#theoretical entroponetics

[57sfinest]

theoretical entroponetics: the post

okay. LONG post incoming. i have summarized all available information on the pale, separated into confirmed objective truth & in-canon speculation that may or may not be true, and then appended my own very detailed theory on the pale! this post is meant as a resource; please feel free to add things of your own in replies/reblogs (please tag me if you do!) or point out any errors i may have made. you’re welcome to use any of my personal theory in your own work but please credit me if you do!! (and tag me in that/send it to me, i really want to see what you do with it!)

Here’s what we *know* about the pale, according to in-game and concept art: 

It erases data, at least the kind stored on radiocomputer filament and magnetic tapes.

It has no dimensions of its own- pale latitude compressors serve to force dimensions on raw pale and allow navigation. 

The pale is referred to in the context of entropy

It arrived with mankind, but not immediately- there are 8000 years of written history, but the pale was first recorded 6000 years ago, implying that pale either didn’t start forming immediately or that it was so insignificant/distant that it went unnoticed for 2000 years. 

There exists a group of people who are actively trying to expedite entroponetic collapse; the ideology is called entropolism

To this point, pale isn’t immediately visible. Pale has molecular structure, but manifests as a waveform, and only becomes visible at a certain distance from the origin, once wave frequency is sufficiently high. 

During pale exposure, people experience “sense objects”: visual or auditory hallucinations and/or vivid physical recollections of memories. These hallucinations may originate from their own consciousness or someone else’s. c

People require physical and mental examinations before interisolary travel and are allotted a certain number of days per year as their pale exposure threshold. 

Overexposure results in a pale “addiction”- these individuals crave pale exposure, and it’s unclear if this addiction can ever be broken. It’s also unclear whether there is a point at which pale exposure becomes lethal, but given that it dissolves matter, we can be fairly certain that a given length of continuous exposure will kill. 

Radio signals, cold plasma torches and anodic sound are all used to manage the pale to permit travel through it. Plasma torches destabilize the molecular structure of the pale to create gaps, anodic sound widens and maintains these gaps, and radio signals rationalize the pale into recognizable dimensions.

Radio signals are, in return, susceptible to corruption by the pale, resulting in entroponetic crosstalk, where signals from the past or the future are transmitted to the present. CCP is one such phenomenon and is directly related to the formation of new pale through magpie interpretation.

There is a dedicated Union for people who work in and with the pale (the Pale Workers Union). They have two slogans; “The light purifies; The sound absolves; The pale no more” and “Son et Fureur” (sound and fury)

Here’s what we may choose to believe about the pale, based on the thoughts and beliefs of in-game characters:

In conversation with Soona, the pale is described as a “curdling milk” phenomenon: “repulsive, but natural”

In this same conversation you can theorize that the churches were meant to contain the pale origins; out of the seven churches, six were destroyed during the suzerain or the revolution

The phasmid and whatever other lifeforms it’s communicated with believe that entroponetic collapse is comparable to an oxygen holocaust (i.e. the great oxygenation event), implying mass extinction due to a toxic overabundance of sapient thought

Harry refers to it once by saying “The wolf is at the door. It’s going to eat the sun.” so take that as you will

It’s likely that Tiago’s “Mother” is some manifestation from the pale, if you choose to believe that the 2mm hole is in fact a pale origin point (the concept art does confirm it’s a pale origin, but the game offers other explanations, so I won’t say it’s the only answer)

Inframaterialists believe that revolutionary action (NOT thought) may create a counter-force that will prevent the spread of pale; it’s unclear if any reversal is possible.

The world will be fully consumed by the pale in 27 years (I put it here because you may or may not believe that shivers and harry are reliably sourcing this information)

And now my personal speculation about the pale:

A quick and easy point: it’s confirmed that the pale has a measurable EMF “exhalation” frequency that varies with proximity. Strong enough EMF pulses can actually tamper with magnetic storage- radiocomputer filaments! Electronics! Fortress Accident data loss! This gives us a tangible explanation for why pale can delete data :)

This may also explain its ability to cause radio interference- radio frequencies are just a subset of EMF frequencies, so it’s possible that pale exhalation on *just the right frequency* is what’s responsible for the entroponetic crosstalk we get on radios sometimes

The pale canonically has an atomic structure, but it also has wave properties, so it’s possible that the pale has wave-particle duality on its subatomic level, like photons do

Based on this, entroponetics is likely a very similar field to quantum mechanics, which might be an interesting source of ideas for anyone (like me) who wants to explore pale-related possibilities

The pale could be a manifestation of raw patterns. That’s why math “forces dimensions” on it- it rationalizes or “tames” the patterns, which allows it to be manipulated to a certain degree.

