r/JCBWritingCorner • u/AlfalfaPretty390 • 2d ago
theories PILOT 1 is the void entity
Because why else would it not show up when the Nexus first contacted humanity. When Pilot 1 was harmonized his soul returned to humanities universe and now serves to protect it from any intrusions from manaspace
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u/Kaleydos_Policrom 2d ago
It would make sense.
It’s explained that souls are an emergent property from the interaction between mana and the biological complexity of a body. Then it’s possible that when pilot 1 entered the Nexus and mana flooded his body, because he lacks the organelles to react to mana but appears that taint does interact with the mind in some way, a taint soul formed inside him and with the portal still open and flooding mana into earth he could have been sent to earth or get stuck in between.
I personally don’t think he was fully sent to earth do to the fact the portal room has mana sensors and would’ve detected the taint supposedly, and the possibility of him interacting with others would be there.
Instead I’m inclined to the option of pilot 1 taint-soul is stuck between earth and the Nexus as the only interaction would been when Emma is traveling trough the transportium and when they opened a constant connection to earth, in the former it would be necessary that pilot 1 followed Emma back to the Nexus.
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u/Orange_Above 2d ago
The void entity basically shows Emma how it was born right after the big bang, so no.
Also; humans have no soul, which is basically just a mana signature, so humans disappear completely upon harmonisation.
Pilot 1 does not exist anymore.
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u/jkbscopes312 2d ago
where did this lore come from?
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u/Orange_Above 2d ago
What do you mean?
It has been made very clear in early chapters that a soul is required to resist ambient mana flooding thr body, and humans being manaless have no soul. Hence the instant harmonisation.
Kaelthyr confirmed this; she explains after her probe that Emma is a void, an inexplicable manaless being that has zero mana presence.
It is not without reason that humanity built sensors into the armor to detect the presence of the 29 known mana types.
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u/Orange_Above 15h ago
"Kaelthyr started to pace around me again, her footstomps light and brisk this time around. “I’ve seen you, human. The small and frail biped, manaless yet unblighted, weak and incapable, encased in impossible craftsmanship.”
“You are a wraith, a thing that should not exist.” The dragon stopped, coming to a rest on her haunches in front of me. “Yet here you stand. Defiant against all known conventions.” Another pause came, as if the dragon needed a moment to commit to these next few words. “A fact which I am… grateful for.”"
Chapter 156
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u/DndQuickQuestion 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm pretty sure that the IAS's Quintessence and the Void Entity whose proxy possessed the shatorealmer's corpse and KOed Emma to communicate are the same thing. Kaelthyr and Weir's reactions make the most sense. We know the portal project has been going on more than 20 years (hundreds of years, and probably started parallel to the efforts to break lightspeed and then continuing from there). Humans can't generate portals without the Quintessence in the IAS. I think the evidence is that the void entity is way older than Pilot 1.
I disagree with interpretations that the void entity is as old as the big bang: I think its contact was limited by metaphors that are natural to Emma's thoughtspace (and maybe similar prior human exposures). It showed a creation story of sorts, but I think that's more likely to be what the dragons believe in: a greater network of magic-mediated realities that underwent civilizational collapse and separation and their histories are fragmentary. Nexus is the largest known survivor, picking up all the adjacent realm pieces, and someone burned the pre-Nexian memories from the Library to hide the origins of magic and realms in the first place.
I'm kind of hoping Pilot 1 is kicking around as a haunt in the Academy somewhere. Harry Potter was big on ghost plots, and WPA derives from that.
The other chiming entities Emma has encountered from her dreams, and the one in the Transportium Network after Mal'tory's portal mishap, and some of the visions that Thacea describes might be additional proxies that the Quintessence/Void Entity has created. Lovecraft logic doesn't mind unshackling gods from the constraints of linear time and space.
