The Dream Stone and the Power of Dreams
Let’s take a look at why the Dream Stone is 2-B to begin with. For a long time, it’s been presumed that the Dream Stone contains every good dream in existence, while the Dark Stone does the same for nightmares. Looking at the
english translation reveals how strange this assumption is, though - The Dream Stone is merely “formed of good dreams”, while the Dark Stone is “a solid manifestation of nightmares”. Obviously, being formed of something doesn’t mean you are composed of every single instance of that thing in existence, so it’s impossible to tell how many dreams the Dream Stone actually contains. Being a manifestation of something is even more vague, since that doesn’t even imply that you’re made of that thing. So already, there’s not much reason to assume these stones scale to the entire cosmology.
But what about the Japanese version? As has been discussed in prior threads, the
Japanese version of Dream Team merely uses “the power of dreams/nightmares” to describe the stones. It’s unclear how this would even translate to multiversal levels of power, since there’s no indication of the stones even scaling to every dream in existence. In addition, the power of dreams wouldn’t even necessarily be raw AP either, since Bowser simply wanted to use that power to grant his wishes and make the Mario Bros disappear, so it seems more akin to reality warping than anything (
he mostly uses it for summoning in the actual boss fight, anyways). That aside, merely possessing “the power of” something doesn’t directly scale you to it, as it’s quite common for a character to boast about having “the power of the sun” or something similar without being scaled to 4-C (or higher).
There’s one particularly egregious counterpoint to the Dream Stone scaling to every dream in existence though, and that’s the
Dreambeats. This was used to force everyone on Pil’lo Island to fall asleep, so the Dream Stone could absorb the power of their dreams. The question is, if the Dream Stone already contains those dreams, then why the hell does it need to absorb them from other sources?
TL;DR: Neither translation proves the Dream Stones contain every dream, and the original text doesn’t even imply scaling to a single dream. The Dream Stone containing every dream is also contradicted by the narrative.
While I voiced being fine with them being downgraded from 2-B, and being made from dreams or nightmares doesn't mean it contains the dream universes yeah. However, Antasima has feats being brought up about eating a nightmare and devouring dimensions which could be interpreted as Low 2-C.
The Number of Dreams is Massively Inflated
Let’s look at
this calc from the 2-B upgrade thread. While I’ll go over the fine details individually, the idea is that there are at least 52 Pi'illo citizens dreaming once a night for an average of 32 years (including leap years), which is over a hundred thousand dreams even when lowballed.
First and foremost, there’s no indication that every time someone sleeps, they generate an entirely new dream. What exactly is supposed to prove that one night of sleep equals a new dream? Without that evidence, it’s safer to assume that people just enter the same dream world over and over again. This already nukes the majority of total dreams there are in existence, bumping it down to 52 at most (at least for Pi'illo Island). While there were past populations inhabiting the island, we have no indication of how many people that is, and since only 52 people are actively contributing to the dream total in modern times, it’s unreasonable to say that other, similar civilizations would have over 1000.
Even then, the Dream Stone, as well as most things that’d scale to the full cosmology, came well before most of these dreams were even created. They’d only scale to the total of dreams that existed in their time, which would be far less. So even if the modern population of Pi'illo Island was well over 1000, that wouldn’t mean much, since the Dream Stone, at least at the point of its formation, wouldn’t scale.
Actually, the statement comes from a source from Mario Party 5 where it states, "Entirely new dream worlds are born every day" for the Dream Depot. Then there is consistency that falling asleep creates dreams. The "Many dreams arrive here at Dream Depot every day," statement basically hints that not only is it constantly expanding every day, but that a lot of worlds are being born ever day.
Furthermore, there's also the fact that even ghosts have dreams, even people in the afterlife have dreams, and even Bowser's internal body parts, atoms, and molecules fall asleep and have dreams.
But are Dreams Really Universes?
Now let’s get this clear: Future Dream, from Mario Party 5,
is clearly stated to be a universe. The issue with dreams in general being universes stems from whether or not these dreams would actually scale to Future Dream’s scope. As stated multiple times, Future Dream is specifically a dream of the universe, which of course confirms its universal size. But this also implies that the only reason it's universal in size is because it’s, well, a dream of the universe. So with that in mind, why would dreams of things that aren’t universes scale to a dream of the universe?
Dreams are also shown to contain celestial bodies like stars and nebulae (shown in the same scans above). This is notable, but we typically don’t consider this universal without further evidence. At best, it ranges from 4-A to 3-C. Same goes for dreams containing “dimensions”; No context is provided that’d make these dimensions higher than what they’ve visibly shown (which is not universal). Put simply, the average dream in Mario doesn’t meet
our criteria for universes, even if some dreams do.
