagonists traversing it without taking a ferry) reduced the river's width from its absolute maximum width. Which is unecessarily generous.

 

[Planck69]

Reading through this, I agree with the OP. I think a plain Massively FTL+ rating is fine as well, assuming that was the prior rating.

 

[Topaz404]

Also we know that the Yama let the protagonists pass in that game. They were in fact allowed in. Whether or not they reduced the river's width for them is unclear, but they didn't really have a reason to block them either, given how the yama explicitly allowed them to pass.

Wait, hold on, "allowed in?" I dont think the Yama would be allowing anyone in during the events of the game- can you provide any scans of Eiki explicitly saying "yeah these guys are chill let them in they can handle this"?

(yeah i know im going back on my og promise, but i am genuinely curious where you got that from)

EDIT: by the way im just gonna mention i disagree with the OP. that is all

 

[Shiroiyo]

I will give my thoughts on it ig.

Palaquin ship

But the very notion that Hokkai has to be at the edge of Makai is flawed too. It's described as being in a corner of Makai, but I don't think it has to means literally in one of the absolute corner of the place. First off because infinite places don't really have corners. But secondly, it can also easily be used to describe a random closed place in a greater area. Like, if you say that someone lives in a random corner of a city, you wouldn't necessarily think that they live at the very edge of the city. Just that they live in a small secluded spot of it. And I think that interpretation makes a lot more sense, given how this was a hiding place for Byakuren to be sealed at.

This has been discussed multiple times, be it in upgrade or downgrade threads, the kanji used to represent “corner” in that sentence (角) cannot be translated as a random closed space or anything similar. It is used exclusively in the context of a street corner, which is not particularly applicable here or the corner/edge of an object such as a desk, it can also mean ‘angle’ or ‘horn’ but those also don’t make much sense. It is in fact referring to an edge of Makai.

Infinite corridor

Now once again I will not debate this corridor being infinite. This seems rather explicit with the scans from Miko provided. But what I will debate is that the corridor is always infinite and thus that the version the protagonists travelled through in Imperishable Night was in fact infinite. I think the most obvious argument here is that, no. The corridor is visually and logically not infinite. Not only does it end (endless things don't tend to just end), but it ends in space. A finite distance away from Earth and not even having reached the Moon. In fact check out these two scans:

The corridor doesn’t end in space. The “space” we see is just an illusion cast by Eirin, you can't use visuals to determine the location when the visuals are deliberately misleading. That’s why Eirin says they are between the earth and false moon, she calls it a “false moon” because it is an illusion. The “visual and logical” issue you are presenting is a facet of any infinite speed feat derived from crossing an infinite distance in finite time, so you would have to change the standards if you take issue with them.

After this infinite corridor, the protagonists explicitly end up in-between the fake Moon and the Earth. This situation is even explicitly described as the Earth being essentially sealed away. In general, Eirin's plan was to stop Moon people from reaching Earth and vice-versa. I don't have to tell you that the distance between the Moon and Earth isn't infinite, and that you can't keep going infinitely in a sealed up space forever unless you curve around. And if this was a curved path the protagonists wouldn't have reached the end even with Infinite speed. So this corridor in this specific scenario being infinite in length wouldn't work. I also don't think that the alternate explanation of "the corridor just looped space infinitely" works either, since the protagonists definitively did move some distance by the end of the corridor. And given what I'll say soon, this bit of the protagonists moving away from Eientei was definitively intentional.

The distance between the earth and moon is in fact... infinite, it is weird, but it’s been made clear multiple times that Heaven is the intermediary distance between the earth and moon (Lunarians even “look down” on Heaven from a geological perspective). Heaven is, well, infinite. You proposed and accepted this yourself during the old tier 3 upgrades. So the protagonists wound up at the end of some undefined distance, which could be anywhere from a few feet to literally infinity and since the corridor is repeatedly said to be infinite, it’s pretty clear the latter is more accurate.

Now even if I say this, this doesn't prevent the statements that exist from existing. And the above could be just ignored as silly fiction inconsistencies if the statements are that explicit. But I do think that we do in fact have good reasons to think that the corridor was not meant to be infinite, even by its creators. Eirin's plan with the corridor was explicitly to lead the protagonists astray. To lead them towards the Fake Moon and away from the true Moon. Eirin says this rather explicitly. The corridor in this instance was explicitly meant to be used to lead the protagonists to this specific place. And so I believe that the corridor "ending" was not the protagonists reaching the end of it. Rather, it was simply the spell being cancelled once the protagonists were put where Eirin wanted them to be.

Eirin using the corridor to lead the protagonists astray isn’t a debunk. The corridor isn’t meant to lead people away, it’s intended to make people wander for eternity with no hope of escape. Eirin nullifying the corridor also makes no sense, as she makes a jab at Yukari and Reimu and questions their ability to get home once she’s led them to the end. Why would she mock their assumed inability to get home if she just destroyed the only thing stopping them from going home?

Also, Eirin doesn’t have any infinite-range space-time nullification hax that she could or would bust here, nor is there any indication that she did so. It doesn't make sense for her to nullify the corridor, since it is supposed to prevent Kaguya from being found, I am sure you can get it, why would she negate something that just served its purpose perfectly? That’d just be helping the protagonists for no gain.

To further drive the point home that this is the accurate interpretation, the idea that every protagonist and major character can outdo an infinite corridor trap like this with raw speed makes little to no sense. The fact that Eirin and Kaguya even bother putting this up as a defense shows that it's actually effective in its intended purpose, and not something easily defeated. Eirin also shows no surprise whatsoever when the protagonists reached its end. This was not "Oh no, the protagonists are fast enough to outdo my trap!". This was "my trap successfully lead them away from their goal". And the trap did in fact work on Miko, a character who easily should scale to such levels. She only defeated it with her space-absorbing powers. Not through raw speed.

Eirin and Kaguya have shown to have underestimated the protagonists, Kaguya was shocked at how powerful Marisa and Alice are and the protagonists’ success going beyond Eirin’s calculations . Also, the protagonists having infinite speed wouldn’t render the trap useless, after all, the goal was to ensure they didn’t find Kaguya, which Eirin succeeded in doing, this is why she’s not going to say the trap failed when the trap worked in this context(they not finding Kaguya). Miko choosing to nullify the corridor instead of flying across it doesn’t debunk it. The protagonists in IN frequently complain about how long the corridor is, so while flying across it is possible, it is not exactly enjoyable. Miko nullifying the corridor was likely just more convenient, just like how we can take a bus to downtown is more convenient than walking there, even though we are still capable of the latter.

I will prob reply to the rest later, but I should note that you didn't even adress Suika's speed.

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

Wait, hold on, "allowed in?" I dont think the Yama would be allowing anyone in during the events of the game- can you provide any scans of Eiki explicitly saying "yeah these guys are chill let them in they can handle this"?

Did you not read the logs of that story bit the feat came from...?

