[spoilers] The Core?

[Malidictus]

Something about the Labyrinth Keeper never made sense to me, specifically in light of things he said in the previous game. I recall him saying that Earth needs no guardian. The Labyrinth is built on top of it, and all worlds built on top of the Labyrinth.

And yet the first time we meet the Keeper, he speaks of Earth as just another world lacking a Guardian. He speaks about having purged the Labyrinth and contained the Corruption. He even speaks to having returned to a "previous form" when he gains a more humanoid appearance.

For the longest time, this felt like a ret-♥♥♥, but I was missing an important conversation option. Speaking with the Keeper BEFORE entering the portal to Root Earth and asking where it leads, the Keeper cites it as being "a world not unlike our own" which "was the core, but now isn't".

Given the ending of Remnant 2 and the discrepancies seen here, I suspect that the Earth of this game is not the same as the Earth in the previous game. Though the Wanderer succeeded in killing Harsgaard as Clawbone and unhooking the Destroyer from his dream pod, that entire endeavour ultimately failed long-term. The Corruption - the Root - was contained within Earth, but allowed to run free. Eventually it broke out again and infected the Labyrinth between games.

It seems that at some point in the past, the Keeper attempted to do something similar to what Clem does at the end of the game. That is to say, section off the Core and restore a more manageable copy of it to study. We are no longer in the Core - that is Root Earth. That is what remains of the world from the previous game.



So... what does that mean for the cosmology of this game? I've often joked about the whole game being a simulation in the style of The Thirteenth Foor[www.imdb.com]. However, that does not appear to be the case. The Keeper describes "the people of the core" - those being the human scientists of the first game, like Skarsgaard (what IS his first name?), Andrew Ford and Leto Apostolakis - as seeing existence "as outside of all worlds". Well... they never created the Matrix, we know that much from the previous game.

We do know, however, that humanity from "the Core" was able to observe other worlds through the Dreamers. At first it was thought that those other worlds were imaginary - the dreams of the subconscious mind. Eventually it was discovered that those were real places that humans could actually go to.

If what the Keeper says is true - that the doors are created first along with the guardians, then the worlds on the other side spring forth from that... Does that mean that the original assertion was true? That what the dreamers were dreaming really was just imagination, but in some way given form?

If Earth is the core from which all other worlds spring forth, then that's about the only explanation I have. It would also explain why the Root are not like the monsters from other worlds. They don't see to have been dreamt up before manifesting themselves. Rather, as I recall, it was clawbone's own doing which communicated the means of constructing a Worldstone to humanity first, before the Dreamer Project even began. It's been a few years so I forget the details.



If any of my guesses are true, then this fictional universe might be a lot less throwaway than I thought, and the story a lot less of a mess.

[Malidictus]

Trichouette a écrit :

Yeah that's what the timeline looks like to me, but I don't understand how people lost so much knowledge so fast.
The old lady thinks humans used to be "tens of thousands".
And the doc at ward 13 tells us humans lost so much medical knowledge.

Lack of any centralised record-keeping and the death of most people can do that. 140 years is multiple generations of people who never saw the old world, growing up on only stories since books also don't appear to have survived. This is basically humanity reduced to a primitive society, just in possession of semi-modern technology - whatever scrap still works.

I'm also pretty sure there was a significant ret-♥♥♥ between Chronos and Remnant - far more so than between the two Remnant games.

Trichouette a écrit :

It sounds a lot like the root doesn't come from earth, but from another realm/world.
And then managed to cement itself on old earth (now root earth) and from there invaded other worlds through the labyrinth.

If that were the case, why did they need Earth in the first place? The Core isn't connected to any of the other worlds. It's connected to just the Labyrinth, same as any other world. It also doesn't appear to be unique, as it can be archived and duplicated freely, it seems like. If the Root came from their own not-Earth world, they would have spread out from there, I would imagine.

One can argue that Core was the way to the Labyrinth, but... the World Stones can both bypass and enter the Labyrinth freely. World Stones, I remind you, which originate from the Root themselves. Humans built the ones on Earth, but they did so using Root designs.

More to the point - the Keeper is pretty explicit that the Root are not like other beings. They don't occur naturally from any world. Rather, they are akin to the Guardians, who are created wholesale when the door (and presumably the world) associated with them is created. The Root are not like the Iskal - not just a thing which popped into existence on a world and spread from there. They came into existence outside standard mechanic.

