Guild Wars 2

We know that fractals are a recreation of real world events, and as such they don’t generate “original content”, just a repost of a repost of a… you all know how this works, so I’ll cut to the chase.

There’s a cat golem in real-world Tyria at the Proxemics lab (Tom-9). There’s also Old Tom (perhaps the golem Tom-9 replaced) in the fractal. Since we’ve never seen a cat golem anywhere else, then this must be where the cat golems in this fractal come from.

It’s been abandoned for a long time, so a single researcher who somehow got trapped there could easily go mad. I’m not sure if it’s ever mentioned why the Proxemics lab was abandoned, but we can see that the skritt have escaped and there’s no a case of the test subjects running the experiment. Perhaps when the Skritt broke out the (then possible still sane) Raving Asura recalled whatever golems he could from the lab and used them to destroy whatever mechanism linked it to the control room, rather than be overwhelmed by what is more than enough Skritt to handle 4 golems.

There are several convenient ways in which this fits, and of course, nothing definitive. Quoth the Raving Asura “Breach! Broken! Falling! Screaming! Dying!”.
This could reference the Skritt escaping, taking over the facility, making escape impossible for the (now driven insane) sole survivor as the other researchers are systematically killed by the rampaging Skritt.

This would explain why the Raving Asura is so sure we’re not real (after all, there’s no way to get to him anymore, even if someone did subdue the Skritt in an attempt to mount a rescue). That’s why we can’t be there.

Still with me? Good. So, this asura has been in isolation for an indeterminate amount of time – this could be why he’s gone mad. If my crazy speculation is within the ballpark though, the cause for his mental issue may lie in the fact that he condemned whatever researchers were still inside the lab to death when he severed the connection between it and the control room he was in to save himself.

The lab itself is devoted to researching the intelligence of other races, which could explain the Ettin/Charr/apparent god of all rabbits being present there as well.

I’d like to throw this one out there and see if anything disproving it exists that I don’t know about/haven’t thought of.

tl;dr version

1. The Skritt break out, begin killing the researchers.
2. Sole survivor uses the 4 golems we find in the fractal to get to the “control room”
3. He has them destroy the means of going back and forth between the two before the vast Skritt numbers overwhelm his paltry defenders
4. ??????
5. Fractal!

Edit: attempting to put jumbled ideas in some sort of organised order

Sadly, I haven’t been able to run Proxemics Lab (hopefully we get it tonight) but it’s highly unlikely, in my opinion, that the Skritt would be that violent and capable of such destruction. Perhaps they might have tampered with something dangerous that caused it in their way to escape, but when he says “breached” seems to be tied to an actual breach of the security system/safeguard of the place by something or someone outside of the complex.

Also, the “falling” part dosn’t seem to fit the place -I know there’s some jumping and falling involved- but the Raving Asura doesn’t seeem to be referencing that kind of falling.

There’s also a dialogue that seems to be glitched and doesn’t appear as much: http://i.imgur.com/j6Bc2MR.jpg

“I couldn’t save them. I heard them all. Pleading. All gone. All on my watch!”

This leads me to believe the Raving Asura was a teacher, tutor or guarding in charge of the progeny. Or he might have been some important key figure in this Rata Sumwhereelse dealing with the overall security of the populace. Also, by how his golems are named, it further supports my theory.

Furthermore, a few rampaging Skritt doesn’t seem to fit the chaos and desperation we can catch in his lines. It sounds a lot more complex than an experiment gone wrong.

Prior to the rise of the destroyers, the asura were the predominant race in the Depths of Tyria. They lorded their status over all others, and fought primarily against the skritt—creatures that the asura considered (then and now) to be hideous, dangerous vermin.

The whole That Old College Try article implies that Skritt and Asura are far from friendly.

As to that dialogue I forgot about, what if the raving asura was in charge of test subject containment, and the Skritt escaped on his watch?

I didn’t say they weren’t dengerous, I said I don’t think they’re capable of the destruction and chaos that is implied to have happened though.

The line mentioned refers to others -other Asura- rather than the attackers.

Skritt in a large enough group surpass even the Asura in terms of intelligence. So the Skritt somehow escape, get smart and suddenly realise they’ve been lab rats? If that doesn’t make them kill a race that has actively been trying to exterminate them even before this, I don’t know what would.