This is in Higan, but it still shows that the Yama wasn't looking to block the protagonists out of Hell anyway.

And like, if the Yama could make the river infinitely wide unilaterally to stop all the spirits from crossing over, this whole situation wouldn't have happened in the first place. The way the river is described implies that its width varies on an individual basis rather than it being made unilaterally infinite if only one soul doesn't meet the requirements to pass.

 

[Topaz404]

Did you not read the logs of that story bit the feat came from...?

This is in Higan, but it still shows that the Yama wasn't looking to block the protagonists out of Hell anyway.

And like, if the Yama could make the river infinitely wide unilaterally to stop all the spirits from crossing over, this whole situation wouldn't have happened in the first place. The way the river is described implies that its width varies on an individual basis rather than it being made unilaterally infinite if only one soul doesn't meet the requirements to pass.

Thats at HELL though is the issue.....beyond the Sanzu River? They crossed the Sanzu, impressed Eiki enough because of that alone (because she wanted to challenge them to see if they were worthy to even solve the issue (also you act like the event of the Animal Spirits wasnt just a surprise. It would be hard to plan for something you wouldnt expect at all. Some spirits were sure to leak before Eiki figure out what was going on and ordered that the river be as wide as possible to prevent more escapes)

Also
"Width varies on an individual basis"
my guy
show me where it says that, please, because that sounds absurd

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

@Shiroiyo

Why doesn't "street corner" make sense? Or "the corner of a desk"? There aren't necessarily streets in Makai (although some of the images of it does seem to possibly hint at it), but that doesn't preclude the existence of any corners whatsoever. Even in the context of a natural landscape you could easily say that something is in a corner. A corner of a cave, a corner in a particularly mountains area or whatever.



The Moon might be an illusion but that doesn't change the fact that it's still physically placed somewhere in the sky and at a finite distance from Earth. The Moon got visibly bigger as they got closer to it (which the characters noted), meaning that it's not some projection infinitely far away. It has a place in 3D space. It also wasn't visible by the Moon people (and seemingly no one in the outside world, since to my knowledge this incident is not noted as having happened in the outside world).

Heaven is a sort of weird place, but at the end of the day it's still an Otherworld. So it only partially overlaps with reality. I don't think that there is a physically infinitely large object between Earth and the Moon, especially since we know irl astronauts missions happened. Getting to the Lunar Capital is what is so hard, since it's an Otherworld hidden from the world. But failing to go to the capital wouldn't make the Moon infinitely far away from you. It'd just make you land on the dead, irl Moon.

That's an entirely different scan from the IN events. In IN specifically, Eirin deliberately guides the protagonists through the corridor to lead them to the Fake Moon. At no point does she act like keeping the protagonists wandering forever was her plan, nor we we given a reason to believe that it was indeed her plan. And while it's true that Eirin does not have the ability to end the corridor herself, I didn't mean that Eirin just blew up the corridor once they reached the end. I meant that either Kaguya ended the loop once they got far away (since we know she's involved here) or Kaguya simply made the corridor a certain length for this event. Since, again, this corridor was meant to guide them to the fake Moon. The scan you provided is after the events of IN (when Eitentei became exposed to the outside world a bit more) and doesn't relate to how they used it in this specific incident.

Neither of those scans are relevant. Kaguya being surprised at how strong the heroes are and Eirin being surprised that the youkai got involved doesn't change the fact that at no point during the A Path does she act as if the protagonists making it through the corridor was unexpected. And in each scenario, she says that guiding them to the Fake Moon was her goal. Your interpretation of Eirin both expecting the infinite corridor to work and for it to not work at the same time isn't really supported.



Also Suika's feat is an Attack Speed feat. It's not exactly different from other characters doing High 3-A feats. It doesn't inherently scale to their actual speed stats.

 

[Planck69]

I will point that "a small corner of X/Y/Z" more often just means a small part of a larger whole in written language than like, a literal actual corner. That would require actual further elaboration as to being the case.

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

They crossed the Sanzu, impressed Eiki enough because of that alone (because she wanted to challenge them to see if they were worthy to even solve the issue

Do have proof of that? Nothing indicates that Eiki waited for the protagonists to cross the river on their own before giving them access. They just showed up to the chicken god, who said they're allowed but decided to beat them up anyway.

While it's true the event was a surprise, the crossing of the spirits was still an issue when the protagonists started to travel the river. A lot of them note as their very first quote while flying over the Sanzu river that there is a lot of beast spirit around. So either they can't just make a blanket infinite river to block all the spirits, or they didn't get to it while the protagonists were flying over it. So it wouldn't be infinite anyway.

""The Sanzu River is not a normal river, but one that carries away the past. This is why the actual length is different from the observed length. It is necessary to know the histories of the deceased to calculate that distance. The breadth of the river, depending on the person, can take either a mere instant to cross or an practically interminable amount of time."

-Ran, in her Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red article.

It's not clear, but the width does vary based on the person. Though I will reiterate that we don't know how this river works. We only know how Komachi deals with people she's ferrying. People who just fly over on their own, we have no basis to go off. So saying the river was infinite in this specific circumstance our protagonists encountered is deliberately taking the highest end assumptions.

Really I'd better assume that Komachi saying the river is infinite for living people just relates to the PMiSS statement saying that crossing over for a living person is too expensive. Aka that the river would be infinite if she had asked to be ferried. Not that the river being crossed with no ferry whatsoever would make it infinite.

 

[RethPo]

From what i see so far the op does make sense and i agree. Also didnt suika just destroy heavens canopy? Im psure she didnt shatter the entirety of heavens. And yeah the logic of suikas speed feat would make anybody with infinite reality warping infinite speeds.

 

[Jinsye]

We already talked about this on Discord. I'm fine with removing the other two but I'd disagree with the Sanzu River still.

I think your reasoning functions on way too many unknowns and what-ifs compared to a more straightforward solution that is fine. It feels like it crosses more into headcanon territory than anything.

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

From what i see so far the op does make sense and i agree. Also didnt suika just destroy heavens canopy? Im psure she didnt shatter the entirety of heavens. And yeah the logic of suikas speed feat would make anybody with infinite reality warping infinite speeds.

The Suika thing is just really not clear ngl. The statement indicates complete heaven destruction but also her just destroying the bit over Gensokyo makes more sense. It's not really important here anyway, given how it wouldn't scale to her speed either way.

Also I'll be real the definition provided for the word used in Minamitsu's statement does not seem to be exact. Looking at Wikidctionary, this Kanji can mean a variety of things, from a point on a map to a corner or just a point in general. Most of them don't indicate that this area is at the literal edge of Makai. Just that it's some point in Makai. 一角, the complete expression in the text, doesn't help that either, since in Japanese it really just seems to refer to a point. So I don't think the above definition is too relevant.

We already talked about this on Discord. I'm fine with removing the other two but I'd disagree with the Sanzu River still.