There are several references to the pale that refer to mathematical concepts and patterns, saying that the world dissolves into “a tangle of azimuths and cosines” as it blends into the interisolary pale- more on this later

Steban comments that the pale is commonly theorized to be nostalgia or “historical inertia”, but it’s largely agreed that it’s “the past” in a broad sense. Thinking about the idiom that history repeats itself, it could be that history/the past is part of the pattern that comprises the pale, and that it’s also the type of pattern most readily perceived by people (people don’t viscerally *perceive* math, for example, but we experience memories)

To first define entropy: Chemically speaking, “the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work. (per encyclopedia britannica).” Physically speaking, it’s a measure of randomness or disorder in a system. Less work/less order = more entropy; it’s a physicochemical “winding down” of a given system

It’s commonly thought that pale is the entropic force, but what if it’s the opposite? (Keep in mind the chemical definition: less ability to do work = more entropy) Consider: the pale as less entropic, a cleanup force, recycling the potential lost by death and destruction in the universe. This in part explains why a dead person’s memory is present in the pale- their potential has been recycled into the pale in the form of their memories (their life’s *pattern*)

Enthalpy is a related concept to entropy and is defined as the total energy contained within a system. Holding the system enthalpy constant- saying the universe will always have the same amount of total energy, no matter what, according to thermodynamics- results in an entropic tug-of-war between the pale and the world. The pale wins through sheer inertia (again, inertia is mentioned specifically in game)

Overall: think of the world as “cooling”, losing heat and energy through war and death and complacency. Think of the pale as steam and heat, melting down old materials to start it all over again. (Kim says, *through entroponetic interference*: “it’s been a long, cold winter.”)

Consider: the pale as a sinusoidal function, eternally repeating. The pale recycling the universe to start a new cycle, “spending” itself, resulting in pale not being present in the beginning. Then, as the new things begin to settle- with the advent of the human mind, specifically- the pale reforming, slowly reclaiming potential, eventually ending the cycle to start again.

In comes CCP and magpies. Consider: CCP as a backwards transmission from the next “cycle” (after all, pale has no sense of time). Magpies as *pattern-sensitive* people who are able to decode CCP into something useful called novelty. They reach into the potential of the next cycle to build the potential in their current one- this paradox could be what creates more pale, because (and this is where it gets weird, I apologize) doing this retroactively increases the total amount of energy/work/potential in the current cycle to have been reclaimed by the pale for the next one.

Think of the pale as the compost bin for every single thought in the universe. The pale is the exact right size to compost every little atom and thought in the universe, and can hold nothing extra. But magpies reach into the future, the next cycle, and bring in extra. This paradox forces the pale to grow to accommodate the additional material, which also increases the starting potential of the next cycle. This process allows each cycle to accumulate minor changes from the previous one, which can snowball over many cycles.

Furthermore, to the inframaterialists’ point: revolutionary action would be such a radical shift in inertia that it would increase the potential in the world, forcing the pale to pause/shrink to “balance the equation” in terms of pale-vs-world thermodynamics. So maybe they’re right after all :)

And some diagramming, to explain the utter bullshit I’ve just dropped:

#disco elysium #entroponetics #the pale #disco elysium pale #the pale disco elysium #sorry idk the tags for this #theoretical entroponetics #this is all based on legitimate quantum physics and stuff so you could definitely go crazy with these concepts #if anything doesn't make sense please tell me!! i don't know how well i explained it #i'll be happy to rework things if i need to #anyway yeah so im deeply in love with the pale. im basically a real life entroponeticist now #also i didnt include in-game screenshot proof for brevitys sake #but feel free to add them or ask me for some and i can put it up! here or in asks #kiwipost #gen meta

[skyberia]

two favourite drawings of the year so far fit nicely in a genre that i like to call "character with corvid(s)", which is when you are so normal about a character you decide to draw birds about it