As for the line refering to the other Asura, that’s obvious. What I’m saying is that whatever caused them to die happened on his watch, and we don’t know what that was. It could have been a skritt breakout. Could be a burned slice of toast. Could have been Thaumanova exploding. All we know is that it was his responsibility to keep whatever happened from happening, and he slipped up.

I think this is the best theory so far OP. We don’t see similar golems anyway else. The topic of the structure the fractal is on is at hand of course. Perhaps the entire lab when taken out of the mountain looks similar to the one we see floating in the fractal.

The best thing I can guess is that the mad Asuran has something to do with progeny because if the golems were designed in such a way so that they interact with young asurans, they’d probably be made to look a bit kiddish.

SpeedFiend.4521:

As to that dialogue I forgot about, what if the raving asura was in charge of test subject containment, and the Skritt escaped on his watch?

“I couldn’t save them. I heard them all. Pleading. All gone. All on my watch!”

Then why would he want to save his test subjects, if they escaped on his watch?

No, this clearly refers to people he was attached to (fellow scientists perhaps) who were pleading for help, but he couldn’t save them, and now they are all dead.

Interesting btw, I have never seen him say this line. Nowadays he repeats the last line twice. I hope they fix that.

So apart from the Golems, is there anything that links the structure itself we see in the Fractal to the Proxemics lab? I have not visited the Proxemics lab yet, but some pictures would be nice.

Let me break down my interpretation of his quote, since there seems to be some confusion here.

“I couldn’t save them. I heard them all. Pleading. All gone. All on my watch!”

I couldn’t save them. The other researchers.
I heard them all. Still the researchers.
Pleading. Still the researchers, whether they’re pleading him for help he can’t give them or the Skritt for mercy they won’t show is irrelevant.
All gone. Still the researchers, who perished in the breakout.
All on my watch. The series of events that caused the researchers to die happed on his watch. There is no indication what exactly happened.

I’m not saying that any part of this quote is said in regards to (the theorized) Skritt. I’m just saying that it in no way excludes this as a possibility. It’s a madman’s account of what happened, without expressly mentioning the cause and how it happened.

If it was indeed a Skritt breakout, he is presumably the one in charge of keeping them secured. It could be that he slipped up, leading to the breakout. It could be that the breakout happened, but he didn’t correctly handle the sitation. It could be that once the Skritt broke out there was no hope for the researchers in the lab, but the Raving Asura still feels responsible (the breakout wasn’t his fault, per se, it just happened on his watch).

I hope this clears things up.

SpeedFiend.4521:

I hope this clears things up.

It certainly does, and it’s possible.

But can we link the areas together in some way, apart from the cat golems and the Tom unit?

Since that’s the only place in real-life Tyria a cat golem has been seen (feel free to correct me on this, I’m not too hot on asura and their exploding playthings) then that’s where it must have been copied from.

Also, what would you use to hunt giant mice/rats… Giant cats might do the trick

After some additional research and re-reading this thread I’ve got some more things to add.

As to the notion that the Raving Asura was some sort of teacher and that the golems guarding him are designed for progeny – this is false. There are plenty of progeny in Metrica province, yet they all interact with normal golems/golemites.

The cat golem is only seen in the Proxemics lab, and the situation we see it in speaks a lot as to its purpose. The Golem is the “predator” for the Skritt inside the labyrinth portion of the laboratory. The intent being to test if the Skritt subjects can successfully complete the task at hand (bringing the batteries to the door leading to freedom) while avoiding traps and under pressure from a (fairly natural) predator lurking throughout the maze.

It is therefore possible that the cat golems we see in the fractal were used for the exact same purpose, either in conjunction with Tom-9 or separately. The Proxemics lab is, after all, intended to test intelligence, and, given that each golem has a unique skillset, it makes sense that the test subjects were pitted against them to measure their capacity to deal with a variety of situations. Also, keeping in mind that the Asura have an interest in exterminating the Skritt, it’s possible that each of these golems was also a weapons test intended to find the most efficient way to combat Skritt.

What role do you think Dessa plays in this? She clearly has personal ties to whatever is going on here.

I have some vague recollection that Dessa won’t leave the observatory for fear that she may never be able to go back. That and her reaction to the fractal may be linked. Perhaps she was part of the research crew at the proxemics lab and managed to escape when the Skritt broke loose. If this is the case, it’s possible that her method of escape condemned the remaining staff at the facility to death. The facility seems to be dangerously low on power, perhaps this is a result of Dessa’s escape. At that point the raving asura knew that containing the skritt wasn’t an option so he opted to sever the link with the rest of the lab and live out the remainder of his days trapped there rather than be torn apart by the skritt.