I think your reasoning functions on way too many unknowns and what-ifs compared to a more straightforward solution that is fine. It feels like it crosses more into headcanon territory than anything.

I think the sheer fact that there is some many unknowns is why I wouldn't want to use the feat. The Sanzu river is so weird and unclear in how it functions that saying the River MUST have been at its full infinite width during the feat is too unreliable.

"Massively FTL+, possibly Infinite" is really the best I can do here, if people think it's too ambiguous either way.

 

[Quibster]

I disagree with the OP.

The corridor feats are solid, and using the visuals of the corridor—something explicitly described as Eirin's illusion, designed to trap people in an endless loop—as an anti-feat feels counter-intuitive and based more on incredulity than sound reasoning.

The other arguments don’t convince me either, as they rely on the fallacy of 'we don’t know, so I must be right.' It shifts the burden of proof without providing concrete evidence to support the claims.

OP has also gotten several things wrong about the events of IN and WBaWC, on top of parroting points that have already been debunked in a similar thread.

 

[Kirbonic_Pikmin]

If necessary I will come out of my VSBW hiatus to address this with a response. I’ve had plans for adding other infinite speed feats for the verse for a while now so it’s probably best to address this if it’s not handled. I’m busy atm and need time, however.

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

I disagree with the OP.

The corridor feats are solid, and using the visuals of the corridor—something explicitly described as Eirin's illusion, designed to trap people in an endless loop—as an anti-feat feels counter-intuitive and based more on incredulity than sound reasoning.

The other arguments don’t convince me either, as they rely on the fallacy of 'we don’t know, so I must be right.' It shifts the burden of proof without providing concrete evidence to support the claims.

OP has also gotten several things wrong about the events of IN and WBaWC, on top of parroting points that have already been debunked in a similar thread.

I already addressed the point about Eirin. Even if it's an illusion, it's an illusion with a presence in 3-D space which visibly gets closer to the viewer if they fly into space. This was also an illusion set up to trick the people in Gensokyo specifically, so the illusion being made to very badly mimic perspective for the people going through the infinite corridor (which Eirin hadn't even planned for people to do) makes no sense. The most straightforward explanation for the Moon's behavior is that it's an object that's placed in Gensokyo's sky and that it moved closer to the protagonists as they flew up to it. And thus, the corridor taking the protagonists deep into space infinitely far away from Gensokyo isn't logical.

I also wouldn't put too much weight into the word "illusion" being used for the Fake Moon setting. The corridor is described as an illusion too, but we know it's a physical thing as well due to Miko's statement. This "illusion" also straight up prevents people from leaving the Earth or entering it. So it definitively has some physical compenent to it instead of just being purely an ethereal illusion.



Saying that the burden of proof is on the people claiming that a huge chunk of a verse can move at infinite speeds isn't a fallacy. If you want to make this claim for their speeds, you better have some damn solid argument. And these arguments just aren't that. They are all alternate explanations that are just as likely, if not more so, than the explanation that results in the characters having infinite speed. And tbe ones that don't result in such a gigantic speed jump would by default be more likely in such a situation. Especially for the Corridor and Sanzu feat, where the characters having Infinite speed just breaks an aspect of the setting.

And I will reiterate: I wouldn't be making these sort of claims normally. Inconsistencies regarding stuff like infinity is a thing in fiction, it happens. We ignore those when the feats are explicit and impossible to ignore. But this isn't the case here at all. All of those feats are vague and based on specific interpretations. And if a feat being real or not boils down to which interpretation you think is more likely, the one that doesn't have such major inconistencies shouldn't be the one chosen. If every character involved in a feat do not act as if this is a speed feat in any capacity, maybe it's a sign that it's simply not a speed feat and was not intended as one.

I also really don't care about the fact that these arguments have been debunked in the past. Visibly a lot of the logic used back then does not hold up. And deferring back to old threads each time someone contradicts you isn't a good way to go about doing things.

 

[Shiroiyo]

Sanzu river

To further add to the above, there is also a decent chance that Komachi's statement was exaggerated, since this was basically a pre-fight one-liner about her defending the river from being crossed... which she wouldn't need to do if the river was infinite anyway.

Uhmn, she would have to defend the infinite river regardless if the protags had infinite speed and could just cross it anyway. If anything, this just supports infinite speed.

And just, the general fact that sources like PMiSS and the inhabitants of the river itself consider that still-living people crossing the river is highly improbable. If this many people could cross it, these statements wouldn't make sense.

The statement from PMiSS is about how you can’t swim or boat across because you can’t float in it. It’s “impossible” because flight isn’t something easily accessible to humans of the human village. The only people who live in the river are Eika and Urumi, and neither of them remark on the impossibility of crossing the river. Urumi is just surprised to see a living human in the Sanzu and offers to guide them.

This also ignores the fact that we literally see the feat happen and are told that it happens. These statements, even if 100% real and valid, would just be seen as incorrect juxtaposed against a feat to the contrary, for example we’ve seen this sort of thing before, with Marisa’s “nothing can move faster than light” statement right before she performs a FTL feat.

Komachi's statement is more direct. Upon Marisa trying to cross the river to reach Higan, she is told that the width of the river is infinite for the living. This might seem enough to determine the feat in the later game to be infinite. But there are some issues here. Most notably, the protagonists aren't alone when they cross the Sanzu River. They're all possessed by an animal spirit. The plot of that game revolves around these spirit, who escaped from Hell and explicitly crossed the Sanzu River. Now that means that either every spirit has Infinite speed (which would be ridiculous, since that basically means that anyone can cross the Sanzu river via raw speed) or that the animal spirits get the Sanzu river width reduction effect, like the deads do. While we aren't sure if being possessed by a spirit would mean that the still-living humans get a Sanzu River width reduction, I think it's a better alternative than raw Infinite speed.

Just being possessed wouldn’t be enough to bypass the Sanzu, we don’t really know how possession would affect one’s attempts to cross it, but assuming that it’d instantly negate the river’s infinite width is a baseless claim, I am of the opinion that it wouldn’t change anything because the protagonists are still alive and being possessed by a spirit doesn’t change that.

Also, aaying that the beast spirits had the river’s width reduced for them is ignorant of the plot of the game. The incident is that the spirits are invading the surface, and the Ministry of Right and Wrong is trying to keep things under control, shortening the river to make it easier to cross would run contrary to that goal. They would be assisting a hostile invading force from Hell. It is even noted that Eiki went out of her way to make things more challenging for the protagonists specifically so she could ensure they would be ready for Hell, while Kutaka does say Eiki let them cross, this isn’t about the river, as this dialogue happens after the feat occurs and Kutaka is the gatekeeper of Hell...... she’s talking about Hell.

