Log Horizon: Elder Tale World Theories and Speculation [Absolutely NO SPOILER]

[ices]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Problem with that one is that the manga shows the people in the real world actually physically disappeared. So for that one to work, the real world has to be fake as well.

Well, me myself think that my own theory is improbable. There also no fact to support that so far. But for the sake of the discussion, let me pretend to defend it.

Thanks for pointing out. That's the key. The real world must be fake... Or... let's go to the extreme and said that "the adventurer memory of the real world is the fake one".

Since they are just a data in the database, it'll easy to alter their memory. Plant a fake story about living in real world. Then at the predetermined time, when the catastrophe/apocalypse happen, give them an illusion of sucked to the Elder Tale world.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Kamui04

But that would beg the question of how did they construct those AI adventurers, their thinking and memories? The handful of real adventurers have their friends on their list, if they start to ask questions among their friends they may poke holes. Lest not forget that originally they lived in a world closer to ours where such advanced AI or mind reading/brain scanning might not even exist.

Just to clarify. The "Adventurers are actually all bots" is not a position that I actually hold, for the exact same reasons you brought up. A VR/AI simulation this sophisticated could not possibly exist with modern day real world science. So from the start this isn't really something I thought possible. Not unless we brought in things like time travelers with super science or Aliens.



The only reason I brought this up was because if someone has the tech to make strong AI for the people of the land to inhabit this stupidly sophisticated Matrix simulation...why would you assume the tech gods running it couldn't also scan a persons memory, and construct believable copies of a humans friends from his memories? It doesn't need to be a perfect copy. Just be believable to the person you did the memory scan on.


Adventurers should be TERRIFIED of the idea that People of the Land are hyper sophisticated bots in a computer simulation. If the People of the Land are soulless digital automatons, than the adventurer standing next to you could be one to.

[GundamFan]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

Its not been stressed out on the first episode or not been shown out at all. But in the manga. there was a small event before the clock ticks 12:00 or rather before the whole update and log in on ET.

Spoiler:

But the part where Shiroe was investigating the settings, his surroundings and the feeling of his surrounding. Its happening when he arrive in elder tales and up to meeting with naotsugu and concluding it after they met that "its real" and even after the episode ended. In the preview of the next episode. Shiroe always say that "this is our reality" heck, I think he also said that in episode 1.

And I think your missing the point of what Shiroe is saying that they aren't playing a game anymore that this is the world there stuck in and will be living in 24/7 for the foreseeable future. It hasn't really been assessment of whether there in an alternate reality or some sort of VR.

Aside from body disappearance and body becoming real plus following the pre-made character in ET. Can you even suggest that as something like sci-fi genre?

Rewatch the first couple of minutes of episode 1 those video game style menus for the players to use pop up throughout the series involved in things like cooking and restrictions on owned couple of other examples, next you have exp and levels the exp pots, repeated mention of levels related to different characters, the fact the newbies are having training camp level up all point to this gaming system being fully in tact, next is the cooking subclass people who could cook in real life can't manage it in game unless they have both class and the appropriate level.

[WhiteJoker]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Pretty much this. Magic within the context of the world of the Elder Tales is a given. So it somehow being involved in transporting a large group of people from earth to this new world isn't really all that outlandish in the context of magic existing. The virtual reality simulation...there simply is NOT technology in real world earth that could do what happened during the Apocalypse. You need aliens for that to make sense.


An alternate world advocate can say "Magic brought us here", and wave a wand around to prove the magic transportation theory isn't totally unreasonable. A virtual reality advocate can't really point at the aliens or Nanomachine powered super computers that could hypothetically be responsible for the current situation.

On the balance of things, yes, the Catastrophe itself, in that the Adventurers are transported from their world to this one, is very easily explained with magic. What isn't easily explained is how come this world has all of those game elements which underlie nearly every aspect of life ranging from ability limitations to class/level/etc to how killing that boar outside of town nets you gold/loot. Furthermore it would appear that these game elements were not newly introduced from the Catastrophe.