Another possible reason why Dessa fears that leaving her experiment even for a moment may lead to her not being able to return: It is also possible that, rather than escaping and dooming everyone else, she simply wasn’t there on the day of the breakout. Her reaction may be survivor’s guilt if she was part of the researchers at the lab and just happened to not be there that day. She left, the skritt overran the facility and killed everyone but the raving asura. Rescue/reclaiming the facility has clearly been deemed not feasible (it would have happened by now if it was), hence she left (just for a little bit) and was never able to return.

I noticed that sometimes in fractals Dessa’s dialogue will appear in “observation mode” and other fractals not – particularly, Uncategorized stands out as not having the observation mode note – do you think this has any significance or is just a programming inconsistency?

I am trying to get myself more interested in this fractal since we will have Thaumanova research taking place soon, and this may be a piece of the puzzle (or possibly piece of the result).

I’d chalk that up to programming inconsistency. Dessa won’t leave Mistlock Observatory for fear of never being able to return, it’s extremely unlikely she’d do so to enter a dangerous fractal that hasn’t been stabilized yet.

SpeedFiend.4521:

I’d chalk that up to programming inconsistency. Dessa won’t leave Mistlock Observatory for fear of never being able to return, it’s extremely unlikely she’d do so to enter a dangerous fractal that hasn’t been stabilized yet.

As I understand it, Dessa’s lab floats somewhere in the Mists. It seems to be as if a small portion of the Mists was purposefully stabilized, in order to keep the lab there (we also see some other islands floating around). It’s quite reasonable for Dessa to believe that the connection between her lab and Lion’s Arch could be unreliable. And if that connection were to be cut at some point, her lab would once again be floating off into the Mists, and leaving her krewe abandoned in the process. If Dessa is indeed closely involved with what happened at the Uncategorized Fractal, it makes even more sense that she would not want to abandon her krewe, or her lab.

The process of stabilizing Fractals is also interesting. It is as if Dessa’s lab calls forth a random memory from the Mists, which then takes physical form. And we can walk around in it, either as ourselves, or as someone else (like in Urban Battlegrounds). But it all always ends with a climactic battle, which needs to be won in order to stabilize this memory.

This makes me wonder if the purpose of the lab is simply to study the Fractal as we relive the events of the past…. or if it studies the Fractals AFTER we’ve stabilized them. Like, is it possible she’ll send in a krewe of her own to study a pacified stable Fractal once we are done with it? Or does she only study it from a distance? What is the purpose of stabilizing Fractals, and do these Fractals then remain stable… or do they fall apart again after a while?

Pretty sure that Dessa says that she’s studying after the stabilizing, but they become unstable again after a while. The creatures in the fractals are what destabilize it. As for how she studies, again iirc, she says they observe so it’s most likely done at a distance.

Dessa isn’t even aware that the portal to her lab leads to Lion’s Arch.

‘How did you get connected to that gate in Lion’s Arch?’
Dessa: ’Lion’s Arch? No, there must be a misunderstanding. We’d never launch this lab from that pirate haven.’

She also mentions losing her boyfriend to the Consortium and that they should not be trusted. He could be one of the asura we see working for the consortium. I also don’t put it beyond them to be behind the Proxemics lab project: The asura have an interest in knowing their enemy, the consortium may see the Skritt as potential abundant cheap labor that can be kept exactly smart enough to get the job done but stupid enough to now know they’re getting the short end of the stick. When the incident happened the Consortium could easily have easily refused to attempt a rescue based on the cost of doing so.

‘Why don’t you get some Consortium help? Aren’t you with them?’
Dessa: ‘Those money-grubbing connivers? It’s bad enough I lost my boyfriend to those shady “businessmen.” Take my advice: reject their advances. Nothing good will come of their machinations.’

That or her boyfriend is one of the asura we see working with the Consortium.

Have we EVER seen Dessa outside the fractal lab/basecamp?

No, and it’s likely we never will unless something very major happens. Perhaps that interaction of chaos magic/the mists that has been all but promised for the Thaumanova fractal.

