Guild Wars 2

Hello this is just a quick question (or two) for all you wonderful people. I am trying to write a character bio and would like to include the fractals in it some how, however after reading the wiki page it doesn’t overly explain what they are, how they work or how they came to be?

Would someone from a fractal be able to extracted into the real present day Tyria or are they illusions, just memory printed magically upon the mist (how are the fractals themselves created)?

Do we see fractals from the future or only the past?

Do people have entering the fractal have any power over the events that occur or are they purely observing?

Any other information on the topic would be brilliant I look forward to reading what is known.

Hi there,

regarding 1st question – little is known, all we know is that they were introduced along with that weird competition for black lion – the Consortium. I can’t say more about that since i am not completely sure if Consortium wanted to charge people for exploring them, use people to explore them and utilize them in some way to gain money or something else…

2nd question – I believe that Dessa is somewhat of a semi-failed attempt to bring someone back from fractals. Mists are somewhat “the other side” of the Tyria. Sometimes they are (as in original GW) place where dead go, they are home to some races as well, GW players went there in nightfall. However, mists are as well the fabric of the world. I wouldn’t connect them to past/present/future… They simply are… If someone was able to come from fractals to “present” Tyria i’d say they’d be mad, confused or severly affected in some way. For instance Dessa keeps “restarting” – you could have seen it with fractured living story update. So i personally belive that character brought from fractals would be unplayable.

3rd. As i understood fractals simply are. Imagine them as pictures. Just pictures of a single event, and not a moment. And you do get to affect them in a way. As i see it, every time you are looking at them, some “instability” happens – and you are there simply to stabilize it and nothing more (Dessa will perform analysis of everything else). Agony is in my oppinion just a consequence for going into that different world and the way that instability there is affecting you. So we as people from current Tyria are observers, but we do have to stabilize the fractal to have any useful data to use from them – those that do get inside dont get to observe much – they are inside of it they have to deal with instability, those on the outside on the other hand, can sneak a peek at them in a more general and objective way.

Again this is more what my oppinion is since there are not that much information on this. But personally I would keep away from it when it comes to my bio – you maybe can go with ‘went to fractals – was lost there for a long time – now returned (with some specific quirk)’, but originating from fractals would open up too many questions that just cant be answered.

Post a bio once you have it – i’d like to read it through if thats ok

Klofange.6854:

Hello this is just a quick question (or two) for all you wonderful people. I am trying to write a character bio and would like to include the fractals in it some how, however after reading the wiki page it doesn’t overly explain what they are, how they work or how they came to be?

Would someone from a fractal be able to extracted into the real present day Tyria or are they illusions, just memory printed magically upon the mist (how are the fractals themselves created)?

Do we see fractals from the future or only the past?

Do people have entering the fractal have any power over the events that occur or are they purely observing?

Any other information on the topic would be brilliant I look forward to reading what is known.

Don’t know much about the origins. The way we were first told it is that Dessa somehow managed to access the Mists and build a lab out there that could take parts of them and make them accessible. The Consortium later attepted to open an asura gate to Southsun- however, since the expedition team never set up a receiving gate, something went wrong and it accidentally accessed Dessa’s lab instead. However, the latest update to them has cast some doubt on that account.

We don’t know rather Fractal creatures can leave, but Dessa may be proof that they cannot. We’ll have to wait for more of her story to be sure.

All the Fractals we see are in the past- word of dev- but it is at least theoretically possible to create a Fractal based off the future. Since Fractals are only imperfect replications, however, any knowledge gleaned in such a fashion could not be trusted.

As observers, we have power to affect what is happening, to the same extent as we have power to affect the happenings in Tyria proper- with spell and sword. Fractals are unsuitable for a prolonged sequence of events, however. They’re just little chunks, in terms of both time and space.

The wiki articles haven’t been really updated in lore for the past few updates, but if there’s older lore it should be up on the individual fractal articles. Anyways to answer your questions (note I have not read Mereon or Aaron’s post while typing this up):

1. The Fractals are quite literally what their name says – they are fractals of The Mists. Little pieces of existences floating around in The Mists. They came to be just like how anything else in the Mists came to be – via the Mists’ random creation or recreation of things. In these cases, the fractals (except possibly the Mistlock Observatory) are re-creations of Tyria’s past. As to “how they work” – what do you mean by that? Dessa does go into a little bit of info on that part, particularly what’s meant by stabilizing the fractal and why creatures re-appear thus why it’s an endless task (yes the repeating of the mini-dungeons is indeed lore) – beyond that you’d have to be more specific on that particular question.
2. This is fully unknown but based on the story mode of Fractals seen during the last update where we saw Thaumanova, I’d say “no” – but that fully depends on what, exactly, Dessa is. Beings from the Mists in general however can enter Tyria, though they need to do so via weakenings in reality such as the Door of Komalie or Godslost Swamp. It should be noted that “creatures made by the Mists” is quite literally the definition of “demon” in the GW-verse. So any creature “born in the Fractals” would be a demon, regardless of what it looks like or what mechanics consider it to be, in regards to lore that is. They physically exist, however, and are not illusions or the like.
3. Currently only the past, but like anything in the Mists, what is created can be a representation of the past, present, or future – including alternatives to those three. So what’s witnessed in the Fractals is not “true history” – the closest you can get is “how history was with your influence.”
4. The Fractals are their own little pieces of reality. You are no timetraveling or the like. People who enter the Fractals do indeed influence what happens but these specific fractals appear to “reset” (hence why they need constant restabilizing), but influencing the fractals won’t influence what they’re copies of, for instance influencing the Urban Battleground Fractal which is an alternative depiction of the Searing won’t influence what happened the Searing.
5. What kind of information?