On the other hand, the virtual reality theory has an easy time explaining the game elements and even why they no longer fully conform to the base game (the unintended consequence of a mass upgrade/patch/Plot Device is that you can cause a system to expand/corrupt beyond your initial projection). It has a crap time explaining the transportation though.

Landers are actually a good example of this conundrum. On the one hand the virtual reality thing has to explain why they have sentience (while it's both easy and hard depending on which end of the hard/soft sci-fi scale you point to, I mean more why they gained it at all in the first place), where as the magic thing has to explain why they're entwined in the game elements as well.

This is what I mean by both are equally valid, or invalid, since on the balance of wholes, explaining the scenario in a satisfactory way (which, for me, does not include something as simplistic as "magic did it" or "the technobabble MacGuffin did it") requires enough exposition time and effort that you can cover either scenario.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Just to clarify. The "Adventurers are actually all bots" is not a position that I actually hold, for the exact same reasons you brought up. A VR/AI simulation this sophisticated could not possibly exist with modern day real world science. So from the start this isn't really something I thought possible. Not unless we brought in things like time travelers with super science or Aliens.

Slightly tangential quote but mostly for the qualification of "modern day real world science" but I felt I should address this point since a lot of the arguments seem based around "nobody could create such a thing if we assume the old world is like ours." Before I get further let me start with, yes, I entirely agree. Let us then move forward to sci-fi now.

A lot of sci-fi, mostly those that deal with artificial intelligences, start from the base of real world science in a modern, or closely modern (within under 30 years) science, and how things progress into the sci-fi scope is that the eureka moment have nothing to do with somebody actually doing anything but rather something happening to cause an "unintended consequence." For example, the Fantastic Four go up into space to study a cosmic event and somehow gain super powers from exposure to it and yet the fantastical end result didn't involve anything beyond a space ship which at the time of the original creation were in existence. These plots have little to do with the technological base and everything to do with a confluence of events which, depending on the plot, cause things to go horribly... in some direction at any rate.

The Singularity, a sci-fi concept which somewhat pertains to real life, speculates that if you can create an AI which is smarter than humans then it's evolutionary growth rate could accelerate beyond human comprehension via bootstrapping; in essence allowing for the development and acquisition of deus ex machina levels of technology within extremely short periods of time (depending on plot this could mean a time period of years to, in one case, hours). This pertains to real life in that arguably the greatest challenge in creating an AI is not hardware but software limitations meaning that, from one lens, we have the technology to create a "true" AI and if we do we could initiate a technological singularity. I'm not postulating that this is Log Horizon's reasoning but rather that you can have a base reality with technology comparable to our own and still plausibly introduce sufficiently advanced technology if you spend the time explaining your reasoning. Just like how you can have a universe without magic have magic suddenly show up/influence it.

[Tenzen12]

So far human brain exceed in metter of computing capacity every supercomputer on this world and we talking about hundred thousands of AI that are indistinguishable from normal person in settings that is no different from our present time.

As was mentioned there is also thousand players that would be have to be putten into virtual reality. Such action would require monitore all players check who instal new update and kidnap them in moment they log in. Another possibility is some mircovave VR from satelites that can pitpoint every single person that meets these condition.

I can accept possibility that Elder tales game was transformed into world or that it was own world all along and game is just mirror of it, instead of paralel world theory, but Virtual reality is far more farfetched than ANY fantasy scenario.

[GundamFan]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

So far human brain exceed in metter of computing capacity every supercomputer on this world and we talking about hundred thousands of AI that are indistinguishable from normal person in settings that is no different from our present time.

As was mentioned there is also thousand players that would be have to be putten into virtual reality. Such action would require monitore all players check who instal new update and kidnap them in moment they log in. Another possibility is some mircovave VR from satelites that can pitpoint every single person that meets these condition.

