Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking about the nature of the fractals, are the fractals glimpses of the past or are they visions of the future? We have fractals that mimic past events, such as the Molten Furnace fractals, and we also have fractals that allude to a grim future, such as the Uncategorized fractal (Rata Sum in ruins). My theory is that the fractals are the remains of destroyed world, the aether is transformed from ‘memories’ of the past and future. The fractals is like the “ghost of the world” and it keeps reforming and reappearing long after the physical world was destroy. What remained was a swirling ghostly mist of primordial aether that materializes these “fractal islands”. The creation of more of these fractal islands must have been ignited when Dessa ventured deeper into the fractal mists, with herself becoming one with the mists. Remember, the mind of a creature is closely tied to the aether of the world, it’s like the world itself is alive and one sentient being.

Fractals are impressions of events past and future, but not exactly true to them. They are often a mix and match of elements. They are scenario’s build from fragments of reality. Or at least, that’s how I understand it.

Uncategorized fractal is not a future event however, I believe none of the fractals are at this point.

The Mists is capable of creating small islands of existence that copies times, places, and things across the multiverse. This is what the Fractals and PvP maps are in GW2.

The Fractals are a bit unique in that they are created by Dessa and her crew, and that they ‘reset’ after a while (hence the need for us to return to them to re-stabilize them – though it should be noted that ‘stabilizing’ is literally killing all hostiles).

These islands of existence – both fractals and others – are not perfect copies, and they’re not time traveling; once you enter you’re diverting the course of events, but even without player involvement the fractals may be distorted from what actually happened for a number of potential reasons.

We have been told by Scott McGough that every fractal we currently see (with potential exception on Uncategorized due to wording) is of Tyria’s past. We have some degree of notion for which fractal is what – for example, Cliffside is of humanity’s earliest years on Tyria, while Urban Battleground is an alternative take of the events around the Searing – while some are still fully mysterious – such as Uncategorized and Snowblind.

The question is not so much ‘what are fractals’ to us, so much as ‘what are the fractals copies of’ – but unless prodded, like many things especially as of the past few years, Anet gives little info. Just lots of guesses and vast unknowns.