Ok, in my replaying I've gotten up to where we meet the Founder, basically. My thoughts so far:
I wonder if the Founder's questions towards our "ideology" and whether we would sacrifice the innocent for our loved ones and such is more of a character moment for him than it is for us. Obviously part of it is about getting the player to think through some tough questions and fill out their own ideals, but the way the Founder talks about it... He's almost wistful, like he could be thinking back to a choice that he himself made in the past, and wondering if it was the right decision, measuring his own choice against our answers.
Thinking forward to the story Calypso tells us in the bath in the cowboy server, which I admittedly only half-remember right now, it seems plausible (likely?) that the Founder is in fact one of the characters in that story, either the guy who frees Anima and falls in love with her, or the evil guy who trapped her? Perhaps they're in truth the same character, but became separated over the millennia. But basically what I'm getting at is, I wonder if the Founder could be thinking of his decision to imprison Idriel in this scene. Maybe he needed to imprison her to protect his loved ones, or she is his loved one, and needed to imprison her to protect the innocent, or he just imprisoned her for his personal power, or perhaps even all three.
I do think the Founder will likely end up as some sort of tragic figure. He just simply isn't portrayed like a straight villain, despite how clearly evil several core aspects of Eternum are, like the NPCs. He appears sincere and earnest in our interaction with him, and like he is genuinely invested in the world of Eternum, and the cunning and talent and curiosity of us and the other players. I do think he will be a force that we need to stop, but I think there will be a certain complexity to his character and backstory. Honestly, the MC appears more scared of Idriel in our interactions with her than he is of the Founder here. Hmm.
I do also wonder what he does all day. He says that he needs to attend many meetings and the like, but we both know that that's just a lie, or at least he's not meeting with Ulysses people or whatever. So does he just have orgies with Praetorians all day or something instead? Oh you know what. All Praetorians have the same face, and have similar eyes to the Founder. I wonder if it could be the face of someone he loved? Someone he chose to sacrifice, perhaps? But anyways, I guess I kind of imagine the Founder is just constantly going on adventures in different worlds. He seems like he would really enjoy that. That's also kind of what I imagine our own ending to be too, with the context of Calypso saying she doesn't love being a princess, but instead loves all the adventures we go on. It would be some cutesy thing where we just keep adventuring with our girls and live happily ever after.
I'm now also realizing the name of Ulysses is also probably pretty meaningful. Odysseus (also known as Ulysses) sailed around the Mediterranean going on adventures for ten years (about as long as Eternum has existed on Earth), all so he can get back home and back to his wife. The Founder probably named it after him for a reason. He does also have a penchant for Greek-ish aesthetics: The Temple of Acheron, Ulysses, the Praetorians are more Roman but close enough, the Weapons of Atlas, all with Greek names, the statues at the mansion. To me, it seems like there might be some cultural differences there to weed out. Like for instance, if we do think that the ouroborous doors in Hyril'ar are the doors of Acheron, then the elves call the temple they lead to "The Temple of the Ten Rivers", which is not actually named by the elves but rather "the ancients". Maybe differences like that could eventually be useful to figure something out.
The Founder also tells us that Ulysses can track when a gem of doom is first discovered, but not when it switches hands to someone new, and that he instead had to deduce that we were the one who stole the gem from Garrington. But that's interesting, because Idriel detected we had the stolen gem of doom and invited us to the party. So there is some function to detect it, it's just not visible to Ulysses I guess? He could be lying, but.. that'd be weird. Maybe Idriel intentionally withholds that information?
He calls the Weapons of Atlas "Idriel's creations", and the MC acts confused about this, but it doesn't at all contradict what we were told before. Idriel says to us "I decided to assist players ... by creating" the Weapons of Atlas. I guess the confusion could come from the Founder himself phrasing it that way, suggesting that Idriel has more agency than previously thought. But I wonder if she created them on her own initiative, or if she created them together with the Founder. They both want the gems of doom discovered seemingly, maybe they both want them used for the same thing. Also, we know that Calypso was never "created" like the other Weapons, but perhaps if Idriel really is Anima, then Calypso would still be a creation of hers by virtue of being her descendant? Or it could be that Idriel created the prison for Calypso and facilitated her capture. Maybe so that she could be freed and Calypso could take her place and become trapped and power Eternum? Or maybe just to aid the MC in the future.
We also got a headache immediately upon meeting the Founder, strikingly similar to the one we got when we encountered Calypso for the first time. I had interpreted the first headache from Calypso as being connected to our powers being unlocked, since our power seems connected to hers, and we were unable to use it before we were near to her. Could our powers be connected to the Founder as well? It is after this that we start slipping into Eternum and whatnot. In the latest update, when we're in Hyril'ar, we can't use our demon powers until Calypso has recovered, but even then we still can't teleport. Maybe it's because we were cut off from the Founder while in Hyril'ar? The moment we're back in Eternum, we're good to go. But we didn't make any remark of feeling cut off from our demon powers once we were out of Hyril'ar. Hmm. I guess we're not cut off from Caly's magic in Eternum, since she can create portals there, so maybe the magic only passes through one way, out of Hyril'ar. That would be symmetric with being able to use our teleporting powers when we're in Earth, but not our demon powers.
At the start of the mansion party sequence, Caly again remarks that she thinks Alex has elven blood in her veins, and that it could be true even if she's far removed from an elven ancestor, since their blood is very strong or whatever. Alex makes an insincere comment about how maybe they're distantly related, which is probably just true. There's not really evidence for it, but it's clear foreshadowing, and in 0.9 there was repeated emphasis made on the "Peredhil", or human-elf offspring, in a way that kind of stuck out to me when I first played through, but couldn't quite place why. It is definitely mentioned because of the sex that we have with elves, but it also seems to me now like Caribdis probably wants to remind us of the concept, so as to soften the landing when it gets revealed in an upcoming update that Alex is indeed descended from some elf.
And if she is related to Calypso, that elf I guess would be Anima and Alex would maybe have some vestige of her power as well? Probably not to the point of creating a portal, but perhaps she'll be useful in opening the doors of Acheron, which maybe need Anima power on both sides of the doors, so Calypso on the Hyril'ar side and Alex on the Earth side? I imagine too that William Bardot probably sought out Alex's mom for specifically this purpose, which would maybe tie in well with his viewing of his family as only tools. I guess he'd be fine to disown Alex, since he presumes he still has Axel under his thumb, but maybe it'll become a plot beat that that will blow up in his face when Axel reveals he hates his dad now too.
But it would make sense to me that Anima could have some children on Earth. The human who saved her and fell in love with her had children in her home of Hyril'ar, it seems only reasonable that they would check out the human's home too, which I guess would be Earth, and have some children there. That could also tie in nicely with Calypso wondering about visiting Earth in the latest update.
Wew, okay that was more thoughts than I expected. It was a juicy batch of scenes I guess. Definitely a sign of a good game that I can just keep spewing paragraphs of theories out and still never be done.
It's not the first time we see them during Luna's scene,and I keep bringing them because they look exactly like butterflies from Life is strange