I can accept possibility that Elder tales game was transformed into world or that it was own world all along and game is just mirror of it, instead of paralel world theory, but Virtual reality is far more farfetched than ANY fantasy scenario.

Ah but Tenzen your making the assumption that everything they believe and remember from real world is accurate the kind of Sci-Fi tech to create a full VR world like Elder Tales complete with a total sensory dive and large population of sentient AI with full range of emotion well something like memory modification would easily go along with it.
Also I'm personally I'm not convinced of either theory since both seem impossible really I tend to favor the VR one myself just because all the game mechanic stuff rolls along a little bit easier thinking that.

[Tenzen12]

Manga with is part of cannon showed it's world is pretty much same as our current one. On top of that things are pretty fantastic as they are, there is no need put global conspiration to it.

[WhiteJoker]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

So far human brain exceed in metter of computing capacity every supercomputer on this world and we talking about hundred thousands of AI that are indistinguishable from normal person in settings that is no different from our present time.

The Singularity has nothing to do with quantity and everything to do with quality. The idea isn't that you create any specified number of artificial intelligences beyond one. That one (or many) then bootstraps itself into a better AI/machine. It does this continually and does so exponentially quicker with each upgrade/iteration. After a certain point it'll have progressed beyond human comprehension and capability. At the extreme scale of the ramifications of the Singularity you end up with god-machines who can rewrite reality. As already noted, this process in fiction can take anywhere from years to hours. The only necessitating difference between modern world science is the actual creation of a "true" AI.

Ultimately though the point was not "the Singularity works" but rather whether the origin world's history diverges from our own and in what way. The limitation is not in the base level of technology but rather in if that divergence exists and how it manifests.

As was mentioned there is also thousand players that would be have to be putten into virtual reality. Such action would require monitore all players check who instal new update and kidnap them in moment they log in. Another possibility is some mircovave VR from satelites that can pitpoint every single person that meets these condition.

So far as we know the Adventurers in the world showed up based on when the expansion went live and presumably those who were logged in. So it only requires checking a specific moment in time for a specific event. This is a problem for magic as well as science since both have to explain why whatever did this targeted that specific moment in time and those specific conditions.

[Tenzen12]

Not realy, If you log in you "enter into game" so it's obvious trigger for supernatural transportation.

Also we KNOW that players used normal PCs, so information technologies are on same level as ours.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Alf

Actually I think use the manga as a basis is not a good idea. Because in the setting documents the official settings and parallel works settings are marked in different colors. But it doesn't harm to take it as a reference of one of the more likely possibilities.

The manga is actually noted to be a parallel work. Not only that, but it also so far has been more accurate to the novel than the anime.

But that aside, it remains a case of "evidence versus no evidence." Unless the novel shows us something different, we have no reason to assume the events happening in the manga aren't real.

Originally Posted by ices

Well, me myself think that my own theory is improbable. There also no fact to support that so far. But for the sake of the discussion, let me pretend to defend it.

Thanks for pointing out. That's the key. The real world must be fake... Or... let's go to the extreme and said that "the adventurer memory of the real world is the fake one".

Since they are just a data in the database, it'll easy to alter their memory. Plant a fake story about living in real world. Then at the predetermined time, when the catastrophe/apocalypse happen, give them an illusion of sucked to the Elder Tale world.

Which then once more loops back to "that's an interesting theory, but is there anything that hints this may be the case?"

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by WhiteJoker

On the balance of things, yes, the Catastrophe itself, in that the Adventurers are transported from their world to this one, is very easily explained with magic. What isn't easily explained is how come this world has all of those game elements which underlie nearly every aspect of life ranging from ability limitations to class/level/etc to how killing that boar outside of town nets you gold/loot. Furthermore it would appear that these game elements were not newly introduced from the Catastrophe.

On the other hand, the virtual reality theory has an easy time explaining the game elements and even why they no longer fully conform to the base game (the unintended consequence of a mass upgrade/patch/Plot Device is that you can cause a system to expand/corrupt beyond your initial projection). It has a crap time explaining the transportation though.