#sometimes i forget how bad i got abt bloodhound but then i remember i bought the fucking apex lorebook bc of them 💀 #also in hindsight i definitely could have drawn harry with like. a harrier hawk. and been more comprehensible #but the theoretical entroponetics just rly got me in the tightest grip imaginable #shoutout 2 the ppl who thought i was trying to be symbolic about it. unfortch i just did extra reading on lore and suffered brain damage #misc

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

A rebuttal of the theoretical entroponetics diagram

This one here:

PJÕL references in the last paragraph but kind of vague

As far as I'm concerned, the argument is threefold: the diagram's title positions itself in-universe theorizing. Which it almost is! It's very very close to Gary's (even though in his case it's textually not entroponetic). And it's a fun in-universe position to explore, imho. The subjectivity of people who want to believe this of the pale is interesting to me.

Secondly, check the following page on the author's website: it's his own magic system based on the same exact idea, inspired by the Mistborn novels. It seems to me like he envisioned the Elysium version of his concept (a fun practice), and agnostically framed it as a hypothesis in-universe.

Here it is!

But, thirdly... it massively shifts the themes, so no, as an actual legit thing... no thank you for me. The phasmid says something that I believe to be irreconcilable with this theory: the pale came with mankind. Not with special people. We're talking about the human condition, not about special people. It just doesn't track! Not thematically, not in practice.

The things that are shown to arrest or even recede the pale's advancement are not a lack of innovation. Ignus Nilsen himself didn't nail a godly Rhetoric check from hell for people to think that the pale wouldn't advance if we just ignored the future. Conversely, the characters who are shown effectively drawing knowledge from the pale on-page are NOT shown to increase its advancement (on the contrary: Ulv's practice temporarily halts it!). That one character who does in fact cause the spread of the pale certainly doesn't do it by bringing about innovations, DOES HE.

#disco elysium #de meta #meta #reference

[blabbin]

Disco Elysium Fandom Masterpost

Decided to compile all the cool projects fans have made for Disco Elysium! This includes game resources, fan games, and fun collaboration events!

If you want to be notified of any updates, you can click on 'subscribe to conversation' for this post!

If you've got any corrections/updates/suggestions, reach out to let me know! ((Last updated: January 29th, 2023))

Game Information/Archives/Resources

Disco Elysium Wiki (Literally contains most everything you'd want to know about the game, including a ton of image resources)

FAYDE On-Air by Morgue, Pieartsy, and Sphinx111 (Search engine tool to easily find any in-game dialogue)

Disco Reader by xyrilyn + Guide on how to use it (Search engine AND text visualization tool. You can see the full dialogue trees as flowcharts)

Disco Elysium Explorer by Leerion + Github (Inspired by Disco Reader. It works much the same way but it ALSO includes the audio clips for every piece of dialogue!! + the text for every language released so far)

Disco Elysium Checklist compiled by MentalPrinciple0 (Includes all red/white checks, their difficulty level, all possible modifiers, as well as items, tasks, thoughts, and their modifiers)

Complete OST + Ambient Mix compiled by OnlySheStandsHere (Includes everything added for The Final Cut)

High Quality Full Map of Martinaise compiled by For Lack Of A Title

Map of Revachol West vectorized by freezebobs + svg file

Disco Elysium: Country/Cultural Mappings compiled by Limey (List of all the geographical places named in-game, what we know about them, and what some real-world parallels are)

Disco Elysium: A Timeline compiled by six and brenn (A complete timeline of every event mentioned in the game, from the creation of the universe to the events of The Hanged Man case)

Theoretical Entroponetics by 57sfinest (Everything we know about The Pale + OP's own theory)

Fanworks

Fandom Collaboration Projects

((since these are big collaboration projects, I unfortunately can't properly list the credits on this post. Make sure to check out the respective credit pages of the projects!! So many talented peeps!!!))

Disco Elysium Fan Colouring Book (SFW)

Disco Elysium Fan Colouring Book (NSFW) [[18+]]

Social media tag: #EspritDeCouleur

Fire Escape in The Sea Montage-Disco Elysium

Social media tag: #FEITSmontage

Disco Elysium Montage/Cleaning Out The Rooms

Social media tag: #COTRmontage

Disco Elysium Secret Santa 2022

Ao3 Collection

Bonus Round! Prompt List is open for anyone to fill if something grabs your interest!

