Who the hell was Dahlia Boat?

[Barbobotinator]

As per title, who the hell was Dahlia Boat?

[Llyes]

Ialdabaoth or Yaldabaoth apparently. Other threads were talking about it. Whatever the meaning of the name might or might not have been, its purpose was to glitch out Ryuki and Tama further, and infect Aiba with the player's existance.

[Barbobotinator]

Infect aiba?

For some reason I feel like I missed a third of the story. I’ve done all the achievements/bonuses so I guess not but it feels like it lost a third act when the entire murdery mystery fell apart in disjointed un-character driven events.

[Llyes]

did you not do the nil ending? everything was for that

[Redblaze27]

Originally posted by Llyes:

Ialdabaoth or Yaldabaoth apparently. Other threads were talking about it.

Persumably a thematic reference and not a literal thing.

[MegaMan]

Originally posted by Llyes:

did you not do the nil ending? everything was for that

That ending was for only one person. The HBK did not intend that.

[Llyes]

The showdown at the Colosseum was nothing but Tokiko's birthday fireworks, whether Tearer believed that releasing the virus would free mankind or not is irrelevant. Tokiko prophesized (or had info from outside the simulation) the entire chain of events of the game, it's why she's always talking directly to the player and why she left her journal for the player (frayer) in cathedral 2 to explain her motivations. The nil ending is inevitable and the entire point of the game.

[Triet]

Tokiko probably told Shoma and Uru to give Ryuki those names to glitch out the simulation.

[awanderingswordsman]

I too was wondering this. Boat isn't too strange. We learn that bibi and mizuki were referred to as mouse and rabbit instead of by names. It's not much of a leap to consider that uru's codename was boat. It's also the name we get on the "real" timeline.

Dahlia decodes to HELPME with a rot22 cipher, something I saw elsewhere and that is part of his red room puzzle as well. Boat decodes with the same thing to FSEX which some people think could be referring to his mother given his Oedipus complex. The solution to the red room puzzle is mom help me so perhaps thats all there is to it.

There is also a ship named USS Dahlia from the civil war. Was built on october 1st 1862, named Dahlia on october 24th of the same year, sold in 1865 and passed out of service in about 1872. I wouldn't put it past the devs to have some pointless secret message tied to those dates.

There's also a theory that it's just a reference to the nonary games.

I feel that even if the names main purpose is to create a seam, it's unlikely they picked random names.

For now it remains one the games mysteries.