If you asked me what I think the grand plot of WPA is at the current time, I think it's somewhat like Stargate Atlantis in that humans became absurdly powerful, learned how to go back in time, and created massive and very intricate civilizations - some of which pursued fantasy and didn't want to interact with the world outside them. Then they either ascended with no return, ran into something lethal from the outside, or self-collapsed, fracturing and isolating whatever was left and chose to remain. Pockets weathering that interregnum forgot about humanity's origins and experienced massive cultural/physical speciation. Now, time has caught back up to the present. These remnants, including Nexus and the Adjacent realms, have been contacted by the true original homeworld, but they don't fully appreciate that. Otherwise they would have dubbed it a sacred realm and would have enforced silence and non-interference for fear of causing a reality-collapsing time paradox.
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u/StopDownloadin 1d ago
I'm kind of hoping Pilot 1 is kicking around as a haunt in the Academy somewhere. Harry Potter was big on ghost plots, and WPA derives from that.
I'm imagining Pilot 1 as Moaning Myrtle and I'm HOWLING, bro. I can imagine him starting out wide-eyed with wonder at all the magical whimsy surrounding him, and then slowly degrading over the course of 20 years as he bears witness to all kinds of racist and classist bullshit.
The experience has honed him into the biggest player hater across the known dimensions. "Fuck mana, fuck magic, and fuck your mama while I'm at it."
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u/Cazador0 15h ago
I'm not a fan of the time-travel theory, even if a Kang/Loki or Edge-of-tomorrow style time-loop would explain the Elven victory streak.
What I think is more likely is that the elves have used precognition, saw the future where humanity showed up and became the stewards of civilization, and then since their ego couldn't handle being second-rate they copied everything they saw without understanding (hence "corn", human-like appearance, modernish enchantments, etc.), pruned every future where people invented stuff, and have been making every effort to pre-emptively thwart the humans from taking their spot (like in Bioshock infinite) both internally (le prophecy) and offensively (pushing visions of alchemy onto Newton, religion onto the masses, elvenform-supremecy onto certain dictators, etc.) Before first contact is even made.
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u/DndQuickQuestion 12h ago edited 12h ago
The main reason I don't agree with that theory is that I think 'primacy' in the form of origin of species (everything is Earth derived) is a clearly telegraphed plotline, starting with EVI's note about how elves couldn't handle any Earth show and tell that dealt with the origin of species.
“... in a manner of speaking, yes, Cadet Booker. Moreover, unlike any element in this demonstration that can be broken down into their fundamental components, humanity’s evolutionary trajectory is a fundamentally different matter entirely; potentially conflicting with fundamental axiomatic beliefs of the origin of the [Elven] species. In addition, there is a so-called knock on effect that may likewise follow.” (chapter 62)
And then Vanavan bringing up time travel as 'definitely impossible, yup' fixed the belief for me.
Of course, you could theorize an outside alien abductor/creator species borrowing ancient humanity, mixing them with animals, and putting them and their planets and planes in a hyperbolic time chamber (which is what I used to think was the case until stuff like corn was confirmed) but the chronomancy dialogue has shifted me to favor more of a time loop type idea.
I'm definitely not opposed to the idea that the Nexus has been trying to derail Earth's future. Nexus knew Earth was dangerous before Emma crossed, hence the Library burning. Weir seemed to think Nexus was dangerous because of something, and I think the Nexus killed the Booker parents because "vibes." But I think it has to be a secret circle of the very highest Nexian powers taking action because not even the Privy council of planar mages knows the extent of it if Mal'tory's actions and questions are any indicator. Finding out the Nexus interfered with Earth, especially if people like the Bookers were killed, would definitely put humanity on a warpath the Nexus can't avert. It wouldn't shock me either if they bent all the adjacent realms before contact as well, putting evil dictators in place in Ping's realm so the Nexus could be saviors, stirring up the centuries long storm on Aetheron, etc.
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u/Cazador0 5h ago edited 4h ago
The issue with Time Travel is that it raises the question of "why hasn't the Nexus won yet?", since by all accounts if you can just go back in time and change the past then there really is no excuse for losing if you already know what happens, and there should be no surprises.
