Let’s analyze the framework of Tyria.
Tyria exists in a realm where the multiverse is real, and the Mists connects every existing reality, past, present, and future, including alternate realities. The Rift, at the heart of this multiverse, connects to every reality and world imaginable, and is a requisite point of travel for everything that should pass through the Mists.
Considering this, we shouldn’t follow the course of the steam creatures as though they emerge from an array of similar realities in which they are realized along the same lines. That is to say, assuming that they only emerge from realities we know of would be a mistake, such as those involving the Infinity Ball storyline.
This is somewhat emphasized by your own player character:
Shodd: That was unbelievable, unprecedented! We made history and saw the future, all at once.
<Character name>: Empirically, it shows an alternate version of reality, not the future. And based on those mechanical monstrosities, a reality we’re better off without.
Shodd: Well, there’s no denying we got results. But if that’s the future, I don’t want to live there.
<Character name>:It was A future, not THE future. In terms of quantum arcanics, we accessed other possibilities…but the connection was extremely unstable.
This is only compounded by the fact that while your other self insists the steam creatures are his/her creation, there’s a trail of hints that suggest this may only occur on a very shaky basis:
Mysterious Stranger: Hello, Zojja. Recognize me? I’m the one you tried to bully into subservience and mediocrity.
Mysterious Stranger: But I left you behind, and achieved greatness: I am the Grand High Sovereign of my reality.
Zojja: Whatever you call yourself, you don’t belong here. And you can’t stay.
Mysterious Stranger: I can do anything I want. And here, as in my world, the only obstacle to my transcendence is you.
Mysterious Stranger: To become all that I am capable of becoming, you must die. It’s my destiny…and my pleasure.
Mysterious Stranger: Wait until you get to know my creations. In my reality, they conquered Tyria.
Mysterious Stranger: You don’t stand a chance. In your world, this technology hasn’t even been invented yet!
Mysterious Stranger: It’s time we took the field, Grand Vice Admiral Shodd. Just like the battle for Divinity’s Reach!
Shodd: Sovereign, eh? That does sound good. Hang on. What’s my role in this brand-new reality?
Grand Vice Admiral Shodd: You become Grand Vice-Admiral of the Conclave. If you live through this fight, that is.~~
Mysterious Stranger: Just so you know, killing myself is not something I enjoy. But it is necessary.
Mysterious Stranger: I should have known…the only thing that can defeat me…is me!
Let’s look at the circumstances that must arise for your other self’s reality to emerge:
1. Zojja must exist, and she must be left behind.
2. The steam-based technology that is utilized in the steam creatures must be invented.*
~3.~ This one is much, much iffier to pin down, but it may be that the final nail in the coffin to the Conclave Reality, as I’ll call it, is the requirement of possibility elimination.
*Arguably, it already has been in our world, if we observe the charr technology and to a limited extent the dredge technology. This would suggest to me that our other self may be assuming the state of our reality as being more similar to his/her own than it really is. What this may mean then, is something going awry with the charr’s technological revolution that did not in our reality.
Otherwise, it may also mean a variety of other things, like your asura integrating steam tech into golem designs pulled from the charr’s tech somehow. It’s heavily dependent on which aspect of the technology the so-called sovereign is trying to highlight.
My suspicion is roughly this:
The Conclave Reality emerges most consistently when the Infinity Ball is not the character’s first invention. Rather, it is some other invention (I would say probably the steam tech integration with golems) that upon being pursued, is advised against (not unlike the Infinity Ball’s experimentation) by Zojja, but that advice is ignored (again, similar to the Infinity Ball experimentation).
What then happened is murky. Supposedly your character takes over with Shodd at his/her side, but in what manner is incredibly unclear. My additional guesswork here would lead me to believe that your character is lying about ruling his/her reality, something given away by Grand Vice Admiral Shodd. By claiming to be a part of a conclave, we have a few possibilities, it being simply a private meeting or assembly with certain authority, or perhaps that is a secret meeting. Although it could just as easily be all of those together, considering it needn’t be one or the other, but if it possesses the characteristic of being secret…
Either way, it’s hard to say whether it should be taken at face value or not, their being the rulers and thus the conclave being exactly what it sounds like, however the secret meeting idea is a fascinating one to toy with. If it’s a secret meeting, then it can suggest a multitude of things, ranging from their rule being behind the shadows (seemingly not given the steam creatures and Battle of Divinity’s Reach line) to that of their rule being incidental (steam creatures run rampant “conquering” Tyria leaving them and whomever else to rule, see the line about my creations above).
Nevertheless, at some point or another in our reality, your character instead invents the Infinity Ball for whatever reason. This may have never happened in the Conclave Reality, so when suddenly your other self notices steam creatures disappearing out of nowhere, he/she begins to investigate. In the time it takes your character to get things operating optimally, your other self thinks he/she knows what’s going on, leading to his/her intervention in Split Second. I suspect that your other self believes that the disappearance of steam creatures may be an indication of your decisions diminishing his/her reality’s existence, which would readily explain the dialogue that occurs between him/her, Zojja, your character, and Shodd. Each line seems to suggest the belief from your other self and Vice Admiral Shodd that yours is a timeline overwriting his/her and Vice Admiral Shodd’s own, also explaining why someone in their positions would choose to determine where the next possibility-portal would appear and pass through it.
However your other self was likely mistaken. As your character understood the nature of the Infinity Ball, and your other self did not seem to, it would appear that your other self did not pursue it with Shodd, did not remember it after achieving his/her status, or did not invent it. With that in mind, your other self did not appear to comprehend that ours was an alternate reality and not in fact the past. All your other self sees after passing through the portal are the three things he/she needs to verify your reality being his/her past, Zojja with you and Shodd, to encourage his/her next action to try and kill all three before they overwrite his/her and Vice Admiral Shodd’s work.
What this then leaves us with is a Conclave Reality, perhaps actually conquered by your other self alongside others, under the impression that our reality is a past steadily overwriting their own through the occurrence of different possibility realizations that must be altered to ensure the preservation of their own reality by making them become realized as close as possible to how they did in their reality.
TL;DR: Grand High Sovereign may not have invented Infinity Ball, instead went with steam creatures as invention, mistook our reality’s Infinity Ball experiments as being indicative of a differing possibility realization (occurring in what he/she believes to be his/her reality’s past, not in an alternate reality) overwriting his/her reality (which he/she believes to be his/her reality’s future) due to steam creature disappearances, resulting in an attempt to halt its proceeding by killing us.
However, the established Conclave may still believe his/her notions regarding it (voiced to them or in discovered research notes, who knows) were accurate, thus the possible explanation of the steam creatures appearing in Lornar’s Pass (experimental gates/portals?).
How this may connect to the Aetherblades I’m uncertain.
(edited by Gmr Leon.1846)
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