#obvs theres fractal spoilers in here | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

system-architect · 11 months

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i took some of my friends/guildies on a run through 'story mode' (listening to all the dialogue) of shattered observatory recently and some of them learned new stuff despite running fractals often, which made me realize a bit there's actually a decent amount of fractals lore that people might not know or have picked up on, especially if you ran through the fractals pretty fast?? imo it's genuinely one of the most fascinating and well-written areas of the game

so, here, some of my favorite fractal/dessa/arkk lore tidbits (and why i Really Love Fractals):

1. arkk and potentially dessa are implied to be ex-inquest-- in the nightmare fractals, arkk mistakes the players for inquest debt collectors, and in his chaos fractal journal entries mentions his 'witless subordinates', so the implication feels to be that his mists research was inquest funded before he ghosted them. in thaumanova, dessa mentions two of the inquest npcs as having been krewemates of hers-- in ls1 she refers to them as being from her 'old krewe', and still describes them as friends (she also refers to them as 'good technicians', like yknow, the inquest rank). also, it may be for aesthetics, but tiles with the inquest logo are used throughout fractals (and in mistlock sanctuary)

2. simon, the cat obtainable from fractals, is implied to have been arkk's cat as per the headstone next to it (does this make arkk's cat golems make sense? maybe! they're also a cheeky reference to the other cat golems throughout fractals)

3. there was a little incident back in ls1 that revealed the fractals lobby is, itself, a fractal, and it and all the creatures in it loop continuously just like the regular fractals. shattered observatory is also vaguely foreshadowed in it, in a sad way :")

3a. similarly, by the way, the mistlock sanctuary is a fractal too-- ever talked to the npcs in there? go speak to ilia-- and the bartender

4. dessa hates the consortium, supposedly 'lost' her boyfriend (potentially arkk's father?) to them, and is not aware that the consortium are the ones who started promoting the fractals to tyria as an 'attraction'

5. dessa is, in some way, connected to the asura boss at the end of uncategorized fractal-- a small fact we only know from the dreamer collection, combined with dessa freaking out and having to leave when the fractal begins. we don't know their relation

6. dessa seems somewhat aware that she is non-existent/a mists magic construct bound to the timeloops. in a now-lost lore interview from wartower, she is described as being afraid to leave mistlock observatory in case she can't return to it. at the end of shattered observatory, she is much quicker to have the revelation than arkk is-- to the point where you could read it as her having known the whole time

7. and now, my favorite, which is more of a headcanon with a solid lore basis that i tend to go full pepe silvia about-- there's two types of fractal we see: ones that are sort of 'possible' or somewhat alien alternate realities, and then ones that are repeating loops of events that actually happened.

chaos, nightmare, and shattered observatory are all evidently loops of events that actually happened. arkk very much does smash into the fractals, you very much do stop him, dessa and arkk very much do effectively sacrifice themselves to stop the fractals from becoming destroyed, and then the loop repeats-- as they explicitly state it will

here's the thing... during the dialogue at the end of shattered, dessa states that arkk did successfully account for all variables except for the reality that they themselves aren't sentient and are just echoes bound to the fractal loop. thus that arkk's DDR would have successfully worked to extract them from the fractals if they were real, corporeal entities.

but since the shattered observatory is an echo of an event that happened, then just like all the other 'echo' fractals, then there needed to have been actual people acting upon the mists to create the event that's echoed in the first place. that is, it didn't just pop into existence of its' own accord. and while we encounter the fractal looped versions of arkk and dessa, they definitely were real people outside in tyria at some point in time

so... in the original version of the fractal... what actually happened? did a real, corporeal arkk meet a real, corporeal dessa? if so, did his DDR work? did they actually escape the mists, and then the loop in the fractal only ended up like it did because the copies couldn't follow in the originals' footsteps? or was arkk real, only to find that dessa wasn't? if the arkk and dessa we meet are only impressions or echoes of the real things, then where on tyria are the real arkk and dessa?

we don't know!! we simply don't know! we also know very little about the consortium, their connections to the inquest, or the uncategorized fractal! there is SO MUCH lore they could expand upon in future fractals and i really really hope they do ;_;

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #gw2 lore #obvs theres fractal spoilers in here #truly wish it was easier to source a lot of this stuff but half the time the wiki doesnt have it or the link is dead #so sorry to do a bit of a source: trust me on some of this #btw reasonable logical jump--#the reason revenant legends are what they are is your legends are basically Fractal Loop versions of themselves #theyre an impression of a specific moment in time of that hero #instead of the mistlock observatory stabilizing them its the revenant doing it #thx #my stuff #feel free to add your own fave fractals things btw

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