Guild Wars 2

I’m curious as to what the connection is between the Dream of Dreams and the Eternal Alchemy.

From an Asuran perspective the Dream might be encompassed within the Eternal Alchemy.

From a Sylvari perspective the Eternal Alchemy might be encompassed within the Dream.

This thought came up, because ANet created a link between the two cultures in the form of Scarlet Briar.

In the Short Story “What Scarlet Saw” we are given a great deal of information as to what happened to Scarlet. Since this was a short story posted on the official Guild Wars 2 site, I feel it is extremely likely ANet wants this to be taken at face value as what actually happened, and not some crazy plant’s interpretation of what happened.

In Scarlet’s experience during Omadd’s experiment, she is believed to be exploring the Eternal Alchemy through an expansion of her senses and mind. During this experience the Pale Tree is able to communicate with her, and it is explicitly stated she hadn’t heard the Pale Tree’s voice in years. I have been looking for evidence that the Pale Tree can communicate telepathically or in a non-physical way outside the Dream, but I can’t find it. This leads me to believe that Scarlet was in the Dream/Eternal Alchemy otherwise the Pale Tree wouldn’t have been able to communicate with her.

So Omadd’s experiment was supposed to allow Scarlet to experience the Eternal Alchemy, but somehow it put Scarlet in a state where she was able to see and observe the cosmos and communicate with the Pale Tree in a way that seems to only normally be possible within the Dream.

Whatever state and knowledge Scarlet was experiencing, it seems the Pale Tree tree already understood as the tree warned Scarlet:

“Please: go no further. In seeking to comprehend the forces that shape us, you will unleash them. Society cannot withstand that.”

This warning is likely not a reference to Elder Dragons as “Forces that shape us” implies that more than one force, so even if the Sylvari were born from Mordremoth, they would not have been born from multiple dragons. This shows that the Pale Tree still has an even greater understanding of the these shaping forces, potentially a greater understanding than what Scarlet obtained in her short time being connected with the experimental state she was in. This would make sense because the Pale Tree seems to always be connected to the Dream.

All this leads me to believe that there is some kind of direct connection between the Dream of Dreams and the Eternal Alchemy, but there is still much that is unexplained about both of them.

The eternal alchemy is more like a life philosophy than an actual thing. It’s a theoretical perfect description of ‘how the world works’, not unlike the ‘Theory of All’ that real world scientists pursue. Hence it’ll always exist and eveything must be a part of it, because that’s its definition…a theory to describe everything.

At least, that’s how I see it.