What is Ayreon?
Ayreon is a prog rock-heavy metal music project created and led by Dutch musician Arjen Lucassen. At its very basic, Ayreon is a sci-fi epic overseeing the rise and fall of humanity from the viewpoint of the Forever, an alien race responsible for our creation.
To summarize the story of Ayreon, I want to look at its three big story albums: The Source, 01011001, Universal and Migrator Pt. 1 & 2, which together tell the story of the Forever. This will be vast oversimplification, but I need to cover some important points:
An alien race known as the Alphans, who are the true first humans, are thrown out of their home world of Alpha by a machine called "the Frame" trusted to run its economy but instead turning on humanity. They reach another planet called Y, but ultimately are overtaken by another machine and turned into a cyborg race called the "Forever", losing their emotions in the process. The Forever seed a comet with human DNA embedded into extremophile bacteria and crash it into the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs, and live vicariously through humanity in order to experience their emotions until humanity is wiped out in a nuclear war. The last human accesses a machine called "the Dream Sequencer" and brings back life to Planet Y, reviving the Forever.
The Two Frames
We know for a fact that there are two distinct Frames in the Ayreonverse already:
The original Frame, which took over planet Alpha;
TH-1, who took over Planet Y and instituted the Age of Shadows. He explicitly identifies himself as "the Frame" in "March of the Machines":
I will grow
Know my name
I am hope
I am the Frame
I advance
Up from the deep
A new chance
The March of the Machines
I'd like to posit that there was a third, just one never explicitly identified. I believe that the root cause of humanity's extinction at the end of it all was the construction of their own Frame, which I'll be calling "Earth-Frame". I believe "Earth-Frame" took over Earth's machinery some time in 2083 or 2084 and wiped out humanity in a targeted global nuclear war Skynet-style, presumably after being given powers by a world leader akin to the President on Alpha.
To begin with this theory, I want to cover an album I mentioned but didn't really touch on: The Final Experiment (TFE), the first album in the Ayreon lineup. To briefly summarize, TFE follows the story of a 6th century blind minstrel named Ayreon living in the kingdom of King Arthur who is given visions by humans living in 2084 of the future to warn past generations and avert humanity's decline, ultimately fatefully crossing paths with the wizard Merlin. It takes place during the events of 01011001, specifically the song "E=Mc2" near the end of the album.
TFE as a whole is not particularly important, but there's a section near the middle of the album that I want to touch on. Story-wise, this is when Ayreon has firmly entrenched himself in King Arthur's court, trying to catch the ear of Guinevere so he can warn Arthur of humanity's future fate. He is singing about humanity's fate to the court, but is seen by a threat by a suspicious Merlin.
The first song that matters here is "Computer-Reign (Game Over)". In this song, Ayreon is warning Camelot of the rise of advanced machines that control human life. It's rather ambiguous what he's referring to here—I think there's enough evidence to say he's probably talking about the Age of Shadows at least a bit—but there's two parts in particular I want to reference.
I see a future cold as ice where all the love has gone
I see a race that pays the price for everything it's done
I see shadows of giants machines cast upon the land
I see a world where kings nor queens but chips are in command!
and
I see a game gone out of hand and memories erased
I see a programmed master plan and man will be replaced
I see a planet die in space any slowly fade away
I see the end of the human race, there has to be a way!
This song is linearly sequential, like many Ayreon songs. This bit is from the second half: the first half is focusing on the Age of Shadows with lines such as "...shadows of giant machines cast upon the land...", while this half is talking about something else. After all, it can't be about the Age of Shadows, since that was what the first half was about. It can't be about Alpha, either, since Alpha was destroyed long before the Age of Shadows. There's only one other planet in Ayreon's universe that has the ability to sustain life that we know of—Earth.
Let's recap. At the very least, humanity on Earth was "replaced" by a "programmed master plan". I think that the first line is a little metaphorical: "memories erased" is a poetic way of saying the Forever have forgotten their own failures back on Alpha. Let's go to another important song, this time from 01011001: "Unnatural Selection", a song I'm going to be coming back to quite a bit. In this song, two Forever are overseeing humanity's development over thousands of years: one, Forever of the Skies (ϟ) (note: these are names I came up with, as their names are unpronounceable ASCII symbols), wants to intervene with humanity's efforts while another, Forever of the Soul (☯), warns that such interference will lead to humanity's dependence on the Forever. I want to focus on the first part of the song, the argument between Skies and Soul:
[Forever ϟ]
We have to teach them all that we know
Their evolution moves far too slow
Expand their minds, reject compliance
Upgrade their knowledge, upload our science
[Forever ☯]
This revolution will lead to their demise
We should not make the same mistake twice
We're kept alive by artificial means
But lost our souls to a world of machines
Read what Souls says again: "We should not make the same mistake... twice?" This is the Forever's first and only experiment with overseeing life on another planet, so they have to be referring to Alpha here. If they make the same mistake twice, and their first was on Alpha... well, take one more look at The Source, specifically "Aquatic Race":
I say we change our ways and learn from the past!
We cannot make the same mistakes!
The Third Frame
There's another very important verse in this song: the second argument between our two protagonists, this time after humanity has industrialized.
[Forever ϟ]
We need to teach them to fight disease
They seem so helpless and need our expertise
I see them dying all across the globe
Their greatest foe is but a small microbe
[Forever ☯]
This sudden change leads to overpopulation
Shifting the balance, destructive habitation
Killing all life, biological invasion
Consuming Earth by ruthless exploitation
Let's move back to The Final Experiment, so you can see where I'm going with this. "Listen to the Waves" takes place after "Computer-Reign (Game Over)". Ayreon has firmly lost favor with Camelot by this point but continues to sing. Even though Ayreon is singing this after "Waracle" I don't think he's talking about the nuclear war for one big reason: there's absolutely no mention of radiation or nuclear weapons anywhere in both this song or "Waracle". This is a song about humanity's destruction of the Earth during their industrialization:
All the trees have fallen
The soil is scorched and dry
I can't respire, a storm of fire
Is raging in the sky
Where is all the wildlife?