The river’s reduction isn’t something that happens passively when a soul tries to cross over. They still need to be escorted by a shinigami, who uses their powers to change the river’s width accordingly. We have explicit confirmation that Youmu and Marisa did not seek out a shinigami when crossing, so there would be nobody to adjust the width for them. Thus, they crossed it while it was infinite. Chiyari also crosses the river without aid during UDoALG, and she wasn’t possessed by a spirit at the time, so this argument wouldn't work either.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I think At least Massively FTL+, possibly Infinite via the Sanzu River feat works for me.

 

[TISSG7Redgrave]

After reading this I can see a MFTL+ with possible infinite working out.

 

[Shiroiyo]

The Moon might be an illusion but that doesn't change the fact that it's still physically placed somewhere in the sky and at a finite distance from Earth. The Moon got visibly bigger as they got closer to it (which the characters noted), meaning that it's not some projection infinitely far away. It has a place in 3D space. It also wasn't visible by the Moon people (and seemingly no one in the outside world, since to my knowledge this incident is not noted as having happened in the outside world).

You are claiming it is a finite distance away, but the game tells us it is infinitely far away, because it’s at the end of an infinite and endless corridor made from infinite pieces of space-time and was made using the power to manipulate infinity. The full moon getting “bigger” isn’t a point either, because it’s an illusion. It can’t get bigger or smaller because it’s not real, any perceived changed would be an illusion, since the moon is an illusion. It’s also a bit strange to claim the moon was physically in the sky and isn’t a projection, but 1 - the “real” moon that most people perceive is already a projection on the roof of Heaven, and 2 - It’s an illusion, it’s not physically present anywhere because it’s not real. You are attributing the properties of a tangible object to a magic sky hologram and then trying to use the inconsistencies that crop up as a debunk, unaware that this premise is faulty. And why it didn’t happening in the Outside World would matter? The Outside World isn’t a place you can get to by traveling physically (Marisa already tried that and failed), it’s basically a separate dimension, if you wanna be generous with explanations, you could say that the barrier’s non-euclidean edges are why the feat is possible in the first place.

Heaven is a sort of weird place, but at the end of the day it's still an Otherworld. So it only partially overlaps with reality. I don't think that there is a physically infinitely large object between Earth and the Moon, especially since we know irl astronauts missions happened. Getting to the Lunar Capital is what is so hard, since it's an Otherworld hidden from the world. But failing to go to the capital wouldn't make the Moon infinitely far away from you. It'd just make you land on the dead, irl Moon.

Eirin explains that the reason why the distance is different for humans in the Outside World (or Remilia using rocket science from the Outside World, but same difference) is because they perceive the distance to be finite. This is consistent with many other statements of individual thoughts shaping reality, and although “they just believed it wasn’t infinite” is a bit of a hard pill to swallow, this is a direct statement from the smartest character in the series we are talking about here.

Additionally, the distance that people in the Outside World travel to reach the moon is not relevant to the distance as it exists in Gensokyo. Heaven doesn’t exist in the Outside World, so that intermediary distance present in Gensokyo just… isn’t applicable for people over there.

That's an entirely different scan from the IN events. In IN specifically, Eirin deliberately guides the protagonists through the corridor to lead them to the Fake Moon. At no point does she act like keeping the protagonists wandering forever was her plan, nor we we given a reason to believe that it was indeed her plan. And while it's true that Eirin does not have the ability to end the corridor herself, I didn't mean that Eirin just blew up the corridor once they reached the end. I meant that either Kaguya ended the loop once they got far away (since we know she's involved here) or Kaguya simply made the corridor a certain length for this event. Since, again, this corridor was meant to guide them to the fake Moon. The scan you provided is after the events of IN (when Eitentei became exposed to the outside world a bit more) and doesn't relate to how they used it in this specific incident.

It being a different scan from IN isn’t relevant. It’s still pertaining to the corridor. You don’t seem to have an issue with using the statements from ULiL, dunno why this one would be a problem. In any case, that’s still not a contradiction... Eirin can lead them away from Kaguya and still force them to wander forever in an infinite corridor, since both of these things are closely related (by trapping them in the corridor or at the end of it, they never would have found Kaguya). They are not mutually exclusive.

Kaguya could have dispelled the corridor, but the problem is that she doesn’t. This event never happens, she never has a reason to do it (she’s still hidden away and trying to hide her existence at this point), and no callbacks to this incident mention Kaguya dispelling the corridor. Where are you getting this from?

The idea that she set it to be a certain, finite length... is just wrong. We are told precisely how long the corridor is on numerous occasions, and every source says it’s infinitely long. Why would you try to assume the length is somehow different when we are explicitly told what the length is?

You also didn’t respond to the scan of Eirin mocking Reimu and Yukari’s perceived inability to get home. Why would she say that if the corridor was finite, or dispelled, or otherwise a non-factor?

Neither of those scans are relevant. Kaguya being surprised at how strong the heroes are and Eirin being surprised that the youkai got involved doesn't change the fact that at no point during the A Path does she act as if the protagonists making it through the corridor was unexpected. And in each scenario, she says that guiding them to the Fake Moon was her goal. Your interpretation of Eirin both expecting the infinite corridor to work and for it to not work at the same time isn't really supported.

The plan “didn’t work” in the sense that the protagonists reached the end. The plan “did work” in the sense that they didn’t find Kaguya and had to go home empty-handed. That’s still a W for Eirin, even if it is not really what she or Kaguya set out to do, It is also why she doesn’t express frustration at the plan not working flawlessly. The point remains that Kaguya and Eirin are blissfully unaware of what the protagonists are capable of, I missed this in my first reply, but the omake.txt also mentions this. Of course they are going to think an infinite corridor is enough to stop the protagonists when they think the protagonists are incompetent (and are swiftly proven wrong). That aside, their lack of surprise isn’t really an anti-feat? The feat obviously happened, even if the characters’ reactions aren’t super explicit about just how insane the feat is in practice. Mind you, nobody reacted on Marisa saying “nothing can move faster than light” right before both she and Yorihime move faster than light, a character’s reaction (or lack thereof) is not evidence against a feat.

Also Suika's feat is an Attack Speed feat. It's not exactly different from other characters doing High 3-A feats. It doesn't inherently scale to their actual speed stats.

Suika’s attack speed is infinite and people can dodge her attacks. That is infinite speed.

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

Uhmn, she would have to defend the infinite river regardless if the protags had infinite speed and could just cross it anyway. If anything, this just supports infinite speed.

...Then why would she treat the river being infinite as being a signficiant obstacle to the protagonists? You don't go "YOU SHALL NOT PASS, THIS RIVER IS INFINITE FOR YOU!" if everyone and their mother has infinite speed and it would just be slightly annoying. The infinite speed argument relies on this statement being 100% truthful yet also a meaningless threat at the same time, if it's so easy to bypass.

And yes, the feat does happen. But I'm saying that it's due to outside factors. Mostly, the presence of the Animal Spirit making the crossing of the river possible. Me pointing out how hard it is to traverse is just saying that normal humans aren't expected to be able to do it.