Mereon.6917:

regarding 1st question – little is known, all we know is that they were introduced along with that weird competition for black lion – the Consortium. I can’t say more about that since i am not completely sure if Consortium wanted to charge people for exploring them, use people to explore them and utilize them in some way to gain money or something else…

The Consortium’s asura gate was meant to go to Southsun Cove and the accident happened as Aaron said – the original function of the Fractals’ asura gate having been replaced by the newly added gate there. The Consortium had no knowledge of where the gate led once it malfunctioned and so they couldn’t have been planning to use the Fractals to make money – not until after the malfunction, that is.

Mereon.6917:

2nd question – I believe that Dessa is somewhat of a semi-failed attempt to bring someone back from fractals. Mists are somewhat “the other side” of the Tyria. Sometimes they are (as in original GW) place where dead go, they are home to some races as well, GW players went there in nightfall. However, mists are as well the fabric of the world. I wouldn’t connect them to past/present/future… They simply are… If someone was able to come from fractals to “present” Tyria i’d say they’d be mad, confused or severly affected in some way. For instance Dessa keeps “restarting” – you could have seen it with fractured living story update. So i personally belive that character brought from fractals would be unplayable.

Not quite true. While yes the Mists serve as the afterlife, it is the protomatter that makes up all life and all time – it is the beginning and the end, where all things can trace their origins, and where all things eventually go back to. The Mists does connect all past, present, and future; it isn’t that the Mists is the past/present/future but connects the three together. One can say quite easily knowing this that there is no true concept of time in the Mists. But the Fractals and everything else made in the Mists are not pieces of the past, just recreations. They are their own entity.

What Dessa is… is fully unknown – whether she’s Mistborn or just a traveler like us who got stuck is just simply unknown.

My question then is this plausible?

In the future work begins in sending someone back in time to prevent particular events from unfolding (lets ignore the old grandfather paradox for the moment), as such an immense amount of magical energy is used in a location where the link to the mist is stronger, to dislodge a fraction of Tyrian time space into the mist. A 20 minutes event and character playing an event on repeat like a fractal but not of origin from the mist but rather a displaced event from reality. Could a person from that event, in theory, be able to leave with the aid of Dessa?

Does that make sense and is it at least theoretically plausible based on what we know?

Ehhhhhh….

Firstly, Fractals would be unrelated to the first half you mentioned. You speak of time travel and moving pockets of time and space, but the Fractals is more akin to… alternate realities, though they’re very much not such – more like small island-like copies of reality floating in a vast expanse of protomatter (which look like mists hence the name: “the Mists”). The key is that they are copies, not the real thing in any way shape or form. They would be best compared to being a clone than anything else – cloned landscape, cloned individuals, and whatnot. And sometimes these clones are made with mutations that make them different from the original.

As to time travel in of itself – there’s many different routes that can be taken for this, as there are just as many different theories for how time travel works and ArenaNet can use any of them (or make up their own). Thus far, we only have one-sided view of time travel from the Infinity Ball storyline, where said individual comes from the future – so time travel is indeed possible, though hard to perform as in said storyline, the connection had to be made on this side before the time travel could occur – but it was still a one-way trip it seems, from future to past. However, we have no idea what happens with that future – it was a “possible future” meaning that it may not happen (much like the ‘foreseeing the future’ that is A Light in the Darkness story step), but does that cease to exist once avoided? If so, does that mean the very act of time traveling erases that time traveler’s homeworld/time from all existence? If not, is it actual time travel, or just traveling between two dimensions on parallel timespans that are just at different places in the timeline? Or, if also not, are you actually altering your own past, or are you just doing what was already done in your world’s past but in your personal future? To quote Doctor Who: Timey Whimy Wibbly Wobbly Stuff.

The only other case we have of time traveler is Corporal Bane, however he was part of a 100% pop culture reference April’s Fools joke, so I wouldn’t consider it canon in the least – or wouldn’t usually, except that there was another such joke of 100% references that was made canon to some’s dismay at the joke that lore is becoming.

Now to the point of the whole “dislodging a fraction of Tyrian timespace into the Mist” – I don’t think that’s even possible. It took a god, Abaddon specifically who’s domain was secrets and knowledge, to twist his own realm into a mockery of Tyria and then overlap the two, turning Tyria into said mockery (Nightfall). He couldn’t even dislodge part of Tyria, so I doubt that anything could honestly. The Mists could create a copy of a specific time and space of Tyria – that’s what the Fractals (and sPvP maps) are after all – but I find it extremely impossible for a part of Tyria to be moved into the Mists.