I’m just suggesting she can’t leave because she is herself a product of the fractals.

When you postulate infinity, there HAS TO BE someone trying to get out .

Nike.2631:

I’m just suggesting she can’t leave because she is herself a product of the fractals.

When you postulate infinity, there HAS TO BE someone trying to get out .

An interesting hypothesis. If all the Fractals are just memories within the Mists… then could Dessa’s lab also be a memory… that is studying other memories?

How ever, since we know fractals eventually become unstable again, wouldn’t the same apply to Dessa’s lab then?

Nike.2631:

I’m just suggesting she can’t leave because she is herself a product of the fractals.

When you postulate infinity, there HAS TO BE someone trying to get out .

Never thought of it that way. That wouldn’t stop her from leaving though. The mists spat our Razah (and he had nothing to be copied out of, he just came to be out of thin nothing) and he went on to have many jolly adventures with the PC in gw1 all across Tyria.

Things actually escape from the mists all the time. Just take a stroll through Godslost swamp, where the barrier between the Underworld (part of the mists) and Tyria is wearing pretty thin, you have all sorts of stuff that’s not from these parts roaming around. Mad King Thorn recently almost broke out from the Mad Realm (itself a part of the Underworld). Varesh attempted to free Abaddon from the Realm of Torment (also part of the Underworld, there’s quite a few parts it seems) and out from the Vortex came his sword and gauntlet.

What’s also interesting is how Mad King Thorn basically defied Grenth’s laws during Halloween. Initially I always imagined Grenth allowed him to visit in GW1. But now with the gods gone and Thorn breaking his seals, it seems more like Thorn was always simply too strong a spirit to contain, even by the god of death.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

An interesting hypothesis. If all the Fractals are just memories within the Mists… then could Dessa’s lab also be a memory… that is studying other memories?

I tend to think she’s from the Uncategorized Fractal – and has partially bootstrapped her way out of her hellhole of origin… (and that it got much, much worse in her absence)

How ever, since we know fractals eventually become unstable again, wouldn’t the same apply to Dessa’s lab then?

Have you seen the amount or ‘real world’ foot traffic she’s managed to attract to her little niche in the Mists? We – the adventurer guilds of Tyria – probably re-stabilize the lab every time we stroll through.

Nike.2631:

I tend to think she’s from the Uncategorized Fractal – and has partially bootstrapped her way out of her hellhole of origin… (and that it got much, much worse in her absence)

Interesting hypothesis. Would it be possible for memories from the Mists to live on? Or to escape their prison? We know from Razah’s background that funny things can happen with energy in the Mists.

Nike.2631:

Have you seen the amount or ‘real world’ foot traffic she’s managed to attract to her little niche in the Mists? We – the adventurer guilds of Tyria – probably re-stabilize the lab every time we stroll through.

I wonder if it can work that way. Currently the only examples we have of stabilizing fractals, involve resolving a conflict (boss battle).

Nike.2631:

I’m just suggesting she can’t leave because she is herself a product of the fractals.

When you postulate infinity, there HAS TO BE someone trying to get out .

In an interview with Scott McGough by TowerTalk, he says that Dessa found that lab in the Mists and is psychologically trapped (e.g., she convinces herself that it is not possible for her to leave) because she’s afraid that if she left, she’d never return to that anomaly of a laboratory capable of creating and observing fractals of the Mists.

SpeedFiend.4521:

Varesh attempted to free Abaddon from the Realm of Torment (also part of the Underworld, there’s quite a few parts it seems) and out from the Vortex came his sword and gauntlet.

Two corrections:

Firstly, the Realm of Torment is Abaddon’s former realm. Though it is tied to the Underworld and Cobiah calls it “Grenth’s realm of torment” it is not part of the Underworld – and honestly, I find it odd that Grenth rules there and not Kormir (mainly given the gw.dat entry for the Redeemed Realm which is the Realm of Torment reformed under Kormir’s rule – but given the novels’ mention of the realm of torment I guess the Redeemed Realm exists not).

Secondly, at the Mouth of Torment it’s actually Abaddon’s sword, gauntlet, and mask going into the vortex – they’re buried under the earth and as the fight with Varehs progresses they get unburied and pulled into the vortex. Those three things seem to be his original gear that he wore during his fall.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I wonder if it can work that way. Currently the only examples we have of stabilizing fractals, involve resolving a conflict (boss battle).