I'm also not arguing that the spirit possessing them makes the protagonists dead. Just that the width of the river simply adjusts to be non-infinite to let the Animal Spirit pass, since it's actually elligible for crossing. And the protagonists are just... kinda there for the ride.

I did say before that we don't know if the width adjusting applies to people just crossing over without a Shinigami. But I think that if we say it only applies with a ferry, then the river's width shouldn't be infinite. In Komachi's PoFV profile:

"Komachi always demands those she guides to pay all the money they have, and anyone who hesitates to pay the full sum is dropped into the river midway through the journey. The river is made infinitely wide, and the unfortunate spirit is soon consumed by huge fishes and water dragon which were extinct in world of the living."

It's described that Komachi only makes the river infinite if the person doesn't pay up. This seems to imply that the river is not infinite by default. It's only made infinite to block off people who can't pay. We don't really have any reason to assume the river being infinite is a default that would apply to people who do not cross.

And no, I don't think it's sane to assume the Yama made the river infinite. If she did, then it means that every single Animal Spirit crossed the river at infinite speed. Which means that.... basically any dead soul can cross the river with raw speed. Which would entirely destroy the point of this system to begin with. It's also just not in the Yama's power set to do that at a whim, since Distance manipulation is specifically Komachi's ability.

You are claiming it is a finite distance away, but the game tells us it is infinitely far away, because it’s at the end of an infinite and endless corridor made from infinite pieces of space-time and was made using the power to manipulate infinity. The full moon getting “bigger” isn’t a point either, because it’s an illusion. It can’t get bigger or smaller because it’s not real, any perceived changed would be an illusion, since the moon is an illusion. It’s also a bit strange to claim the moon was physically in the sky and isn’t a projection, but 1 - the “real” moon that most people perceive is already a projection on the roof of Heaven, and 2 - It’s an illusion, it’s not physically present anywhere because it’s not real. You are attributing the properties of a tangible object to a magic sky hologram and then trying to use the inconsistencies that crop up as a debunk, unaware that this premise is faulty. And why it didn’t happening in the Outside World would matter? The Outside World isn’t a place you can get to by traveling physically (Marisa already tried that and failed), it’s basically a separate dimension, if you wanna be generous with explanations, you could say that the barrier’s non-euclidean edges are why the feat is possible in the first place.

Yeah you can't just shrug everything off under the pretense of "it's an illusion". I already said that the infinite corridor was, itself, called an illusion. But it's obviously a real thing, it's just illusory because it's using spatial trickery to make it seem longer than it actually is. The Fake Moon being an illusion doesn't mean it's some etheral mind thing that can do whatever it wants. At the end of the day, it was still an illusion meant to trick people on the ground. If the protagonists flying up to this fake Moon noticed it getting closer, it means that it exists somewhere in physical space and they got closer to it. Any other explanation for this behavior is overt speculation to excuse the fact that this fake Moon is not compatible with an actually infinite corridor here.

You can't apply random properties to it (like saying it adjusts its size by an arbitrary yet finite amount when people get infinitely closer to it) without proper explanation, when the interpretation of "this is an illusion which has been placed above the sky of Gensokyo and it's thus affected by basic perspective" explains these properties a lot more straightforwardly and consistently.

It not happening in the Outside World is important, because if the Moon is visible from Gensokyo despite being infinitely far away, it would be visible in the Outside World. As despite Gensokyo and the Outside World being separate world, the are physically continous and possess the same sky (as Gensokyo is not, in fact, infinite, and its boundaries are clearly potrayed as being dome-like in the images we have of it). As it turns out, a giant fake moon in the sky that's infinitely far away yet still noticeable would be seen by practically everyone.

Eirin explains that the reason why the distance is different for humans in the Outside World (or Remilia using rocket science from the Outside World, but same difference) is because they perceive the distance to be finite. This is consistent with many other statements of individual thoughts shaping reality, and although “they just believed it wasn’t infinite” is a bit of a hard pill to swallow, this is a direct statement from the smartest character in the series we are talking about here.

That very scan you provided give us a very much finite distance between the Earth and Moon from the Lunarians themselves. So I'm not exactly sure why you'd argue that it's actualy infinite when the lunarians built an infinite corridor towards there. That statement also rather explicit applies to trying to reach the Lunar Capital. They note that their ways of travel is for the Lunar Capital, not "the moon the outside world reached". So this wouldn't apply to the celestial body itself. Which is what we care about here. And like I said before, there is no special Moon in Gensokyo only. Gensokyo is still just a spot on the Earth that's separated from the Outside World, the physical Moon itself wouldn't be different. So the distance wouldn't be necessarily different either, it's just that people trying to reach the Moon in Gensokyo really just want to get to the Lunar Capital. And by that metric, the Lunar Capital is even less far away from Gensokyo as our Moon is far away.

It being a different scan from IN isn’t relevant. It’s still pertaining to the corridor. You don’t seem to have an issue with using the statements from ULiL, dunno why this one would be a problem. In any case, that’s still not a contradiction... Eirin can lead them away from Kaguya and still force them to wander forever in an infinite corridor, since both of these things are closely related (by trapping them in the corridor or at the end of it, they never would have found Kaguya). They are not mutually exclusive.

It's not even exactly the same corridor though. Both serve distinct purposes, they just use the same spell. In IN it's used to lead the protagonists to this fake Moon. In ULiL, it's used to keep people away from Kaguya. They use the same function (hence why I don't mind using the ULiL statements, since they refer to that), but they lead in different places and serve different purposes. One leads away from Kaguya as a distraction, the other is meant to be an impassable barrier. And as it turns out, the protagonists only travel through the one that's meant to be a Distraction and not an impassable barrier. Almost like it's not meant to be an infinite corridor that traps you forever.

I say it's different from what's stated because what is stated is clearly not true. The whole Moon stuff I already mentioned, where an infinite corridr requires many hoops and jumps to make fit. But just the fact that the protagonists only see it as a "long corridor" that eventually ends puts a damper on things. I'm going to be real, I think that Eirin in IN calling it endless is just hyperbole. She's referencing its looping and seemingly never-ending nature and the fact that it's made with Kaguya's powers. But the fact that NONE of the protagonists in IN actually call it endless and instead only refer to it as a long corridor that explicitly ends, to me, strongly indicates that Eirin's wording is not literal.

This corridor is simply put under a spell that artifically lengthens it to a desired length. It can be made endless to drive people away, or it can be made to end at some point to drop the travellers elsewhere. It was only travelled through when its intended use was to trap the protagonists elsewhere, and this is absolutely not treated as a speed feat. So we shouldn't treat it as one either.

I'm also not sure why you want me to acknowledge that Eirin statement. If the protagonists have infinite speed, the corridor is trivial either way. So they wouldn't be trapped here. The corridor being finite doesn't change the issue, since they could just go back anyway. I'm not sure what that statement is even supposed to mean, especially with Yukari around. Maybe they're just stuck between the fake Moon and fake Earth and thus can't go back to either. It doesn't matter either way, since both finite and infinite ends don't solve this.