Now, I know what the inevitable counterargument is: Dream Depot, also from MP5, which
showcases these dreams as small orbs, all comparable in size to one another, spinning around in some kind of void. Under the typical universe requirements, this would allow other dreams to scale to its size. There’s just one problem, though: As shown in this same cutscene, if you watch closely you can actually see various maps represented multiple times by different dreams (eg; Future Dream is shown in one dream, and then another, and another still). We know these are individual dreams, but as shown in the ending, they’re all “split” into multiple smaller chunks, and THAT’S what the Dream Depot stores. So even if Future Dream is a universe… well, it’s a universe divided into a number of small pieces, which isn’t universal at all, which means no dream would be a universe.
TL;DR: Nothing scales to Future Dream’s universal size, and Future Dream wouldn’t even be universal by virtue of being split into several, smaller dreams.
Yeah, this is where I'm also going to have to disagree. I believe the most important part in the universe sized dimensions guidelines is this.
- If there is shown to be a collection of multiple alternate worlds/dimensions that are either stated to be parallel and/or there are visual depictions resembling each of those worlds/dimensions to be metaphorically similar to each other (Such as bubbles or other structures that appear similar in size), and most importantly, at least one of those individual worlds/dimensions has shown enough evidence to consider them a Universe level+ sized spacetime continuum, then the conclusion is to consider all of those individual worlds/dimensions universes and that the entire collection is a multiverse.
Not only have you yourself admitted Future Dream specifically meats criteria alone, but it is also parallel with every other dream where there is a whole bunch. The ending credits really only has the camera focused on a small circle each of the Dream Worlds. It may only be zooming on 8 specific worlds and seeing Future Dream multiple times just means it's sharing the same orb. Not multiple orbs that each only show a small portion of Future Dream. Otherwise, it would be Dream Worlds contain multiple bodies of space and would be bigger than Low 2-C. And even if you'd want to go that route, I'd argue there are just many Future Dreams period which would still be consistent measure on them being universes. Also, plenty of Dream Worlds besides Future Dream have starry skies, realistic nebulae, and astronomic events. Subcon, and it's parallel universe known as
Subspace are also shown to have starry skies in the SNES version of SMB2. Future Dream cannot be single outed as infinitely bigger than the other Dream Worlds put together. And even so, a fraction of Infinite would still be Infinity. Not to mention plenty other dreams still take you to minigames that take place in Outer Space, so Sweet Dreams and Toy Dreams still have outer spaces too.
But still, all of those orbs are just parallel worlds to Future Dream which is a Universe, so all of them being Universes is most consistent.
Nobody in Super Paper Mario Knows What the Dream Stone or Dream Depot is
So nobody in mainline Mario scales to every dream in existence, that much is clear. But there’s still some argumentation for cosmology wiping to be had, stemming from the Void in SPM being stated to destroy everything in existence. This worked reasonably well until recently, where it was decided to
split Paper Mario from mainline Mario, primarily based off of the existence of Paper Jam, where the Paper Mario games are just stored in a book and are shown to have never had any contact with the main series in this context.
So with that being said, when characters in SPM are referring to how the Void will destroy everything… why would they be referring to locations that nobody in that verse knows exists? The book that Paper Mario exists in has been gathering dust on a shelf for years on end, to the point where older characters like Kamek
regard its existence as a mere legend. Obviously, this lack of contact would go both ways, so characters in SPM would have no way of knowing what things like the Dream Stone and Dream Depot even are.
There’s also the fact that none of the big, cosmology-altering events in either world has had an impact on the other. We have no indication that the Void would exit the book it’s contained in and start affecting the main Mario verse, including the Dream Depot. There’s no real proof to assume so.
Actually, that's debatable. We don't know everything about the Tribe of Ancients, Tribe of Darkness, Merlon, ect. They could know a lot more than what we could know. However, Merlon clearly has been to all source of parallel dimensions and pretty much various different universes, so the scale would still be multiversal. Also, Paper Jam Kamek wasn't Paper Kamek and for all we know, Paper versions where more knowledgeable on the multiverse compared to non-paper versions.
We do have a lot of proof that the different worlds Mario travels to in Paper Mario are different universes. And the fact that turning paper into paper is a concept much like how glasses of water can exist in Spongebob despite everyone already being under water.