Social media tag: #DESecretSanta2022

Disco Elysium Rarepair Fanworks Exchange

Ao3 Collection

Prompt List! Open for anyone to fill if something grabs your interest!

((There's no tag, everything is compiled on the twitter account. If you post anything new, make sure to @ the account to be RTed!))

Disco Elysium Tarot, the Major Arcana

Social Media tag: #DiscoTarot

An art challenge to recreate famous paintings into something Disco Elysium themed! Feel free to join in!

Social media tag: #DiscoElysiumArtClassic

Fan Games

After the Mind, the World Again by Pieartsy (TTRPG)

Disco Elysium: Game Boy Edition by BloodyStapler

Disco Dating by Slugandthorn, Capreola, Frankie, and Joe/BerlinChild (Visual Novel)

The Cryptokiller, project lead Arthur Stahlschmidt (Visual Novel) ((Make sure to check the itch.io page for a full list of the team!!))

Mystery Miniaturist by Jasmine "Katy133" Osler (Visual Novel) ((Make sure to check the itch.io page for the full list of credits!!))

WE GOT A CODE 31 by Slugandthorn (Dancing Penguin Kim. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY!!)

Mini Mini Disco by OinkOink!Studio (a collection of mini-games! The links on the main page might be broken, so here they are just in case:

Nod match with Kim

Pretty Jean Jean

Beg Money)

Disco Elysium: Signature Skill Selection by FeigningIntelligence (Take this quiz and find out what your signature skill is!)

Twine Games/Fics

Re-Hearsed by Apepers

Requiem for the Apostle by Alphawave

Sweeter Kind of Fire [[18+]] by Kawa

Disco Elysium: Insomnia [[18+]] by mouseoverlord, Booboboobo, cyaber5, LoveSplean, and Aila

One Day in Jamrock [[18+]] by CeaserAmarelo

Fan Skins

((Want to write a fic/make a game that looks like Disco Elysium? These cool peeps got you covered!))

Disco Days Workskin by abyssalcaptain (Ao3)

Disco Elysium Workskin by Cunticuss (Ao3)

Disco Elysium Twine Macros by Apepers and Pieartsy (Twine)

Disco Elysium Framework for Ren'Py by Katy133 (Ren'Py)

AI

Uberduck Voice AI for Kim Kitsuragi by emmash527 and justinjohn-03

Uberduck Voice AI for Cuno by TheTiagoFire

Disco-Narrator Voice AI which includes: Kim Kitsuragi, The Narrator, and Joyce Messier [[Unfortunately it's been down for a long time now]]

Character.AI (You can make your own characters pretty easily, and there's a bunch of ones for Disco Elysium, including Kim, Jean, Trant, and Cuno last I checked)

Misc.

Disco Elysium Mods

Disco Elysium Item Card Creator by ColorfulTie (fun lil tool to create your own items with stats in the style of the game)

Disco Elysium fan music by Aila :

Insomnia Vol 1

Rain in Revachol

#Disco Elysium #idk what else to tag this lol #Masterpost #Resource List #? #sure #blabbin

[visual-calc]

Say, does quantum physics correlate with time traveling journey? Time traveling machine quite tempting to be made..

VISUAL CALCULUS [Heroic: Success] — Quantum physics actually has very little to do with our understanding of time, or the possibility of time travel. Most of the relevant theory falls under the theory of relativity, with a little bit of thermodynamics sprinkled in.

At its most basic level, relativity states that our reality exists in four dimensions: the three spatial dimensions we usually think of, and time, which is why we sometimes refer to it as "spacetime". Time is connected to the other three dimensions in a special way: the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. Similarly, the closer you are to very massive object, such as a black hole or Elysium's core, the slower time passes for you.

This means that it is almost trivially easy to travel forward in time— just steal an aerostatic and fly very, very fast, or take a vacation at the bottom of the ocean. Either of these will cause you to experience less time than a friend who stays stationary or at sea level, so upon your return you will have effectively traveled to the future— by a few billionths of a second. A difference in elevation of a few thousand feet is not enough to create a significant difference in time, nor are there any means of transportation able to reach the necessary speeds to make this a practical means of time travel. But traveling forward is at least theoretically possible.