The plan “didn’t work” in the sense that the protagonists reached the end.

Do you have any proof regarding this? I will reiterate that nothing in what Eirin says or does indicates that this was unplanned. Absolutely nothing. This is pure conjecture. Eirin expresses satisfaction at the protagonists following her, and she expresses satisfaction when they realize they've been duped. You saying she was secretely expecting them to stay trapped has no basis whatsoever. Of course her not having a reaction doesn't make the feat not happen. But it does mean that the protagonists reaching the end was within expected parameters. And if "these random humans we underestimated" being able to cross infinite distances is within expected normal parameters... Then why still bother putting up the corridor to prevent people from reaching your princess, as is the case in ULiL? If you think that infinite speed is that widespread, this spell as a strictly defensive tool as opposed to a distraction tool is useless. But it clearly isn't useless, if they keep employing it.

Suika’s attack speed is infinite and people can dodge her attacks. That is infinite speed.

Boy that's absolutely not how it works. We wouldn't assume that she'd use her highest speed possible in a Spell Card fight. But on top of that, the speed of her sparseness abilities are not constant in the game. She can control the speed at which things disperse. So we have really no reasons to assume she uses her maximum infinite speed dispersing in her fights we do see. We'd need rather explicit proof that Suika is either doing the same feat or going 100% all out with her dispersion ability spefifically.

 

[Quibster]

The Infinite Corridor

Even if it's an illusion, it's an illusion with a presence in 3-D space which visibly gets closer to the viewer if they fly into space. This was also an illusion set up to trick the people in Gensokyo specifically, so the illusion being made to very badly mimic perspective for the people going through the infinite corridor (which Eirin hadn't even planned for people to do) makes no sense.

Now once again I will not debate this corridor being infinite. This seems rather explicit with the scans from Miko provided. But what I will debate is that the corridor is always infinite and thus that the version the protagonists travelled through in Imperishable Night was in fact infinite. I think the most obvious argument here is that, no. The corridor is visually and logically not infinite

This is an incredibly reductive interpretation of what Eirin's illusion actually does. The illusion is explicitly designed to confuse and trap those traversing it in an endless loop; Kaguya outright states this. Just because the illusion seems to occupy 3D space or appears to "get closer" doesn’t mean it adheres to a finite distance. That’s the point of an illusion—it distorts reality, including perception of space. And claiming this as proof that the illusion is physical is like insisting a mirage is real because it looks like water from a distance. It’s a fundamentally flawed take.

Applying normal logic to what is already, deliberately meant to break those rules shows a clear disconnect in OP's understanding of how Eiren's Illusion works here. And arguing that the corridor’s nature doesn’t make sense because it distorts perspective ignores that this is the entire point of the illusion. You cannot debunk something specifically designed to defy your interpretation of space, by using that very interpretation.

The most straightforward explanation for the Moon's behavior is that it's an object that's placed in Gensokyo's sky and that it moved closer to the protagonists as they flew up to it.

I honestly have no idea how OP arrived at this conclusion.

Firstly, the end of the Corridor is not, at all, real outer space. They are also not taken to outer space at the end of the Corridor. Is the entire starry sky real? Is the nebula we see real? How about the several light-years of visible universe we see? No, because it's part of an Illusion with which they are within. Eiren is not physically creating these, she's casting an illusion and even makes that distinction frequently enough to where it holds more weight.

It's also named a "false moon" for a reason—it’s not a literal object sitting in the sky waiting to be approached, nor is the false moon ever "moved closer". Eiren, the one in control of the spell, also does not deliberately do that at any point in IN, so where is OP getting this from?

The final stage also does NOT take place in outer space, they are explitictly located between the false moon and Earth. The game even makes a firm distinction across the protagonist' team stories;

Secondly, In LoLK, we're explicitly told that the characters cannot survive in outer space, so them being in real outer space makes astronomically less sense, because they would just die; After defeating Clownpiece, Sanae urges her to remain on the Moon because the fairies are maintaining a breathable atmosphere there. Sanae even admits that she’s only alive due to this atmosphere created by the fairies and would die otherwise.. Junko's entire plan was to use the fairies to cover the moon in Impurity, turning it into a Planet, just to lure Chang'e out and kill her, according to the LoLK Omake. Do I even need to mention that Eiren's spell keeps them confined to the Earth too? Why the hell would they be in outer space, if not because of an illusion fabricating it?

Finally, nowhere in IN or any other source material is there mention of the False Moon being a real, physical celestial object. Both the sky and the moon are called false by Yuyuko and Eiren, so the claim that the Fake Moon and all of it's other illusory details are real (in the sense that they are tangible) has no actual basis. Eiren, the one who cast the spell, even verifies the moon as an Illusion, blatantly, numerous times, alongside other characters;

OP's entire argument here collapses under the weight of its own misunderstanding. Eirin explicitly cast a spell to remove the true moon and replace it with a fake, illusory one (even the sky) which is part of a spell to prevent the Lunarians from reaching Kaguya. This is also despite the Hakurei Border already preventing the Lunarians from reaching the Earth anyways, according to Yukari. There are also multiple instances of characters outright stating that the moon they see both A) isn’t real and B) an illusion. This is not up for interpretation—it’s a point the narrative makes multiple times. Even the protagonists figure out this out.

This idea that it’s some physical object "placed" in the sky and "moved closer for the protagonists" is also completely fabricated. There’s nothing in IN stating or even suggesting that Eirin physically conjured up another real, tangible celestial body, let alone it "moving closer" to them. And if OP wants to push that narrative, OP needs to provide scans to support it, because OP's interpretation is not at all congruent to what we are directly told in-game. The game repeatedly tells us the false moon is part of an illusion, and Remilia even remarks that they got closer to the False Moon—not the other way around.

Frankly, these may be the most baseless claims OP has made in this entire CRT. It’s already exhausting to sift through arguments that are either narratively false, based solely on visual evidence, or rooted in personal suspicion and doubt—especially when OP overlooks what's plainly stated in the source material.

I also wouldn't put too much weight into the word "illusion" being used for the Fake Moon setting. The corridor is described as an illusion too, but we know it's a physical thing as well due to Miko's statement. This "illusion" also straight up prevents people from leaving the Earth or entering it. So it definitively has some physical compenent to it instead of just being purely an ethereal illusion.

Both the Illusion and the Sealing operate through the same spell. We’re told that the False Moon is part of the same spell that seals off the Earth from Lunarian emissaries, so whether or not there’s a physical component is irrelevant. The sealing aspect of the spell is described as, “The Earth has become a gigantic sealed chamber,” verbatim, not “The Earth is surrounded by a gigantic sealed chamber.”