The Void Wiping the Cosmology is Wrong Anyways
This was brought up previously, but never concluded. In the english version of SPM, it is frequently stated that the Void will destroy “all dimensions/all worlds”, and various worlds are referred to as dimensions. The problem is that the original Japanese text just… doesn’t say that. Let’s go down the list 1 by 1:
-Merlon says the Void will consume “
all worlds, all dimensions”, but the OG text just says “
the world”.
-Tippi calling the Sammer Kingdom a dimension is in fact her
calling it a world.
-The Pure Heart being split across dimensions isn’t a thing,
just different worlds.
-
Literally everyone in the Japanese version uses “world” and not “dimension”.
-The Underwhere and Overthere are stated to be
underground and in
the sky, respectively, so these “worlds” all occupy the same space.
The statements referring to the world are further backed up by human translations posted
here. In short, there’s nothing suggesting the Void will destroy anything beyond “the world”, with only world 4 being universal just by virtue of being outer space, and
infinite. There’s further evidence of the Void not affecting the entire cosmology, as the Woah Zone, which is stated to
exist outside space (in a semi-official guide, making it tertiary canon),
has no traces of the Void inside it (it’s a 20 minute video, but you can skim through it and see there’s no Void anywhere, even when other locations in world 4 do), even further supported by how
Dimension D, an actual alternate dimension, also lacks the Void in any capacity. So there’s an obvious limit to the Void’s range, which means it cannot be a cosmology wiper.
As explained previously, the Underwhere and Overthere are just the underground and sky relative to the world at large. We can see this in world 7, where being launched into space has a visual of you
getting thrown out of earth’s atmosphere, and into space, which is
visually identical to world 4. So, worlds 7 and 4 at bare minimum share a cosmology, laying the groundwork for “worlds” not being different universes.
Regular characters with no capabilities of dimensional travel are
repeatedly shown to be able to enter and exit these realms, as shown by how they frequently recall events from different worlds, as well as collect souvenirs from them. This is further supported by how the monsters in the Pit of 100 Trials are
stated to come from all around the world, singular, despite many of them being world-specific.
Now, there are some common counterarguments to these points, which I’ll address below.
“The different worlds in SPM have different skies, so they must be different worlds.”
This is silly for a few reasons, but above all else would be
this level from NSMBU. Different verses, sure, but it sets a precedent for individual levels within the same space-time having wildly different skies. Or we could go with TTYD, in which you can see different colored skies on the same planet (
here,
here, and
here). Of course, it doesn’t make much sense to say that different skies = different dimensions in the first place when our own planet has a ton of different skies.
“Mario is said to come from another dimension.”
True! A different dimension from Flipside, a place which is not a dimension in and of itself. This means anywhere, even a low 2-C structure containing all the worlds in SPM, would be a “different dimension” from Flipside, so this doesn’t prove that these worlds are different dimensions from each other... Just that they're a different dimension from Flipside.
“The Void affected Flipside, which is in-between dimensions.”
That’s just the thing though; Flipside is the space between dimensions, but isn’t a dimension in and of itself. Of the worlds we know to be different dimensions (like Dimension D and the Woah Zone), none are affected by the Void. So while it can reach the space between those dimensions, it can go no farther (like being able to walk to a bus stop, but being unable to board the bus).
TL;DR: All the worlds in SPM are shown to share the same space-time, and the Void is consistently incapable of affecting anything outside of one space-time.
There is so much wrong in so many ways, and using the same OP where the OP admits he was wrong and only made the thread out of spite is a really taboo practice around here. Special thanks to StarSprite and Mephistus for helping me find some sources.
But anyway,
there is a lot more too it regarding sources. But someone also brought up
this guy who has been to many different worlds and talks about going to places of legend and discovering secrets. He smells what worlds you been too, so there is clear cut evidence of off screen abilities to travel to other dimensions. The entire statement of Flipside it that it's described as "The town between dimensions" that's consistent both English and Japanese sources. Those sources over use Google Translate where as here is using reliable human translators.
The Japanese language is a very flexible language and thus prone to a lot of things. However, there is the kanji Isekai which is frequent for meaning parallel worlds/dimensions/universes. So in other worlds, all worlds are different universes, including World 4 which is literally called "The Universe" and has multiple "Infinite sized statements" both English AND Japanese. Not to mention, all worlds are parallel to one another. It's also consistent in saying only one Pure Heart is located behind each door. Otherwise, Squirps would have been able to help the party collect the rest without needing the dimensional doors in Flipside.