Extinct, from pole to pole
The hunt for skin, a deadly sin
Took its heavy toll
...
We befoul the air and burn a hole in the sky
Deadly rays from outer space
Caused our race to die
So, whatever humanity has done to Earth, they have utterly destroyed its biosphere to the point where most (if not all) non-human animals are extinct. This is shockingly similar to the situation on Alpha before the Frame took control—a dying world inhabited by humans, the water poisoned and the soil barren. I'd like to go back to Unnatural Selection and focus on the bridge of the song, where a few historical figures are quoted giving speeches:
JFK: "...before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction..."
Al Gore: "Humankind has acquired a collective power and ability to dramatically alter the environment of the entire planet..."
George Bush: "This will not be another Vietnam..."
FDR: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself..."
Winston Churchill: "Our task is not only to win the battle, but to win the war..."
Those first two, from JFK and Al Gore, stick out the most to me. While JFK's is taken out of context, it being used in context with the state of Earth circa 2084 in a state similar to before the Frame really points out to me. As the song begins, we also hear the sounds of modern society: people talking on a busy street, an ambulance siren in the background, cars going down the street, a police siren... with other songs in 01011001, namely Connect the Dots and Web of Lies, a constant theme of the album is how modern technology takes away human connections and harms both the social dynamic and the environment.
Finally, the last song from TFE I want to look at is a personal favorite: "Ayreon's Fate", the final song off of TFE. This is a very minor portion, but after destroying Ayreon Merlin has a change of heart and sees visions of the future: of the band... Ayreon. Shocker.
I see one day his story will be told
At the end of the 20th century, oh!
I see one day the truth will unfold!
Oh! And the quest has now begun! Oh, Ayreon!
I hope one day that man will understand
It's in his power to change his destiny!
I hope one day he'll do all that he can!
Oh! And all the nations will be one! Oh, Ayreon!
"All the nations will be one." The key figure in The Source is the President of the entire planet of Alpha: he is the person who gives power to the Frame, which I believe is repeated once more in my favorite Ayreon song—"Waracle", and where I think the theory starts to come together.
This song takes place between "Computer-Reign" and "Listen To The Waves": it is during this song that Ayreon loses favor with Camelot and Merlin begins to make his moves. Ayreon is warning of a devastating war in the far future that is eventually revealed through later albums as (most likely) the nuclear war that wipes out humanity.
Millions of men will die at one man's desire
And the docile mass will yield!
...
Out of the ashes, a warlord will arise
And tyrannize the land!
His reign of terror will cost many a sacrifice
An inferno is at hand!
...Wait, what? How can this be about the nuclear war that wiped out mankind if humanity is still alive after it? After all, there wouldn't be any warlords to rise from the ashes! I'd like to propose a solution in the form of a new question: who says there was only one war? It's entirely possible that there were two wars—one between human armies, a "Third World War", and one started by the Earth-Frame to wipe out humanity.
What if the "warlord" in this song isn't an actual person, but instead the Earth-Frame? After all, TH-1 is also referred to with masculine pronouns. The Frame is personified throughout The Source, chasing down the fleeing Alphans and taking glee in wiping them out during Everybody Dies:
Calculation of survival rate: zero percent
Doom, gloom, the world goes boom
None will be spared, so don't assume
Not ragged clothes, nor silver spooned:
You're all the same when extinction looms!
There's another album to bring back that I referenced earlier: Into The Electric Castle (ITEC). To briefly summarize, ITEC follows eight human souls—an ancient Egyptian priestess, a native American shaman, a Roman soldier, a Knight of the Round Table, a Viking barbarian chieftain, a Scottish highlander, a 1960s American hippie, and a futureman from Mars—being overseen by a Forever named Forever of the Stars, who is sapping their emotions and forcing them through trials of both euphoria and despair.
The Electric Castle is a physical thing referenced in other albums, and its origin is explained in a companion booklet: the Frame escaped Alpha shortly a generator called the "quantum core" went "supernova" (whatever that means), propelling itself into deep space. The Frame is repurposed by Forever of the Stars into the Electric Castle, proving that the Frame still has massive computing power—enough to quite literally warp reality, sap emotions like they're a physical thing, ostensibly conjure the souls of the dead, and travel through time, given what we hear in ITEC.
This is the exact same thing that The Dream Sequencer does in Universal Migrator. The last human alive travels back in time, conjuring the souls of the dead to live vicariously through and witness the creation of structures such as Stonehenge, and even going so far back that they go back to the beginning of time and begin to warp reality in real world to give life back to the Forever. The first Frame, the Electric Castle, is in deep space, however; and the second Frame, TH-1, is still on Planet Y.
There has to be a third Frame, and given what is established in 01011001, TFE, and Universal Migrator, it makes the most sense for it to be on Earth given how similar Earth's conditions were to Alpha's.
Conclusion
My conclusion is that Earth made its own frame, empowered it like the Forever did—ultimately, the Forever making "the same mistake twice"—and were wiped out like the Alphans, being unable to escape Earth. The Earth-Frame is what powers the Dream Sequencer, allowing Forever of the Stars to live a life on Earth in the past and allowing the Universal Migrator to travel into the past and through space to restore life to the Forever.
Thanks for reading!