As for the idea of a physical barrier, we have no confirmation that there is a tangible, touchable barrier involved. Gensokyo already exists within a non-euclidean border that protects it from the Lunarians. Given this, it’s hard to argue in good faith for anything beyond that. Evidence suggests the seal might function similarly to the infinite corridor, where no matter how far you travel, you will never reach the Moon. Anything beyond this feels speculative and lacking in substance.

In IN specifically, Eirin deliberately guides the protagonists through the corridor to lead them to the Fake Moon. At no point does she act like keeping the protagonists wandering forever was her plan, nor we we given a reason to believe that it was indeed her plan.

Rather, it was simply the spell being cancelled once the protagonists were put where Eirin wanted them to be.

This is also not true mainly because the illusion isn't cancelled and still active. Eiren very explicitly questions how they plan to get out of the illusion, directly after they reach the end of the corridor. Eiren's objective is to keep them from reaching Kaguya; so why wouldn't she want to keep them wandering forever in her illusion, if not because that's what is was created to do?

---

I have more to cover here, but I am largely in disagreement with everything presented.

Edit: fixed links

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

This is an incredibly reductive interpretation of what Eirin's illusion actually does. The illusion is explicitly designed to confuse and trap those traversing it in an endless loop; Kaguya outright states this. Just because the illusion seems to occupy 3D space or appears to "get closer" doesn’t mean it adheres to a finite distance. That’s the point of an illusion—it distorts reality, including perception of space. And claiming this as proof that the illusion is physical is like insisting a mirage is real because it looks like water from a distance. It’s a fundamentally flawed take.

? That's a scan entirely unrelated to the Fake Moon. Kaguya's eternity power being used to make Eientei hard to get into is most likely just the infinite corridor. Like, that's what this scan is being used for right now. To justify the infinite corridor. Why are you using it to explain the Fake Moon, an entirely different spell?

Your entire rest of your post is just you insisting really hard that the Moon is not physical. But that's not my point. My point is that, if the protagonists flying closer to it made it look bigger to them, it means that it's obeying the basic rules of perspective. So it means only one of two things:

-This illusion is placed in the sky above Gensokyo like a static hologram. Thus the protagonists could fly closer to it and see it from up close, but they'd still be in Earth's atmosphere.

-It's an illiusion that doesn't necessarily have a fixed spot in 3-D space, but which changes how it appears to people depending on where they are. So someone closer up to the sky would see it as bigger because it imitates how one would see the real moon.

Either way, even if it's not a physical object, it's still built to be able to be confused for the real moon by observers. And this visibly includes the basic concept of "objects look bigger when you get close to them". So the fact that the protagonists at the end of the corridor only saw the Moon get a bit closer to them can only mean that their travel was finite. Since, regardless of which one of the two options you pick, this wouldn't have happened.


Again, I was not implying that the fake Moon is a literal rock in the sky. Just that if it can physically prevent travel to the Moon, then it's more than just a purely visual spell. Something has been changed up there to make travel impossible. And so excusing off any weird behavior as the Moon just being a purely visual anomaly doesn't work.

Your entire post relies on trying to debunk the fake moon being touchable when that's completely irrelevant to my point. This fake Moon acts as an object subject to perspectives depending on how far away from it you are. And from this, we can plainly see that the protagonists moved an existent yet finite distance towards the Moon.

This is also not true mainly because the illusion isn't cancelled and still active. Eiren very explicitly questions how they plan to get out of the illusion, directly after they reach the end of the corridor. Eiren's objective is to keep them from reaching Kaguya; so why wouldn't she want to keep them wandering forever in her illusion, if not because that's what is was created to do?

The illusion in question being the fake Moon area. This infinite corridor wasn't really in the discussion beyond it being used to lead the protagonists to the Fake Moon. The infinite corridor being ended prematurely would not change their situation. And do I have to reiterate what I said before? If you give the girls infinite speed, then this infinite corridor is a non-issue. Whether the spell is active or not, the protagonists would be able to easily go back if they do in fact have infinite speed. You guys can't keep doing this, acting as if the infinite Sanzu River and the infinite corridor can be useful barriers when you argue that anyone worth their salt can bypass those with raw speed.

 

[RethPo]

The main gripe i have about the corridor is that it is done via infinite looping an initially finite space rather than an actual infinite space.

If you have an infinite loop and you escape it, thats more of a feat of breaking out of it or having a resistance than it is somehow reaching an end of something like that. accelerating infinitely is a massive stretch

thats assuming they were in an actual loop. Nothing in that scene really implied they were seeing the same space repeat itself. And the moon was heavily implied to be a hologram in the sky and not an optical illusion that makes it appear closer. The whole thing seems to rely on assuming kaguyas ability is always used for the exact same thing.

Same with sansu river. Unless theres a direct statement for the river and corridor being infinite in those very scenes then they really cant warrant anything more than a possibly rating at best

not to mention the entire game is an anti feat where characters are bound by time constraints despite infinite speed but that seems to get ignored anyway.

 

[Robo432343]

not to mention the entire game is an anti feat where characters are bound by time constraints despite infinite speed but that seems to get ignored anyway.

thats a game mechanic thing
even sonic has that

 

[RethPo]

thats a game mechanic thing

Fair enough if bad ends and affecting the story dont change that argument by wiki standards. But all ill say is that the series does tend to treat ftl as a big deal a lot (light attacks, marisas ms being lightspeed, watatsuki sisters being ftl deflecting that, sakuya ftl statement, interstellar travel etc). Mftl is pretty consistent compared to whats seen of infinite. And like i said, if the infinite feats are built on "this is probably the case", it should be either discarded or at best warrant possibly being generous.

 

[RanHover60]

not to mention the entire game is an anti feat where characters are bound by time constraints despite infinite speed but that seems to get ignored anyway.

Guess we’re going to have to downgrade every infinite and immeasurable speed verse that has had a time frame mentioned before because they can’t be consistent and they’re obviously not outliers

 

[Jinsye]

Guess we’re going to have to downgrade every infinite and immeasurable speed verse that has had a time frame mentioned before because they can’t be consistent and they’re obviously not outliers

This is not something I'd be opposed to tbh

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

Guess we’re going to have to downgrade every infinite and immeasurable speed verse that has had a time frame mentioned before because they can’t be consistent and they’re obviously not outliers

It can in fact be taken as an antifeat for these ratings. It just depends how consistent they are.

 

[Armorchompy]

Saikou makes sense to me

 

[Quibster]

Responding, please be patient.

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

I think At least Massively FTL+, possibly Infinite via the Sanzu River feat works for me.

This makes sense to me. I don't think the arguments against Infinite speed are strong enough to dismiss the possibility entirely.

 

[Quibster]

? That's a scan entirely unrelated to the Fake Moon. Kaguya's eternity power being used to make Eientei hard to get into is most likely just the infinite corridor. Like, that's what this scan is being used for right now. Why are you using it to explain the Fake Moon, an entirely different spell?