This is why I have trouble reconciling the story between the two games. A lot of the obvious explanations tend to run into issues when their implications are examined. Really wish the game were more forthcoming with at least the story that the Keeper knows.

[Malidictus]

Some more idle thoughts after speaking with the Keeper again. He says "I was the first to rise. I will be the last to fall". Assuming I'm reading that statement correctly, it seems to suggest that the Labyrinth existed before the Core did - else the Core would have been the first. Clem claims that the Labyrinth is "more than it seems", made of thought and information. Her explanation is vague, but it does return me to a previous question:

What is the Core? What function does it serve? The more I speak with the Keeper, the more it feels like the Labyrinth is closer to a core than the Core. The Labyrinth can't be quarantined and replaced. If that falls, everything falls. The Core, by contrast, can just be system-restored.

If we go with the simulation analogy, one where worlds can be created, destroyed and recreated from backup... it seems like the Labyrinth is the one fixed point. That's the one thing that we can't afford to lose, as it can't be replaced.

Really wish there were more concrete narrative in this game.

---

Incidentally, no explanation is ever given about the Fragments. They "fall out of" powerful creatures, but the Keeper doesn't even bother to speculate why that might be. If they came out of the Guardians, that would make logical sense, but why Tal-Ratha? Why the Impostor King? If "power" is all that's required, then can we pull them out of... say a fusion reactor? N'erud likely has some of those, or at least some sort of equivalent.

What sense do the fragments make in relation to everything else?

[Trichouette]

Malidictus a écrit :

Some more idle thoughts after speaking with the Keeper again. He says "I was the first to rise. I will be the last to fall". Assuming I'm reading that statement correctly, it seems to suggest that the Labyrinth existed before the Core did - else the Core would have been the first. Clem claims that the Labyrinth is "more than it seems", made of thought and information. Her explanation is vague, but it does return me to a previous question:

What is the Core? What function does it serve? The more I speak with the Keeper, the more it feels like the Labyrinth is closer to a core than the Core. The Labyrinth can't be quarantined and replaced. If that falls, everything falls. The Core, by contrast, can just be system-restored.

If we go with the simulation analogy, one where worlds can be created, destroyed and recreated from backup... it seems like the Labyrinth is the one fixed point. That's the one thing that we can't afford to lose, as it can't be replaced.

Really wish there were more concrete narrative in this game.

---

Incidentally, no explanation is ever given about the Fragments. They "fall out of" powerful creatures, but the Keeper doesn't even bother to speculate why that might be. If they came out of the Guardians, that would make logical sense, but why Tal-Ratha? Why the Impostor King? If "power" is all that's required, then can we pull them out of... say a fusion reactor? N'erud likely has some of those, or at least some sort of equivalent.

What sense do the fragments make in relation to everything else?

Just because the keeper existed before everything else doesn't mean the labyrinth existed before the core.
He is the keeper of the labyrinth, maybe he wasn't always "just that".

It's also not impossible that the labyrinth got corrupted by the root at some point and he had to "expunge" it from the labyrinth.

Maybe there's even a part of the labyrinth that is corrupt but we don't see it.
Or maybe root earth has its own labyrinth, filled with corruption but with no doors to worlds other than root earth.

By that I mean, maybe the keeper created a copy of root earth & root labyrinth to be the actual earth & labyrinth.

Just spitballing ideas.

About the fragments, maybe the "powerful creature" isn't intended in the straightforward sense of "power", but more like "a creature that had a huge say in the events of its world".
Like how losomn's oracle says "I could've been the one you seek but not anymore" (or something.
The creatures we kill really changed the course of their world's history, completely disrupting the balance.

[Skeleton]

Malidictus a écrit :

Incidentally, no explanation is ever given about the Fragments. They "fall out of" powerful creatures, but the Keeper doesn't even bother to speculate why that might be. If they came out of the Guardians, that would make logical sense, but why Tal-Ratha? Why the Impostor King? If "power" is all that's required, then can we pull them out of... say a fusion reactor? N'erud likely has some of those, or at least some sort of equivalent.

What sense do the fragments make in relation to everything else?