Here's the thing though. The alternate world transportation theory doesn't NEED to provide an explanation for every single aspect of the alternate world. Since it's working under the assumption that the fantastical things the Adventurers are observing are in fact real, it doesn't need to completely tie an explanation between everything in the world to how they were transported there. All it needs to demonstrate is that given the extraordinary and unmeasured elements of this world, it's hypothetical that something here caused the Catastrophe.

Originally Posted by WhiteJoker

Landers are actually a good example of this conundrum. On the one hand the virtual reality thing has to explain why they have sentience (while it's both easy and hard depending on which end of the hard/soft sci-fi scale you point to, I mean more why they gained it at all in the first place), where as the magic thing has to explain why they're entwined in the game elements as well.

Keep in mind one of those theories can actually be investigated. The Adventurers can investigate the history of the landers/communicate with them and try to determine the history of Adventurers in this world. THAT could give you basis for investigating the game elements entwined in this world.


The virtual reality theory...can't really be properly investigated. All it does is open up a whole can of worms. Like the fact that if People of the Land can be AI simulations, there's no reason that other Adventurers can't be simulations. How exactly do you determine whether or not you're in the Matrix, especially when all the people around you might be just part of the simulation?


...though lets keep in mind. If the Adventurers are trying to reconcile the existence of "game mechanics" in a fantasy world they suddenly emerged in, and they're willing to doubt their sensory input, there's a stupidly easy explanation. The Adventurers weren't transported here. The automaton like Adventurers who populated Elder Tales simply all gained self-awareness, along with a false set of memories. This theory doesn't require reconciliation between the "game mechanics" in Elder Tales and the actual Game mechanics of Elder Tales. The memories of Elder Tales the game are just the new Adventurers being insane.

Originally Posted by WhiteJoker

For example, the Fantastic Four go up into space to study a cosmic event and somehow gain super powers from exposure to it and yet the fantastical end result didn't involve anything beyond a space ship which at the time of the original creation were in existence. These plots have little to do with the technological base and everything to do with a confluence of events which, depending on the plot, cause things to go horribly... in some direction at any rate.

Space ships actually existing sorta makes this a bad example related to Log Horizon.

Another thing plot/Meta wise. How exactly the Catostrophe happened is a bit more of plot importance than how the Fantastic 4 got into Space to be hit by cosmic rays. Since it's established right off the bat how it was done. This isn't the case in Log Horizon where the Catastrophe is a mystery to all parties involved, and figuring it out seems like it'll be an overarching mystery in this series.

So not sure this is all that good of an analogy.

Originally Posted by WhiteJoker

The Singularity

...no.

"The Transhuman Robot Toaster God we totally created last week, did it by transmuting reality and building a giant supah computer out of thin air and teleporting people into it" theory is not more plausible than saying that Elvis, Espers or Aliens were the culprits.


I mean, normally magic would be just as goofy, except this universe actually HAS magic...unless of course it was all the Transhuman Robot Toaster God making it LOOK like magic, but at that point we're talking about shody writing.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Which then once more loops back to "that's an interesting theory, but is there anything that hints this may be the case?"

I guess it just depends on whether or not you think that Toasters coming to life as Omniscient Transhuman Machine Gods at random is more likely than portals opening to magical worlds.

[Lazgrane]

I think we need a thread for the novel/manga/side stories readers

[WhiteJoker]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Here's the thing though. The alternate world transportation theory doesn't NEED to provide an explanation for every single aspect of the alternate world. Since it's working under the assumption that the fantastical things the Adventurers are observing are in fact real, it doesn't need to completely tie an explanation between everything in the world to how they were transported there.

If you're hinging just on the transportation bit, certainly. The alternate reality bit though requires explanation on the game nature since that's the entire point of the setting: they're "in a game." If this isn't actually a game then why were the game elements transplanted over?