Actually, I'm not just talking about different colored skies via different day/night cycles or different seasons. But rather, the star structures are designed to resembled formulas in Lineland in String Theory symbols in World 2, which make sense since this game was released during the golden age of Many World Interpretation theory and thus the writers where clearly trying to capitalize on that. There is not a single constellation in the Milky Way galaxy that has stars in the sky organized to resemble string theory or various scientific formulas like worlds 2 and 1 respectively. And it's not like the typical sky changing color as a result of day or night cycles or various regions going through storms. Especially since those don't effect how stars in the sky look, or galaxies being visible in the backgrounds. And each and every world within the multiverse has their own flip and flopsides. Much like how Flopside is located in a parallel universe/dimension from Flipside. It's context the what Subspace is to Subcon. Still, World 4 being "The Universe" and also World 7 being an Afterlife that even residents from Mushroom Kingdom go to when they die despite there also being consistent statements about Mushroom Kingdom also being a completely different world/dimension/universe from the other places.
World 7 also taking place on a planet means nothing. In Dragon Ball, Heaven is just a very large planet, that doesn't mean Heaven is physically located on Earth or Hell located inside it. Overthere and Underwhere are apparently just the same context. Mushroom Kingdom and none of the other 6 worlds or Sammer Kingdom do not physically exist in World 4, that's just a completely different universe containing its body of space. Also, there is no proof any of them have the same flow of time and it's very adamant that a lot of people have access to dimensional travel and in fact, Flipside exists for the sole purpose of its residents and visitors traveling from dimension to dimension. It's like an interdimensional landmark and that explains interdimensional civilizations and interdimensional broadways and satellites. Also, it's not a standard assumption for multiverses to be quilted multiverses unless explicitly stated to be; which the SPM multiverse is not. And the use of the word "Universe" or "World" has never been consistent as both words can often mean Multiverse. And while "Whoa Zone" existing outside the Universe or "Beyond the universe" are both very vague terms. They both typically mean outside the universe or further away than the edge of the Universe. And if Squirps can travel there through sheer flight, he logically should be able to travel to Sammer Kingdom, Overthere, ect through his sheer flight. So it makes sense to say all of those dimensions lead to different bodies of space. Not to mention, the various NPCs also make mentions of door ways to all these different worlds and Merlon said the dimension Mushroom Kingdom takes place on is just one of those dimensions too. It also makes zero sense for one of them to be a Universe and the other 6 to just be 4-A to 3-B sized pocket realities.
Lastly, to talk about the interview about American team and Japanese team working together to "Make it as fun as possible." On paper it may have little to do with accurate translations, but in execution. It doesn't change the fact that they wanted American version to have the best possible story, and most people would believe that being truly faithful with its expanded mythology is what makes the best possible story. It matters less how they word it and more so just the simple fact that they even worked together in the first place, we can regard English localizations are reliable for English readers. It's not like Metroid Other M where the English development team tried to translate everything without actually knowing Japanese or talking with them and thus changed all the various backstories outright or turned Adam into someone who is even more cringe. Or how Phantoon's entire backstory was rewritten as an upper-dimensional being in the English version despite Japanese version lacking that. Super Paper Mario also has it's localization consistent with truly reliable translators and world, and dimension are both used plural and interchangeably as meaning the same thing. And "Destroying everything" and "Destroying all existence" are both still the most consistent Void statements regardless of version.
Also, plenty of Paper Mario titles including Color Splash, Origami King, and even Paper Jam make numerous mentions of "Parallel Universes" and in Color Splash specifically,
Parallel Universes are are very big part of that game's story too. So there are many parallel universes within the context of Mario Paper or not, dream or not. And it's unknown if the book from Paper Jam simple contains a single Universe within the multiverse or if it contains all "Paper Universes" containing essentially a multiverse sized book. But anyway, the Void is clearly blunt about destroying "All Existence" and Paper Worlds are just as big as non Paper Worlds given that Paper Mario traveled to an 8-Bit dimension in Color Splash. If Paper Mario can hop to the solid Mario dimensions at will, there's no reason why the Void wouldn't be able to reach dimensions that Paper Mario can hop to at will from opening dimensional portal doors and what not. The void is also called an "Interdimensional Void" which means consuming more than one dimension. Dimension D was the only safe place in the multiverse and that was a dimension created by Dimentio and who do not know its full size. Even if you want to exclude the many dimensions that exist in Paper Mario that were created by the Ancients, or Dream Depot, 2-C is the absolute minimum it can be seen. But I still agree with a full out 2-B.
Also, there are other talks about the Paper Jam stuff people want to bring up later for a different thread, but that's off topic. For now, I still think 2-B void is very solid. I was also told that StarSprite might add more coherent arguments later.