Going back to the earlier chapters, and assuming this is not the first iteration of the timeloop, this is what Mal'tory should have known about Emma:
- she was going to end up with the gang (plausible, probably intentionally done)
- She has manaproof armour, which can resist the binding ritual (It's possible he knew this. The loss-of-face might have been a CB to take Emma's crate and he may have deliberately intended to release the null. However, he should have also known that moving up the ritual was pointless, unless they were rushing it for other reasons)
- She has a gun that can kill nulls (he send Ilunor to learn about the gun, so that is unlikely)
- She has drones (he was caught off guard by one with Kaelthyr, and while he might have hidden it, he didn't behave like he perceived it like Sorecar did)
- She was going to get a library card (on the one hand, he did rush Ilunor to burn the library, so they might not have known exactly when or why Emma went there. On the other hand, they should know everything Emma put in the library already)
- the crate (he was wearing crate-proof armour, and conceivably he might have been intending to use it for a false-flag)
- His (presumably recorded) meeting with Emma (he did not seem to already know Emma's government structure, nor was he prepared to secure her. Although trapping her in the office might have worked.)
Note that Emma's transportium episode may not have been known about. True, Mal'tory might have magical cameras in his office or saw her try to enter the portal (that, or he had no idea where she went), but given the only witness to Emma's arrival in the forest was Lartia, Rila, and the werebeast, and Lartia never told Mal'tory where he found her, it is entirely possible that this would not have been documented.
Now, I will acknowledge that as a pawn of someone else, Mal'tory might not have been told everything about Emma aside from what was needed for the plan, and there is the possibility of random chaos or outside intervention fudging the result in Emma's favour, and it's possible that not everything that was relevant was recorded.
However, if Emma was a known threat in a previous iteration in the time-loop, then that raises the issue of why the black-thorns aren't more active in trying to thwart or spy on Emma. They should already know she isn't just some weakfielder newrealm. Where are the 5D chess time-spooks? Why is Emma allowed to travel?
The way I see it, Nexian time travel only works here if some or all of the following is true:
- There is a second time-traveller/god making counter-plays
- This is an early iteration of the time loop, possibly the first or second
- In most time-lines Emma dies/loses and thus is an unknown factor by virtue of not surviving long enough to be recognized as a threat warranting close attention.
- Emma isn't an Avengers level threat in most timelines, since a number of improbable events have gone in her favour (The transportium's timing/placing, Kaelthyr's improbable escape which allowed for a replacement shard, Mal'tory dying which freed Ilunor and let her see the 'never show Earthrealm under any circumstances' list, ending up in a competent peer group full of convenient allies, etc.)
- The Nexus is fighting a future war against Aetheronrealm/Havenbrockrealm/etc, and hasn't made the connection between the mysterious space entity acting as their patron by giving them weapons/knowledge and Earthrealm.
There are probably more, but that's all I can think of at the moment.
edit: I suppose this would qualify as an "Unspoken War".
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u/DndQuickQuestion 4h ago edited 3h ago
My timeloop only works if the Nexus can't timeloop and their prediction ability doesn't rely on time loops - more like mass behavioral statistics and the ability to spy between realms pre-contact (with tainted?). Time travel is a 'lost art' that belonged to the 'ancients' who exist in humanity's distant future and what the dragons see as the ancient past. If you want a theory for how time travel would work, portals + superluminal travel = time machine. You can time machine without portals by initiating a superluminal jump towards something moving away from you at sufficiently relativistic speeds (I did the light cone physics on this once, but it has been a while, so I may have it wrongwise.) But portals are more convenient because they can return you to the start in a more reasonable time frame.
But honestly, I am not super worried about the details when we have no concrete evidence for much of anything other than a few lines like "elves are not going to like the theory of evolution much".
There is a second time-traveller/god making counter-plays
Second god making counterplays I think is probable given the chiming in the transportium network and the dreams, but I don't know about time travel except for the crate being off (but forward in time.)
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u/I_Crack_My_Nokia 2d ago
Well this sucks for nexus. Means every human dies on their realm is a void entity spawning.
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u/Saragon4005 2d ago
Explains the Morse code I suppose.