Visually, the Fragments look like the Index.
And we know that the Index is a data backup of all worlds.
Perhaps the Fragments are data backups of a single world.
Would also explain what they're fragments of - they're sections of a whole multiversal backup, i.e. the Index.

As to why certain individuals have them, it's probably no coincidence that Tal'Ratha was literally the archive of all Dryzyr, and that Faelin/Faerin were the overseers of the entire Fae realm. These were both beings that not only had power, but also knowledge and control over their respective species. Aside from lore exposition characters like the Oracle and Laemir, the bosses we get fragments from have a deep knowledge of their world and would thus serve a pretty good authority on "what should this world be?".

[Ottomic]

Malidictus a écrit :

If that were the case, why did they need Earth in the first place? The Core isn't connected to any of the other worlds. It's connected to just the Labyrinth, same as any other world. It also doesn't appear to be unique, as it can be archived and duplicated freely, it seems like. If the Root came from their own not-Earth world, they would have spread out from there, I would imagine.

The only thing that kinda makes sense to me is:

- Earth, root happens, bad times. They eventually take over the entire universe. This universe is contained and discarded (not reset) and a new universe is created. Who? Creator, I guess. Idk.

- This happens anytime between two to an infinite amount of times, with the Root finding a way into the next universe thanks to whichever race eventually decides to start ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with dimensional travel. In our Earth it's Dreamer.

- Clem's Big Succ is supposed to reboot not only this universe but all previous iterations and bring the MC to wherever the Root started existing and destroy them there. This doesn't necessarily mean Remnant 1/2's Earth, or even Earth at all. We only know it's got grass on it.

This would somehow explain why the Big Succ affects both Root Earth, Remnant's Earth, and all other worlds regardless of whether the Root have gotten to them or not, as well as why there's two Earths since, as you point out, there's no reason for somehow copying Earth if the Root are going to happen all over again. Resetting a universe only ensures the Root is going to take over, so my best guess is that Creator just kept making universes with the hopes that eventually one would either not be taken over by the Root, or would come up with an idea for destroying it.

That would mean, however, that each universe would have a Keeper of their own that has no knowledge of these parallel universes, because sure as hell he doesn't mention it that way. That being the case, it makes no sense that Keeper knows about this parallel universe or how to get to it.

I dunno man.

[Handbanana]

It is important to also point out that Nerud is a universe at the end of its life cycle. Billions or more years into the future. That means that while the worlds can run parallel to each other their timelines don't necessarily. This could mean multiple things. Universes that just progress time faster or slower or maybe the stones are not just moving through the multiverse but also through time.

[Malidictus]

Handbanana a écrit :

It is important to also point out that Nerud is a universe at the end of its life cycle. Billions or more years into the future. That means that while the worlds can run parallel to each other their timelines don't necessarily. This could mean multiple things. Universes that just progress time faster or slower or maybe the stones are not just moving through the multiverse but also through time.

Yeah, I did wonder about that. N'Erud's timeline has to be VASTLY ahead of ours just because of its state. The Custodian isn't joking - nothing exists in that universe save Alepsis-Taura and N'erud itself. The sky is entirely dark, save for the glow from the Black Hole.

There are two possibilities that I see. One is precisely what you said - that the World Stones don't connect across the same timeline, but travel through time, as well. It's obviously entirely possible that the timelines for the different worlds aren't synced. After all, some were created earlier than others, and we know the Keeper can swap out the Core if needed.

The other is that the World Stones are in some sense "absolute" - that is to say, they anchor to a particular place and time, regardless of where they get moved. After all, only 100 years passed for N'erud inside Alepsis Taura, so 100 years would have passed for the World Stone aboard it - despite however long it took for the universe to die.

Of course, we never actually get an explanation for why there are World Stones outside of Earth - or indeed outside of the one found at Ward 13.

[Dusklite]

Reading through most of the thread so far, one possibility to explain the story would be that the Keeper indeed just contained the Root twice before and since the Labyrinth has access to effectively infinite worlds they moved the Core to an identical planet Earth that had to exist simply by nature of infinity.
I think there's even a (semi-)scientific theory out there that in an infinite universe an infinite number of essentially the same planet has to exist. Or take a multiverse theory that every possible state of any existing base particle in the entire universe spawns a new reality.
So finding a new suitable place for the Core would've been possible, even if ultimately, the Root would get there eventually.