However, based on your prior interaction with Savoir Faire and Interfacing, I suspect that you are interested in traveling backwards, and I am afraid I need to be the bearer of bad news: it is simply impossible. The arrow of time only points forward. This is a law higher than you, or me, or Authority, or any of us. There is nothing we can do to reverse it, in any normal reality.

Physically, this is intrinsically linked to the idea of entropy, a measure of disorder. Entropy can never decrease— any process that is possible can only increase disorder, never decrease it. Reversing the flow of time and traveling backwards through it would allow you to increase order. For example, if you broke a glass, then traveled back to a time where the glass was whole again, you would be returning it to its ordered state, making backwards time travel impossible just from a physics standpoint. That doesn't even scratch the surface of the possible paradoxes of causality such travel would cause.

However. Not all of Elysium is part of our normal sense of reality. Entropy and entroponetic share the same root, after all— the Pale is entropy incarnate, disorder made manifest. Deep enough in the Pale, this disorder is great enough that our usual notions of time and space have no meaning. Reality ceases to have dimensions at all and the laws of physics break down.

The only way we can travel through the Pale at all is using Pale latitude compressors— devices that allow us to force the Pale into having dimensions again, taking on the shape of our familiar four-dimensional spacetime. No one has ever tried forcing the pale into being anything else. It's easy to see why— for transport of human beings, you want to make sure that they stay cocooned in a reality they can safely exist in. But, I do confess to having wondered whether it might be possible to use a Pale latitude compressor to impose a different type of reality on the Pale. If we're imposing dimensions anyway, perhaps it's possible to pick how they relate to each other such that traveling backwards in time is possible?

Please do note that I do not recommend that you try this, Turtle. Harry's brief encounter with the latitude compressor in Martinaise has more than convinced me that they are not to be trifled with. Additionally, there's no telling whether a set of dimensions that would allow time travel would also allow you to exist, or whether such a set would even exist at all. Most of us have come to like you quite a lot— I would hate to see you perish as a result of an entroponetic accident because you tried to time travel.

#skillsposting #ooc tags: #more high effort viscalcposting! #most of this is accurate up until the Pale stuff #there are a few conflicting theories about the nature of the arrow of time but the consensus is pretty firm that it only points forward #and most of the theories reduce to the second law of thermodynamics somehow #like I said on the falling turtle post: doing physics on elysium is a fucking Time #because the Pale is constantly just lurking in the background as an exception to any law of physics you might want to come up with #what do you MEAN there's no dimensions. that doesn't make any goddamn sense. #imagine my face when I realized pale latitude compressors might be able to allow faster than light travel #(by the same means as I described in the second to last paragraph- you might be able to pick dimensions where it's possible) #IDK if that actually works- I hate relativity and want to think about it as little as possible #<- I say as if my research isn't on something that's a direct consequence of general relativity. I am an unrepentant hypocrite.

[funnywormz]

Drama, Empathy, and Composure hehe

drama: who would you be in elysium?

hmm, idk if im interpreting this question right but if i was in elysium i think i would probably be some kind of nerdy bio-entroponeticist probably lol. entroponetics fascinates me so much despite being an entirely fictional field of study and the little mentions of the pale's effects on biology and the species that live around the pale make me so rabid........... the effects of the pale are referred to as "radiation" but idk if they mean ionising radiation or something else, and it only seems to have mental effects rather than physical ones from what we see in canon, although admittedly we only get to hear small snippets abt it in the game. i would love to study it and the effect it has on living things

empathy: who is the character of all time? explain.

i mean. i gotta be generic and say harry and kim here. harry is so easy to empathise with and care abt despite the fact that he's ultimately a pretty shitty awful dude, and i appreciate that a lot. he's such a fun character to play as at times but also heartbreaking and frustrating (in a good way) at others. kim, conversely, keeps himself on a tight leash and is overall pretty reserved and "cool", but beneath it all he's deeply flawed in his own way and is also just kind of a nerd lol. i love them both so much.