If you talk to Dessa, she explains that the act of “stablizing” is in fact clearing out the hostile inhabitants. Overtime they’ll return and thus need to be re-“stabilized.”

If Dessa simply found this lab floating in the Mists, then it seems less likely that the lab itself is a memory. But that raises the question, whom did the lab originally belong to? And is this what ties it to the Uncategorized Fractal?

Dessa: ‘The…fractals. I can’t believe I made explorable chunks of reality from the Mists. I’ve dreamed of doing it for so long. Now, it’s real.’
‘Is that important?’
Dessa: ‘Obviously! We can now lock down and enter any point in the Mists. The legacy code of Tyria is ours to explore, assuming it doesn’t collapse.’

While the wording doesn’t seem to indicate exactly how much control Dessa and her team have over what point in the Mists exactly gets chosen to be a fractal, it’s certainly not completely random. That, coupled with the fact that Kiel Creditstealingpants is going to finance locking on to a specific point in history (Thaumanova explosion) suggests she can lock onto specific events accurately.

There must be some reason as to why the fractals we have available were chosen.

• Aquatic Ruins – we see the Krait keeping a rather large Jellyfish pet imprisoned, dolphin path had some dialogue concerning Krait technology (or some Krait tidbit or other, I forget). That and we’ve seen a jellyfish about that huge in a chunk of jade in Cantha, possibly the ruins fractal takes place in the Jade Sea pre-Shiro death wail.
• Cliffside – this one is easy, some dark part of human prehistory when the Collosus and his kind still existed.
• Snowblind – some extra icy part of the Shiverpeaks, perhaps close to Jormag’s lair. Intended to observe the SoS activity where we couldn’t otherwise see it (why fight your way to some god-forsaken frozen hellhole when you can just recreate the good bits in the Mists without trudging through a sea of icebrood?)
• Solid ocean – it’s part of the Jade Sea, which is otherwise inaccessible, but ever so interesting to explore. Naturally we’re lucky (the fractal seems fairly stable at first, but then suddenly it isn’t) and picked the time/place where the Jade Maw also happened to be.
• Swampland – crazy Norn hermit binds nature to his will. Might be worth looking into. Oakhearts/<tree>hearts in general are peaceful, except for the corrupted ones and the ones we deliberately kitten off. Bloomhunger seems pretty intent on killing us dead on sight, odds are Moss Man had something to do with that.
• Underground facility – a dredge facility, one of any number of facilities that would arguably be easier to recreate in the mists for study than actually breach, secure and hold in real-world Tyria.
• Urban Battleground – intended to find out what happened to the Khan-Ur most likely. We just never get to that part because some unstable event or other asura technobabble indicates we’re about to get vapourized if we don’t move on quickly.
• Volcanic – Grawl worshipping Primordus? Groovy. That and the one and only single time we’ve seen Primordus corrupt/destroyerify something that wasn’t a chunk of rock to begin with.

Which brings us to the topic of this thread. The uncategorized fractal’s name stands out. That is exactly what it is – uncategorized. If my whacko theory proves correct, than this particular moment in time was likely intended to stay off the books. A (perhaps morbidly curious) glimpse into the fate of Dessa’s former colleagues at the Proxemics lab. Locking onto the lower levels of the lab would be pointless- Dessa already knows the Skritt would have spared no one. The only potential survivors would be at the control room portion of the facility (the part we see in the actual fractal).

Essentially, Dessa is using the fractals to observe/study not just curious tidbits of the past, but also moments of Tyria’s more recent history. Moments (or should I say places?) that are otherwise simply not feasible to research in Tyria proper. Highly fortified Dredge facility? Just teleport right inside, kill off the (ultimately finite) amount of Dredge personnel, grab/study whatever you can before new ones appear. No threat of retaliation (you can just go back to mistlock if things get too hairy), no need to expend manpower/resources to secure and hold the facility, nowhere for enemy reinforcements to come from. You want to see what Jormag’s head mortal honchos are doing? Go right ahead. No need to do all the messy invasion of Orr stuff the Pact deals in. Just pick a time and place. No need for an army, supplies, logistics – just a small strike team that basically gets to cheat. Didn’t manage to clear out the enemy the first time? You can try again. And again. At (basically) no risk or cost. It’s not like they’re going to be doing something else the next time you hit them at the exact same time and place in freakin history.