So to unify Remnant 1 and Remnant 2, I'd wager that in the "new" Earth, the Root was indeed mostly dispatched. In the grand theme of things this won't change the fact it will ultimately spread out from the old corrupted Core (Root Earth).

The Keeper makes hints at Creation as a whole being something not knowable, but some things point to Creation as a system with safeguards and agents having a role, such as Clementine.
This could potentially explain the "get things from beings of great power" as something to amass a critical mass of system-breaking, "glitching" power, such as the very powerful root themselves use (see last boss of main campaign).
With this, there would be a possibility to affect the system itself (or potentially delete the root, but we know how that went down). Clementine probably used it to reset Creation itself, doing a "hard reboot" of the whole system. As we do not know what happens after - the return to the finished campaign is pretty obviously a game mechanic to keep playing, not the real ending - we cannot know if this actually removed the root from reality or not.

As for N'erud: I think it's explained in some log you can find that a part of that race went to Alepsis-Taura since they concluded it wasn't a normal Black Hole and was key to understanding the world and themselves.
But being in the gravitational field of a supermassive Black Hole would mean extreme time dilution so while they were on the way of entering it, around them the universe died.

So maybe the World Stones don't enable travel trough time, but time is either irrelevant or time is the same for the stones wherever they are, since they are part of the system of Creation itself and are not be affected by something like gravitation (I mean, they do float by themselves pretty neatly...)?

But anyways, without complete and possibly, official information about every aspect of the main story and how things in that game universe work all is mere speculation as even most contradictions could be explained by some alternative timeline mumbo jumbo for example...

Fun speculation, though.

[Malidictus]

Dusklite a écrit :

Reading through most of the thread so far, one possibility to explain the story would be that the Keeper indeed just contained the Root twice before and since the Labyrinth has access to effectively infinite worlds they moved the Core to an identical planet Earth that had to exist simply by nature of infinity.

That's pretty much what I've theorised, as well. We differ on how worlds are "created", but this is the simplest explanation available. However, it still circles back to the same question of "What IS the Core?" Is there something specific to Earth that makes it unique in this function? If so, what? Neither Remnant game has shown this to be the case. Humanity is neither more technologically advanced than other species (both Rhom and N'erud demonstrate the exact opposite) nor particularly powerful (the Iskal of Corsus make that abundantly clear). Were it not for the Keeper's rhetoric, we'd have no idea that Earth was special at all.

Moreover, we know that the Keeper has replaced the Core at least once. Whether he created a replacement or found one is immaterial - other worlds exist (or can exist) which serve as a core just as well. If so, do they have to be Earth? Do they have to have humanity on them? Do they have to have Ward 13? Which bit of Earth is the actually important one? Because clearly, it's not the specific events that happen within them. Our Earth and Root Earth diverge greatly in their history, yet both are apparently usable as Cores. If anything, the limiting factor seems to be the Root, rather than anything about Earth itself.

It's also worth noting that... by all accounts, the histories of Root Earth and Our Earth diverge at the point of Clawbone's destruction. On Root Earth, the Wanderer failed to kill Scarsgaard, allowing the Root to eventually kill everyone and take over. The Traveller from Remnant 2 essentially tries the same thing again - potentially even against the same boss. I don't THINK Annihilation is mean to be Clawbone, but I'm also not sure that the precise identity matters. Meanwhile on Our Earth, the Wanderer killed Clawbone, cutting the Root of from other worlds and causing them to wither over time.

Whatever "that thing" is that lives on the atoll, it seems to be the important for the Root.

Dusklite a écrit :

The Keeper makes hints at Creation as a whole being something not knowable, but some things point to Creation as a system with safeguards and agents having a role, such as Clementine.

That depends on what you mean by "creation". If you're using it in the Biblical sense to refer to the cosmos, then I agree. The Keeper's dilemma is ostensibly Rene Descartes' "evil genius" problem. It's impossible for a mind which exists entirely within a system to independently attain information from outside the system. Whatever created the cosmos - if anything at all - would naturally exist outside of it, thus the Keeper can literally never know anything about it for certain.