As for a being within a fractal being able to leave with Dessa’s aid. I am doubtful because the inhabitants (at least the hostile ones) are the instabilities – thus the figure you talk about would be said instability – and the instabilities reset after a time, so too one would think would the figure (probably in the same manner that Dessa seemed to have “reset” when trying to leave Mistlock Observatory at the end of the update’s story mode); though it’s impossible to prove or disprove.

Than you for the reply, I get that the fractals are a copy after previous post, I am assuming just like Razah was a copy of the human form in gw1 (however he could leave the mist). It also makes sense that all copies can’t be perfect clones of the originals as erros could occur just as it does in real life with genetic material.

The second section, I did say ignoring the time travel implications for the moment, as stated by yourself it is complicated, if change is made then you jumped to a parallel universe/dimension otherwise are you actually instigating (or making no difference) to the thing you want to prevent (possible self fulfilling prophesy sort of speak). Until I have a valid reason for the time-travel I haven’t yet decided the implication.

The reason I thought about dislodging a part of Tyria is that we know we can do this already, the beings that live on Tyria are part of it and they are able to travel to the mist, so I wondered if such a thing could be scaled up to not just a person but a portion of land (no bigger than a small house) where the individual and the areas were specifically transported in a sort of time loop to stabilise it within the mist and ensure the success of the individual (if time were to pass freely the figure would have no guarantee of rescue within his actual life) but if it is not possible, I head back to the drawing board and thank you for your time

Razah is a different case though. In the Fractals, we see copies/reflections/echoes/(insert any term for distorted duplicate) of things that exist. Razah himself was a being of the Mists that took on human form.

The form was a copy, but the being was not. In the Fractals, both being and form of the inhabitants are derived from something else.

As to the displaced chunk of Tyria, that’s unfeasible for two reasons. First, portals to the Mists are like doors. They can be passed through, in one direction or in both, seemingly freely- but it is all but unheard of for something to be sucked through one, and those instances A.) were powered by the will of a god, and B.) never pulled more than a few people in at a time, even at the apex of the Nightfall event. The only known instance of a power from Tyria casting something into the Mists was when the five gods cast down Abaddon.

Secondly, even if it happened, Dessa would be no help. Her lab condenses the essence of the Mists in a way that allows her portal to access them. It would not have any way of making contact with those cast out, and so the person involved would not be able to reach her to receive her help.

What Razah was, was a generic template created that just so happened to look very human-like. He wasn’t a copy of anything specific, like most demons and things in the Mists.

Razah is more akin to being a clone of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man or some other form of “generic human model” than a clone of an individual like the Fractals are. In the same light, you can probably say the same about the World versus World maps (especially Edge of the Mists, which I doubt is the actual edge of the stuff that surrounds the entire multiverse) or the various afterlives (Mad Realm, the Underworld, Realm of Torment, etc.).

And what do you mean “we know we can do this already” for dislodging Tyria? because as I said, we cannot. Not how I’m understanding what you mean – which by your explanation was “taking a part of Tyria, and separating it from Tyria, moving it into the Mists.” A person traveling into the Mists via portals is vastly different from dislodging a part of the time and space of a location that includes the land and everything.

There is one case where land is taken through a portal – when the Mouth of Torment was being opened up – but it was just chunks of land being sucked in, no time/space distortion of the sort. It’d be no different than grabbing a pebble and chucking it through an open portal. But even this case was empowered by a god.

You would quite literally need a god to do what your wanting to do – if it were even possible for the gods, as the best case we have is a god twisting a realm in the Mists to overlap with Tyria, trying to make the two become one. And the closest next is them opening a portal, which is actually possible by a mortal (Lord Odran for example) but that just results in effects like in Godslost Swamp – portals like doorways opening for travel, no vacuum or time/space distortions.

Klofange.6854:

Hello this is just a quick question (or two) for all you wonderful people. I am trying to write a character bio and would like to include the fractals in it some how, however after reading the wiki page it doesn’t overly explain what they are, how they work or how they came to be?

Would someone from a fractal be able to extracted into the real present day Tyria or are they illusions, just memory printed magically upon the mist (how are the fractals themselves created)?

Do we see fractals from the future or only the past?

Do people have entering the fractal have any power over the events that occur or are they purely observing?

Any other information on the topic would be brilliant I look forward to reading what is known.

The fractals are a part of the mist. The mist is the eternal source of creation. Its sort of a fabric that holds the multi verse together. The mist itself is kinda alive and the true creator. Tyria is just a part of the mist. Its like we exist inside a reality bubble. Some other bubbles contain the realm of the gods, the land of the fallen heroes, the silvary dream and all kind of crazy and wonderful stuff. Fractals of the mists are kind of neo Bubles, tiny bubbles that record events of the past and the future bunt not necessarily for our reality. Now uncle Albert comes in. The past and the future are the same. We are just at one point of the timeline. Our future is someones past and all the things already happened at least from the perspective of the mists. Can we manipulate the fractals ? Yes and No. We can change them to the same degree we can change our reality. We can change the flow but not the rules. I guess if the bubble would be weary unstable a strong person could manipulate its reality but i guess it would take a dragon or a god to do that.