Your entire rest of your post is just you insisting really hard that the Moon is not physical. But that's not my point. My point is that, if the protagonists flying closer to it made it look bigger to them, it means that it's obeying the basic rules of perspective.

Where in my initial argument did I claim that Kaguya's scan is specifically linked to the False Moon? Treating this as a silver bullet to claim that one part of my argument represents the whole is nothing short of a classic strawman. My actual point was that Kaguya's statement corroborates the nature of Eientei's corridors as infinite, not that her corridors are somehow connected to the False Moon created by Eirin's illusion. This is a crucial distinction that pertains specifically to Eirin's spell, not Kaguya's abilities.

Eirin’s corridor is described as an illusion produced by the False Moon, and she even states that is direct result of her (Eiren's) spell. In contrast, Kaguya's corridors stem from ability to manipulate Eternity and the Instantaneous. Yet OP has bizarrely interpreted my argument as if Kaguya's corridor relies on the False Moon, which is a gross misrepresentation of my actual position here.

OP is also ignoring the critical fact that Eirin only employs this spell during Imperishable Night, while the manga scan occurs afterward to explain Eientei's infinite corridor traps are maintained by Kaguya after IN; which is described in ULiL as "a power that infinitely links miniscule gaps in space-time together";

I do feel like OP is framing my argument misleadingly to fit their narrative, likely in an attempt to obfuscate the discussion and confuse others. They've already introduced several verifiably false points that they have seemingly dropped after my debunks in my previous post, and further it raises my suspicions of whether these arguments are being made in good faith at all.

Either way, even if it's not a physical object, it's still built to be able to be confused for the real moon by observers. And this visibly includes the basic concept of "objects look bigger when you get close to them". So the fact that the protagonists at the end of the corridor only saw the Moon get a bit closer to them can only mean that their travel was finite. Since, regardless of which one of the two options you pick, this wouldn't have happened.

The moon didn’t get "a bit closer." Again, the Scarlet Team explicitly says they are "closer to it," after reaching the end of Eiren's Corridor; not that they saw the moon "get a bit closer," which is further supported by Remilia's statement. OP's argument here is yet another contrived interpretation, unsupported by the actual dialogue.

There is even a BAiJR article on Eientei that says; "You cannot tell if it's day or night, or if your friend is present or absent". Eientei explicitly screws with people's perception of space and your surroundings;

Again, I was not implying that the fake Moon is a literal rock in the sky. Just that if it can physically prevent travel to the Moon, then it's more than just a purely visual spell. Something has been changed up there to make travel impossible. And so excusing off any weird behavior as the Moon just being a purely visual anomaly doesn't work.

This argument is also redundant and speculative. Are illusions not inherently anomalies and visual in nature? Speculating that the False Moon might "physically prevent travel" is weak when the mechanics of the spell are clearly laid out: both the false moon and the sealed chamber effect stem from the same spell. Eirin directly states that the Earth itself is now a massive sealed chamber because of the spell; not that the False Moon itself acts as a physical barrier to travel.

Your entire post relies on trying to debunk the fake moon being touchable when that's completely irrelevant to my point. This fake Moon acts as an object subject to perspectives depending on how far away from it you are. And from this, we can plainly see that the protagonists moved an existent yet finite distance towards the Moon.

Moving down an illusory corridor toward an illusory moon, within an illusionary space, all designed specifically to trap someone in a blatantly described; endless, eternal corridor, does not prove that finite distance was needed to cross the infinite corridor.

The illusion in question being the fake Moon area. This infinite corridor wasn't really in the discussion beyond it being used to lead the protagonists to the Fake Moon.

Yet another made up claim not backed by source material. No, they are led to a distinct space called "the place between the False Moon and Earth"; they are not led strictly to False Moon. And they are still within Eiren's illusion, which also consists of the False Moon, False Corridor, False Stars, False Sky which are all verified as part of the same illusory spell. OP keeps seperating the components of the very spell that Eiren does all of this through.

The infinite corridor being ended prematurely would not change their situation. And do I have to reiterate what I said before? If you give the girls infinite speed, then this infinite corridor is a non-issue. Whether the spell is active or not, the protagonists would be able to easily go back if they do in fact have infinite speed.

Eiren's Illusion did not end. This is yet another baseless assumption derived solely using visual evidence of the Infinite Corridor having been crossed equating to escaping the overall illusion, over textual claims that crucially detail how Eiren's Infinite Corridor functions. Eiren's Corridor repeatedly described to be part of an illusion produced by the False Moon; said Illusion still trapping the protagonists by the time they reach Eiren at the end of the Corridor. It's further supported by Eiren questioning how they can return home.

You guys can't keep doing this, acting as if the infinite Sanzu River and the infinite corridor can be useful barriers when you argue that anyone worth their salt can bypass those with raw speed.

Infinite distance is a pretty effective deterrent for anyone; which is pretty much the whole of Gensokyo in both those mentioned cases.

---

After reading this I can see a MFTL+ with possible infinite working out.

I will point that "a small corner of X/Y/Z" more often just means a small part of a larger whole in written language than like, a literal actual corner. That would require actual further elaboration as to being the case.

I think At least Massively FTL+, possibly Infinite via the Sanzu River feat works for me.

Saikou makes sense to me

It can in fact be taken as an antifeat for these ratings. It just depends how consistent they are.

You guys are very busy, and I appreciate the thread having got some attention. Is it at all possible to take some time to explain your takes on Scaling and consistency here? I have a lot of reason to believe OP is spreading actual misinformation to push this through.

 

[Kirbonic_Pikmin]

It seems like it’ll be necessary so I’ll make a big post in regards to this later tonight likely.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

You guys are very busy, and I appreciate the thread having got some attention. Is it at all possible to take some time to explain your takes on Scaling and consistency here? I have a lot of reason to believe OP is spreading actual misinformation to push this through.

I have none.

 

[Quibster]

The main gripe i have about the corridor is that it is done via infinite looping an initially finite space rather than an actual infinite space.

The corridor is never described as an "infinite loop." It’s called an “infinite trap,” an “eternal corridor,” and an “endless corridor,” but nowhere does it imply a looping structure. A loop would inherently suggest a finite distance within a closed space, but that’s not the case here—the feat emphasizes endless distance. This is a common misconception about the Corridor, so I don't blame you.

Edit: Looking back, it is a bit funny that I referred to this a "loop" in some segments of my prior posts, however upon doing further research, the corridor is nowhere described or implied to have a looping structure in scans I've provided. Awkward mistake on my part.

 

[RethPo]

Kaguyas profile does say "Created an infinite corridor which is composed by infinitely linking gaps in space-time together" and i remember a scan saying exactly that too which... could be taken as an infinite loop?

 

[RethPo]

Also just to add to the op. If were going with mftl possibly infinite, seiran and ringo would scale to rei'sen as well because moon bunny.
I will agree currently with anybody below that being ftl possibly mftl