So what is this god they keep talking about?

[bulldog0890]

i'm right at the end of the game, and still confused. something about a star being fell to earth and they called it a god? but it got torn to pieces somehow? but that caused some people to be immortal? including simon and maybe his dad? wat

and how does sophia factor into this. she has some kind of power of time? and what even is the relationship between P and gepetto? i thought carlo grew up in the orphan place with romeo

[Yian Yan]

Originally posted by bulldog0890:

i'm right at the end of the game, and still confused. something about a star being fell to earth and they called it a god? but it got torn to pieces somehow? but that caused some people to be immortal? including simon and maybe his dad? wat

and how does sophia factor into this. she has some kind of power of time? and what even is the relationship between P and gepetto? i thought carlo grew up in the orphan place with romeo

I can answer like one or two of those relatively quickly. Carlo is Gepetto's son that grew up in the Monad Charity House because G was too busy to be a dad. Carlo died during a big bad thing that happened there and Gepetto tried to forge a heart to contain Carlo's soul and put it in P (whom he crafted) until he could use it to bring Carlo back... At least that's my understanding.

[Scraps]

The God Simon wants to become likely controls Ergo itself. Lots of Simon's more divine abilities are blue and white, most notably the hands that drop down, while the... God is also the same colours as ergo. Ergo itself can be considered a powersource, but it's also very much capable of turning things both human (puppets) and inhumane (carcasses and petrification). The "immortality" is probably what we see from the carcasses: they're still... Well, interacting with the world, but there's also cases like Victor and Laxasia, who may have become ageless. There is also Golden Ergo, which seems to do the opposite: It causes "Disruption", therefore it kills instantly with enough exposure, and Simon's god form can manipulate this as well. Because it's necessary for the Arm of God to resurrect Carlo, Ergo, to put it bluntly, is life manipulation.

And the God of Ergo would, in turn, be a God of Life and Death.

Sophia is the daughter of the previous alchemist leader, Valentius, and she has the keen ability to manipulate ergo; she was imprisoned once Simon took over. She also has the ability to manipulate time, which may be relevant to ergo as well. The death screen is very likely canon in this context. Simon seems to damn Pinocchio for having been beaten by "The Blue Fairy's Gift". This could be a reference of her manipulating ergo oooor he's well aware of Pinocchio's numerous deaths to him and Sophia turning back time until he's beaten.

Aside from Sophia, the person that seems most in tune with ergo is Geppetto, likely moreso than the Alchemists. He knows how to apply it to technology and is responsible for creating puppets and their morality: The Grand Covenant. This doesn't seem to be the result of ergo being a natural hivemind; Geppetto can directly program who follows the Grand Covenant and who doesn't, since he states he didn't tie you to it.

That's pretty much how I interpret it all. Don't have all the sources since some information is in text outside of item information, and that's a bit harder to find.

[BunsonBurner]

The lore seems to suggest at some point a consciousness within a star heard the wishes of humans and crashed to earth as a meteorite. It granted some of the humans immortality because it loved them, even taking a human form but according to the "So Said Pistris" books the humans who died did so with a hope that things would get better for their descendants while those who had immortality quickly realized that no matter how long they lived the world was still full of problems and lies and evil, and so they ripped the being apart to prevent any further immortality and to get revenge. Simon Manus was one of the people given immortality by the being, but it seems he was also given the unique ability to read minds and this lead him to hear the thoughts "you are a failure too" (thought I'm not sure who thought that, if it was the god or the humans) and he set out on a quest to try and rid the world of lies. When he met the alchemists he found Sophia's powers could stiffle his mind reading abilities and bring him temporary peace and when the alchemists eventually found the arm of the dead god Simon made a plan to ascend to godhood himself to rid the world of lies and deception. (That but came from Manus' book you find right before his boss as well as some after boss dialogue when he explains why he did what he did to Sophia.)

At least that's what I'm pretty sure anyway from scrapping through all the books. The wiki is so knew that it can be hard to track down lore atm or find confirmation on theories.

[LuckyCheshire]

I honestly didn't pay much attention to the 'So said Pistris' books, they pretty obviously have an unreliable narrator, and honestly are pretty vague even at that.

My basic understanding of the setting's plot is that at some point in the distant past, an unknown object crashed nearby to where the town of Krat was, or would be built. This crash site would later come to be know as the Relic of Trismegistus. From the crash site, the condition known as the Petrification Disease lurked, which gradually claimed the lives of an unknown number of people and/or animals, creating the initial stockpile of Ergo. The Petrification Disease works by crystallizing the very lifeforce of a person, creating an energy source of incredible power, a la Fullmetal Alchemist. Sometimes, some or all of a person's ego will survive the crystallization process, seemingly at random when not controlled.

Much later, Ergo is discovered, and the early Alchemists start to research the substance and its properties, including eventually subjecting willing and unwilling subjects to the Petrification Disease in order to create more Ergo. Gepetto also becomes instrumental in the creation of puppets, using Ergo as their power source. Shortly thereafter, the lucky, or unlucky, few who managed to partially survive the crystallization start to appear, leading the Alchemists to discover the 'first' living puppet, a maid who saved a baby using her own free will. This causes the Alchemists to redouble their efforts, and focus on using the power of Ergo to attain immortality, because that always ends so well. At some point through here, the Alchemists become less scientists and more cultists, some even going so far as to worship Ergo.

A wide variety of experiments were carried out by the Alchemists, leading to certain test subjects developing strange powers, such as Simon Manus' ability to read minds, Sophia's power of time, and that one test subject's ability to 'read' Ergo by eating it. All these experiments also gave rise to the Carcasses. I'm not quite sure what specifically distinguishes the Carcasses from 'normal' victims of the Petrification Disease, but it seems linked to the increasing amount of waste material the Alchemists were generating in their experiment with Ergo. Still later, Simon Manus rose to power within the Alchemists, and decided that he would go one step beyond attaining immortality, and become a god, using the 'Arm of God'. The game proper occurs during his attempts to do so, coinciding with Gepetto's attempts to retrieve his son Carlo from the dead, using the puppet rampage and P to do so. Simon also creates a new generation of Alchemists more akin to monsters, such as Laxasia and Victor. By the very end, Simon actually succeeds in becoming a god, but is killed by P before fully 'hatching'.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world a cabal of superhumans are none too pleased with the Alchemists, and send one of their agents, Paracelsus, to investigate the situation and retrieve the arm of god if possible.