excluding kim and harry though, ruby and klaasje are my favourites. their relationship is very complex and more than a little tragic, and they're both very interesting characters in their own right. ruby is independent and self sufficient but seems to have a kind heart deep down, while klaasje seems to rely on others and human company and yet can be quite callous and will throw others under the bus to save herself. klaasje especially is such a complex character, you can never fully trust her and yet there's truth woven into everything she says. ruby is more openly blunt and honest, which i appreciate too. she's tough but she clearly would rather not hurt anyone, and is loyal to ppl she cares abt. klaasje is a victim in the situation but she put ruby in the line of fire to save her own skin and in the end there's no excusing that, but also it's understandable why she did it. idk they're just both very interesting

composure: would you rather sit on an anthill for an hour or stand in a river of leeches?

lmao i genuinely thought abt this one when it came up in the game and i gotta say im with kim on this one, i pick the leeches, although it depends on how many and how long for. leeches are very cool and fascinating animals, so i would enjoy being around them for a while and wouldn't mind getting a bit bitten. ants are lovely too, but when they are mad at you then they very much WANT to hurt you to make you go away. an hour is a long time when you're getting bitten and/or stung by a lot of pissed off ants, and depending on the species it could be rlly excruciating.

leeches on the other hand, have evolved to have a painless bite, because they don't want their host to even notice that they're being bitten, so they can suck their blood in peace. they actually use a form of anaesthetic to numb the bite area! so it wouldn't hurt at all. it's also easy to remove them, as they don't latch on/bury themselves in skin/leave teeth behind like other parasites do, so it would be easy to just gently pluck them off. of course, in large numbers they can theoretically cause anemia and even death from blood loss, but im assuming in this scenario there aren't enough of them to kill someone. and like i said, they are easy to remove and the bites are painless. so even if there were lots of them, you could just keep on picking them off before they took too much blood.........

im also just a big fan of all invertebrates and that includes leeches! they're worms in the annelida phylum, which also contains earthworms and polychaete worms, and based on my username it's probably pretty easy to infer that i am a worm enjoyer lol. i would totally let a leech bite me and take plenty of pics. so leeches it is, for sure :-)

#SORRY I USED THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE A LITTLE MINI INFODUMP LOL #ask game #disco elysium

[likopinina]

The theoretical entroponetics of Pale that were shared by Disco Elysium concept artist Joshua Jenkins are very interesting, but I still can't get my initial interpretation of Pale out of my mind.

You see, when I listened to Joyce for the first time, telling me about isolas floating in mysterious Pale, my mind immediately imagined.. a game engine. Yeah. Because when you launch a game engine like Unity or Godot, the first thing you see is pale brownish nothingness, basically. Then you build a level that floats in this nether.

I legit thought Pale is some sort of meta commentary on how game levels resemble little islands floating in game engine's space and when characters move from level to level they do ????????? to get there. We as players don't see this ????????, because we are looking at a loading screen (is this why DE loading screens look kinda pale? like very pale sepia? or is it just a purely stylistic choice?).

To travel between levels, game characters disintegrate into pure code, I guess. And in a way Elysium denizens are aware of this and it scares them.

#maybe i just stared too much into godot's nether for too long during my practical training and it fucked me up #i dont know man thats just my hot take #flaming hot take straight outta first playthrough #joyce messier #game design #disco elysium #pale

[lesbrarians]

[image credit: Joshua Jenkins (@thehandunseen), check out more of his DE design assets on his website!]

So I’ve already talked about my thoughts on this piece of DE design/concept art with some great folks in the DE server I’m in, but I wanna record them here too for.... idk, posterity or something?

Been thinking a lot about the in-universe applications of this since seeing it, and the first thing that came to mind when I read about Novelty was: “oh, huh. now I'm wondering if calling Neha a Novelty Dicemaker was an intentional decision on ZA/UM’s part.”

We know that radios pick up on CCP -- we see it in action in the moralism quest. Kim wincing when he hears his own voice: “It’s been a long winter... long and cold.” It’s assumed to be entroponetic crosstalk, pale interference from the past, like with the Tricentennial Electrics lady, but Noid’s surprisingly perceptive when he says its from the future:

Kim’s bothered by it though, he can’t remember what he was talking about... because he hadn’t said it yet. And then he repeats the words exactly when you examine the generator on the island, and doesn’t even realize it...

Anyways. I’d like to think that Neha the Novelty Dicemaker is a prime example of a Magpie who uses CCP to manifest uniquely original concepts. She listens to her milieus all day, gets so completely absorbed in them, and she listens to stations that “teach her how to swear in different languages” as well as Interesting stations... She may very well be picking up on CCP without even realizing it, thinking it’s just a foreign language station or some kind of experimental station, and unintentionally channels that into her pwn unique artistic endeavors.