If you mean "creation" in the literal sense of "the act of creating new worlds", then I'm not so sure. The Keeper never outright states how worlds are created, but behaves as though he has means of causing it. He has control over the Labyrinth, and thus over the doors. We know that world creation begins with a door and a guardian, with everything else unfolding from there. I don't know for sure that the Keeper can create worlds, but it's not a wild assertion to claim that he does. After all, he has the ability to destroy them.

Dusklite a écrit :

This could potentially explain the "get things from beings of great power" as something to amass a critical mass of system-breaking, "glitching" power, such as the very powerful root themselves use (see last boss of main campaign).

Hmm... That's an interesting idea. Are you imply that these beings' great power is itself a glitch in the simulation - that they were never meant to be this powerful? That could make for a really interesting story. Unfortunately, this is contradicted on N'erud. One of the possible "beings of great power" that can show up there is Sha-Hala, Guardian of N'erud. If there's one thing we know for a fact isn't aberrant in this cosmology, it's the Guardians. They occur naturally as as part of each universe and are intended to be powerful.

Not to mention, one of the Fragments could potentially come directly from the Root. On Yesha, one of the potential end bosses is the Corrupter - a Root creature. Now granted, it has control of the corpse of the One of Many Faces, Guardian of Yesha. However, it's entirely possible to defeat the actual boss without ever even fighting Many Faces. And besides - that's a puppeteered corpse. Hardly a powerful creature.

I have a strong suspicion that not a lot of thought was given to the segments. "Just go kill world bosses and don't think about it too hard."

Dusklite a écrit :

But anyways, without complete and possibly, official information about every aspect of the main story and how things in that game universe work all is mere speculation as even most contradictions could be explained by some alternative timeline mumbo jumbo for example...

This is true. Ultimately, the answer is we don't know. I guess my attempt here was to come up with some kind of cosmological model that fits what we know without creating obvious plot holes. We don't have a good shot at coming up with the real plot since the developers just... didn't bother to put it in the actual game. But a best guess would be nice so that conversations with the Keeper don't feel as forced :)

[Sterling]

I'm pretty sure the root were a creation of humans somehow. I don't exactly buy the idea that the multiverse itself is a simulation of some sort, but the root being a corrupter of some sort and we as players witness them as a sort of glitchy mess makes me think that they were created by humans by accident which mirrors a computer virus. Once that happened, the Root Earth became the ground zero for the infestation. After that the keeper quarantined Earth and made a duplicate version to preserve something important. This sapped whatever power they had andd any other worlds that got infected from there on would need to be wiped or permanently disconnected from the labyrinth.

I imagine that all the events from Chronos, Ashes and Remnant 2 are all taking place from the second timeline. I really don't think that the Root Earth is the earth from the first two games, but it could be possible.

[Dusklite]

Malidictus a écrit :

Dusklite a écrit :

Reading through most of the thread so far, one possibility to explain the story would be that the Keeper indeed just contained the Root twice before and since the Labyrinth has access to effectively infinite worlds they moved the Core to an identical planet Earth that had to exist simply by nature of infinity.

That's pretty much what I've theorised, as well. We differ on how worlds are "created", but this is the simplest explanation available. However, it still circles back to the same question of "What IS the Core?" Is there something specific to Earth that makes it unique in this function? If so, what? Neither Remnant game has shown this to be the case. Humanity is neither more technologically advanced than other species (both Rhom and N'erud demonstrate the exact opposite) nor particularly powerful (the Iskal of Corsus make that abundantly clear). Were it not for the Keeper's rhetoric, we'd have no idea that Earth was special at all.

Moreover, we know that the Keeper has replaced the Core at least once. Whether he created a replacement or found one is immaterial - other worlds exist (or can exist) which serve as a core just as well. If so, do they have to be Earth? Do they have to have humanity on them? Do they have to have Ward 13? Which bit of Earth is the actually important one? Because clearly, it's not the specific events that happen within them. Our Earth and Root Earth diverge greatly in their history, yet both are apparently usable as Cores. If anything, the limiting factor seems to be the Root, rather than anything about Earth itself.