All it needs to demonstrate is that given the extraordinary and unmeasured elements of this world, it's hypothetical that something here caused the Catastrophe.

And the game elements make it hypothetical that the game influenced this world on a fundamental level which can indicate that the origin of madness has to do with something back home.

Keep in mind one of those theories can actually be investigated. The Adventurers can investigate the history of the landers/communicate with them and try to determine the history of Adventurers in this world. THAT could give you basis for investigating the game elements entwined in this world.

Assuming getting home is actually a thing (and possible) then plot can justify investigating either and exposition for either.

The virtual reality theory...can't really be properly investigated. All it does is open up a whole can of worms.

No, it's the same can of worms, the flavor of the answers just differ. All the questions one theory has to answer are the same questions the other has to. The ease in which they can do it depends on which proverbial worm you're dealing with.

Like the fact that if People of the Land can be AI simulations, there's no reason that other Adventurers can't be simulations. How exactly do you determine whether or not you're in the Matrix, especially when all the people around you might be just part of the simulation?

This very issue has been dealt with as has been repeatedly pointed out. Not very well in the anime, no, but it was there. The question of whether the Landers are actually sentient is, for the most part, irrelevant, much like whether the world they're in is virtual or not, when it comes to how it influences the Adventurer's behaviour. They're there, they're experiencing it, they have to treat it as real regardless of whether it is or isn't because if they assume otherwise they'll wind up back where they started or worse. The Landers act like people despite being based on NPCs so therefore they'll treat them like people; it's not a huge conceptual leap to go from "treat NPCs like people because they act like people" to "treat Adventurers like people even if they're AIs." The issue at that point isn't the philosophical question of soul and consciousness but instead isolation from believing you are the only "human" in a world of AI.

Assuming they're people, or at least think like people, the question isn't likely to even keep them up at night all that long, even if they're aware of it, because there are more mundane issues to preoccupy their minds with. In essence they're subverting Putnam's Brain-in-a-Jar dilemma because it doesn't matter if the situation is real or false: what matters is how you deal with it.

Actually, I'm rather surprised nobody has gone insane in Log Horizon because for the most part the characters seem mentally stable for such a dramatic shift in circumstances; that has nothing to do with virtual or otherwise, just the whole thing seems like it'd have sparked quite a few existential crisis regardless of the direction of thought.

...though lets keep in mind. If the Adventurers are trying to reconcile the existence of "game mechanics" in a fantasy world they suddenly emerged in, and they're willing to doubt their sensory input, there's a stupidly easy explanation. The Adventurers weren't transported here. The automaton like Adventurers who populated Elder Tales simply all gained self-awareness, along with a false set of memories. This theory doesn't require reconciliation between the "game mechanics" in Elder Tales and the actual Game mechanics of Elder Tales. The memories of Elder Tales the game are just the new Adventurers being insane.

Yes, I believe this is sort of what ices was half-jokingly getting at a bit back.

Space ships actually existing sorta makes this a bad example related to Log Horizon.

No it doesn't because the space ships aren't what give the Fantastic Four their powers, it's the Cosmic Rays. That's the point of the unintended consequences scenario; you take existing technology to do something and then, through whatever sequence of events you want, you wind up with something fantastical happening that your existing tech shouldn't, even couldn't, have done.

Another thing plot/Meta wise. How exactly the Catostrophe happened is a bit more of plot importance than how the Fantastic 4 got into Space to be hit by cosmic rays. Since it's established right off the bat how it was done. This isn't the case in Log Horizon where the Catastrophe is a mystery to all parties involved, and figuring it out seems like it'll be an overarching mystery in this series.

So not sure this is all that good of an analogy.

I wasn't using it as an analogy for how they got into the Log Horizon world. The sentence that prefaces that one details why I brought it up. It wasn't an analogy for the plot but an example of how sci-fi based stories don't require advanced technology for fantastical "science" based plot events. If I were using it as an analogy for Log Horizon's plot arcs and direction then yes, it's a very poor example.