And we know her dice aren't normal dice, they're all special and tailor-made to her customers. When Harry picks up one of her dice, it gives him Shivers: “It feels icy. Just holding this die in your hand sends a jolt of cold down your spine.”

It could be rationalized away as Harry getting caught up in Remote Viewers Divison woo-woo bullshit, seeing and feeling things that aren’t really there, but... Kim, ever the rational skeptic, does mention at one point that Harry is more sensitive than he is, and not in a mocking way.

What Harry’s feeling is the Pale Latitude Compressor up ahead, he physically senses it well before Ruby blasts him and Kim with it, while Kim -- and most everyone -- would feel nothing. I think Harry’s naturally tuned-in to the pale. It explains a lot of his Shivers and Inland Empire feelings. But if the die Neha made was an act of Novelty, which creates Pale, I think Harry's sensation of it being icy is less him imagining things and more his level of sensitivity to pale-adjacent things.

This could also explain why he picks up so many items as part of his Jamrock Shuffle -- when he’s rummaging through Sileng’s boxes of clothes for sale, there’s only a few items he’s drawn to, if you succeed/fail at the checks. It’s possible he’s naturally drawn to Novelty items, and why he believes they enhance his abilities (if we decide to take the “stat boosting armor” thing beyond simply being Video Game Logic and a tongue-in-cheek nod to DND and similar RPGs, that is).

I should wrap this post up, it’s getting long lol. But yeah. I absolutely think Neha’s a Magpie -- I think there’s a lot of Magpie humans out there. Like Fortress Accident -- especially given that they were planning on using call-in stations like the ones that Neha listens to, they were Radio People who could have picked up on CCP. As Kim said, no one’s ever attempted to create an interisolary game like theirs before -- definitely Novelty-worthy material there. Given his sensitivity to the Pale, Harry could be a Magpie too, especially an Art Cop Harry. And I mean, he is a magpie for picking up everything he comes across like... well, like Kim says here lol:

TL;DR the Pale is ever-growing, because the world is full of Magpies creating Novelty like Neha the Novelty Dicemaker. This is all theoretical, especially given that this is based on concept/design stuff that didn’t necessarily make it in game... but I have a feeling this isn’t the last we’ve heard of it. I cannot wait to see what’s in store for the future of Disco Elysium!

#disco elysium #disco elysium spoilers #disco elysium blogging #disco elysium thoughts #long post #disco elysium screenshots #my screenshots

[57sfinest]

incredibly obscure worldbuilding details and lore give me life, but i’m a bit sad that more people don’t know the harry magpie canon. i think it puts everything in the game into perspective and makes dolores dei even more terrifying. to be fair, it was a bit difficult to hunt down even an english summary of pjõl or the theoretical entroponetics design work. getting a bit depressed thinking of revachol and the rest of elysium’s future after reading the pjõl summary, i wish everyone in that world could have a break and maybe all of the characters introduced in-game wouldn’t be nuked? ah! getting back on track though, thank you so much for your de meta thoughts! just found your blog and i’m binging them! take care :)

yes!! like it's such a subtle confirmation that yes, the innocences were superhuman in some aspect, that the man who assassinated dolores dei was probably right to fear her. it's so interesting to think about how many magpies there might be out there and how they're shaping the future and the fall of elysium without even realizing it. how many magpies don't even realize they're magpies? how many of them even know what a magpie is? (i get the feeling the moralintern might intentionally suppress that information.) did harry know he was one, before the amnesia? does any of that even matter when the world is ending in less than 30 years?? thinking about the bombings gives me such a strong feeling of desperate hopelessness for the setting, and it fits so well with the themes of the game. unfortunately, it's a fitting conclusion, but it hurts to think about.

and thank you for your kind words!! i'm so glad you like my analysis, i have a lot of fun doing it :)

#you're always free to send more asks about anything or dm me!! #i love talking about this stuff! #kiwipost #ask #i have another meta post dropping soon actually EIHOGEHOGIENK

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3/5 of my posted fics involve the pale and also i made The Post on theoretical entroponetics i think i should be an honorary entroponeticist

#considered changing my url to smth pale related but i gotta keep The Branding #kiwipost