It's also worth noting that... by all accounts, the histories of Root Earth and Our Earth diverge at the point of Clawbone's destruction. On Root Earth, the Wanderer failed to kill Scarsgaard, allowing the Root to eventually kill everyone and take over. The Traveller from Remnant 2 essentially tries the same thing again - potentially even against the same boss. I don't THINK Annihilation is mean to be Clawbone, but I'm also not sure that the precise identity matters. Meanwhile on Our Earth, the Wanderer killed Clawbone, cutting the Root of from other worlds and causing them to wither over time.

Whatever "that thing" is that lives on the atoll, it seems to be the important for the Root.

Dusklite a écrit :

The Keeper makes hints at Creation as a whole being something not knowable, but some things point to Creation as a system with safeguards and agents having a role, such as Clementine.

That depends on what you mean by "creation". If you're using it in the Biblical sense to refer to the cosmos, then I agree. The Keeper's dilemma is ostensibly Rene Descartes' "evil genius" problem. It's impossible for a mind which exists entirely within a system to independently attain information from outside the system. Whatever created the cosmos - if anything at all - would naturally exist outside of it, thus the Keeper can literally never know anything about it for certain.

If you mean "creation" in the literal sense of "the act of creating new worlds", then I'm not so sure. The Keeper never outright states how worlds are created, but behaves as though he has means of causing it. He has control over the Labyrinth, and thus over the doors. We know that world creation begins with a door and a guardian, with everything else unfolding from there. I don't know for sure that the Keeper can create worlds, but it's not a wild assertion to claim that he does. After all, he has the ability to destroy them.

Dusklite a écrit :

This could potentially explain the "get things from beings of great power" as something to amass a critical mass of system-breaking, "glitching" power, such as the very powerful root themselves use (see last boss of main campaign).

Hmm... That's an interesting idea. Are you imply that these beings' great power is itself a glitch in the simulation - that they were never meant to be this powerful? That could make for a really interesting story. Unfortunately, this is contradicted on N'erud. One of the possible "beings of great power" that can show up there is Sha-Hala, Guardian of N'erud. If there's one thing we know for a fact isn't aberrant in this cosmology, it's the Guardians. They occur naturally as as part of each universe and are intended to be powerful.

Not to mention, one of the Fragments could potentially come directly from the Root. On Yesha, one of the potential end bosses is the Corrupter - a Root creature. Now granted, it has control of the corpse of the One of Many Faces, Guardian of Yesha. However, it's entirely possible to defeat the actual boss without ever even fighting Many Faces. And besides - that's a puppeteered corpse. Hardly a powerful creature.

I have a strong suspicion that not a lot of thought was given to the segments. "Just go kill world bosses and don't think about it too hard."

Dusklite a écrit :

But anyways, without complete and possibly, official information about every aspect of the main story and how things in that game universe work all is mere speculation as even most contradictions could be explained by some alternative timeline mumbo jumbo for example...

This is true. Ultimately, the answer is we don't know. I guess my attempt here was to come up with some kind of cosmological model that fits what we know without creating obvious plot holes. We don't have a good shot at coming up with the real plot since the developers just... didn't bother to put it in the actual game. But a best guess would be nice so that conversations with the Keeper don't feel as forced :)

The Core could, in theory be anywhere inside the system where the connection to other parts of the system is strongest. The people of N'erud spent centuries longer than the people of Earth trying to find other worlds and are technologically far more advanced and still can't do it. Meanwhile some comparatively primitive species are able to hook up comatose people to machines and sent their consciousness to places too remote for physical travel. I think, that's what a Core world might be.

I don't really think humanity is a deciding factor or the experiments of the Wards or anything. I gather it's the fact that Earth is a Core world (or currently the Core world) that the Ward experiments even worked - which in turn caused the Root to be able to invade. It's also very conceivably the same thing that happened on Root Earth which caused previous Cores to be corrupted in the first place.

It would also somewhat fit into the relation between the Keeper and the Root as I think both might be getting into the system from outside - in the case of the Keeper for a purpose and in case of the Root because... who knows? Maybe it was inevitable by having a curious sentient species muck around on a Core world with the mechanisms of reality, maybe it was a deliberate act from a possible Creator...

As for the word "Creation" - I'm not using it in the biblical sense only since most religions have a creation myth, but yes, "Creation" is written with a capital "C" so I mean the thing, not the act.