...no.

"The Transhuman Robot Toaster God we totally created last week, did it by transmuting reality and building a giant supah computer out of thin air and teleporting people into it" theory is not more plausible than saying that Elvis, Espers or Aliens were the culprits.

I didn't say it was, nor was that the intention of bringing up the Singularity. The intention was highlighting that "they have modern computers, it's impossible!" is not in fact impossible. I grant you the Singularity as an actual plot point is highly unlikely but it's essentially the tech flavoured version of Haruhi.

I mean, normally magic would be just as goofy, except this universe actually HAS magic...unless of course it was all the Transhuman Robot Toaster God making it LOOK like magic, but at that point we're talking about shody writing.

No, at that point we're just talking tropes. Execution is what turns tropes into something interesting or derivative. The universe has magic but it also has game elements.

I guess it just depends on whether or not you think that Toasters coming to life as Omniscient Transhuman Machine Gods at random is more likely than portals opening to magical worlds.

Pretty much, yes.

[Lazgrane]

I don't know what you are trying to say.

Are you saying that you support toaster god theory?

Or are you don't?

If you do neither of them then what do you support?

[WhiteJoker]

Originally Posted by Lazgrane

I don't know what you are trying to say.

Are you saying that you support toaster god theory?

Or are you don't?

If you do neither of them then what do you support?

I'm arguing that "it can't be that" isn't valid at the moment because there isn't enough to support either argument; most responses happened to be of the "the virtual reality idea can't be possible because of X, it's got to be an alternate world" which is why most of my responses are presenting various examples in existing media that refute that position. I think it's too early to even have it split into just those two categories of "it's an alternate world that magic'd the original world" and "it's a virtual reality that pulled the players in" since they can serve as limiting factors.

As for my theory, well, I'm glad you asked. It's an amazing theory you see, it answers everything and ties it all together! You see, it's obviously that.... whelp, I have no theory at all. I have a bunch of ideas that fit into catagory A. I have a bunch that fit into catagory B. I have a bunch which could fit into either. Then there's the bunch which don't really fit in either.

[Lazgrane]

So basically you are saying that there are not enough information to make a concrete assumption?

That is only right if you base what you know on the limited amount of information from the anime.

So again I'm saying

I think we need a thread for the novel/manga/side stories readers

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by WhiteJoker

If you're hinging just on the transportation bit, certainly. The alternate reality bit though requires explanation on the game nature since that's the entire point of the setting: they're "in a game." If this isn't actually a game then why were the game elements transplanted over?

They weren't. The "game elements" are a core part of this world. I do have a theory on why this is so, but spoilers once again prevent me from elaborating.

Originally Posted by WhiteJoker

I didn't say it was, nor was that the intention of bringing up the Singularity. The intention was highlighting that "they have modern computers, it's impossible!" is not in fact impossible. I grant you the Singularity as an actual plot point is highly unlikely but it's essentially the tech flavoured version of Haruhi.

The argument is less "they have modern computers, it's impossible!" and more "there is no evidence as of yet that their computers are anything beyond our own or in some way responsible for the transfer."

[Tenzen12]

While it's truth we can't make reliable assumption what exactly happaned bassed what we know. There is no problem ruling out things that COULDN'T possibly happen. That's how exclusion method works.

We don't know whether it's alternative world, but we do know it's virtualy impossible for it to be Virtual reality.

[LKK]

Originally Posted by Lazgrane

I think we need a thread for the novel/manga/side stories readers

There is a thread for the novel readers. It's the Log Horizon (novel) thread in this forum.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by LKK

There is a thread for the novel readers. It's the Log Horizon (novel) thread in this forum.

So all the world theory and speculation that contains information from the novel would have to take place in the novel thread?

That seems... somewhat counterproductive. Wasn't one of the reasons we created a separate thread for this topic to prevent clogging up the other threads?