Regarding the Segments and the beings of power - I don't think it's power that the beings were never meant to have. I think of it more as "power to change a part of the system itself". Also, one being never had enough of the Segment power to reach critical mass by itself even if every single one of the beings more of less governs the fate of the world it is on. That one of the Segments is held by a part of the Root itself doesn't necessarily contradict this. The Segments' "admin" power might just be that - a power, neither good nor evil by nature, just a tool that if it falls in the hands of someone/-thing that knows how to use it can be used for a purpose.

It would also neatly fit the narrative that even combining a few of these Segments is not enough to purge Annihilation from the system, even though it's apparently enough to force the system itself to "reboot". Could be suggesting that the Root is indeed either too alien for the system "commands" to react to or is even more powerful than a great part of reality itself. As for why that is, your guess is as good as mine. Possibly, the Root is something on the level of a potential Creator itself which would suggest something along the lines of the Doe/Ravager dichotomy as the Root assuming the role of a Destroyer (the name "Annihilation" might be a hint there?).
So maybe in Remnant 3 the player breaks out of the system and fights Entropy/Chaos/Death/Destruction itself, haha. That would be a bit much, though.

I think the Keeper is very interesting for multiple reasons. I'm not even sure that the Keeper is not a lot more than a mere custodian. The ending made me think it could just be that the Keeper is part of the potential Creator itself. There are theological theories that a God might be Creation itself and we are all part of it. If that's what is hinted at in the game, then the force that would be the Creator made itself manifest as the system, placing important parts of itself as administrative agents that only know their part inside the system such as the Keeper (and possibly Guardians and yes, maybe even someone like Clementine).
That would make the Keeper's transformations interesting as the proximity to another big part of the system (Clementine) could trigger a sort of a resonance, making them "remember" more of themselves.
If the Root is a Destroyer from outside the system where the Creator originated that could (if my little theory is sound) also cause further resonance with the Keeper.

If I remember the ending correctly, you could interpret it as the Keeper "remembering" fully as they see the inert system stirring. You could also interpret it as the Keeper actually becoming a Creator or rather, the Creator.

Sterling a écrit :

I'm pretty sure the root were a creation of humans somehow. I don't exactly buy the idea that the multiverse itself is a simulation of some sort, but the root being a corrupter of some sort and we as players witness them as a sort of glitchy mess makes me think that they were created by humans by accident which mirrors a computer virus. Once that happened, the Root Earth became the ground zero for the infestation. After that the keeper quarantined Earth and made a duplicate version to preserve something important. This sapped whatever power they had andd any other worlds that got infected from there on would need to be wiped or permanently disconnected from the labyrinth.

I imagine that all the events from Chronos, Ashes and Remnant 2 are all taking place from the second timeline. I really don't think that the Root Earth is the earth from the first two games, but it could be possible.

You can incorporate this into the plot if you assume that Creation is cyclical: The Creator of the system (and by "system" I don't necessarily mean "simulation") creates a reality with humans and a seed of itself as the Keeper in it. It needs to place the Core on a world where humans would eventually cause the Root to breach the system, as this will ultimately lead to humans causing the system to restart (even if the Root needed to be contained an potentially infinite times and the Core moved to other instances of Earth), with the Keeper as a "new" Creator.
Or if time outside the system does not play a role which I highly suspect, the Keeper becomes the Creator. Which would mean the Creator created itself.

That could explain why the Core actually needs to be on Earth. It needs to be the center of the Root and it also needs to be the central catalyst to an eventual purge.

I think this would be really awesome since it makes the Root not only the "root of all evil" but also as a occurrence the very root of existence itself. From destruction comes creation and all that. It could also mean that the existence of the Root is, in fact, intentional.
It would also make Clementines "decision" essentially predetermined.

It also means that the ultimate question of "then who created the Creator" can be left open to leave a bit of mystery and avoid overly stimulating the sensitivity of religious folks.

It's probably not that, but I like my head canon right now.

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Malidictus a écrit :

However, it still circles back to the same question of "What IS the Core?" Is there something specific to Earth that makes it unique in this function? If so, what?

It's because the "Creator" is human, Gunfire Games to be more specific. The Core is important because trough it, us, the players, set the main events in motion. There is even a Gunfire Security Lanyard which can be found in the backrooms (hidden section in the labyrinth, accessed trough a glitch)