Where the ML World Goes From Here (And Where It Came From)

There's not a TON of factual info here, just a question (and hopefully some decent discussion) related to the E7 story of the world some of the moonlight heroes come from. Potential spoilers if you haven't completed Ep 3.

Angelica/Charles/Krau/and Co.

From what we know so far, the ML world of Riolet, LRKrau, and CCharles is a dystopian/Armageddon version of Orbis. There is little to no mention of the Goddess or the Archdemon, so we don't know with certainty what's causing the crisis there, although they appear on the Ritania side to be more technologically developed than "current" Ritania.

By way of the story we got from the summer event, we know that Closer Charles is affiliated with some organization that at least temporarily captured Angel of Light Angelica. We need more info once she releases, since our assumptions about who she is appears to be warped a bit.

Until now the general idea was that LAngelica was the Celestial that would split in two, the "good" part going to Orbis and fusing with the Angelica we know and becoming the eternally youthful High Priestess in search of retirement. Meanwhile her dark half went to the other world and merged with that Angelica and became Sinful Angelica. By way of last year's (2020's) summer event, we know Singelica wants to reunite with "our" Angelica to become one complete being again.

However, LAngelica right now turns that idea on its head somewhat. We've been assuming the ML world of LRKrau and folks takes place concurrently to the Orbis story we've been playing through. But, to reconcile the LAngelica story, it would have to take place far into the past. We know "our" Angelica has already been alive, and around, for a long time; at least since before the Archdemon War 20 years before the start of the game. If LAngelica is really pre-split with the Sinful Angelica aspect, it would have to have been at that long ago time 20+ years ago.

This makes some sense. If Singelica is also from that other world, the same world as CCharles, then she would have to have been around both after the story we see in the 2021 summer event, but before the 2020 summer event. In other words, the story in 2021's summer event about LAngelica is looking back at something from far before the current story. The 20 year time difference could therefore be explained as the time it took for Sinful to find her host Angelica, amass power, and make her move for our Angelica.

This means that our Charles is as old now as CCharles was 20+ years ago... That makes for something to ponder.

As of yet we don't know who rules the ML world's Taranor. We know ML Yuna is on the run from Taranor as she was the one that created OPSigret, although that story too is a bit confusing. The way OPSigret was released, it was implied that Yuna created her after "our" Sigret died. Some folks even began suggesting that the ML world was just future E7 Orbis. But that would clearly be unlikely now due to the time difference. You could get super creative - pun intended - to make the time issue work - Yuna herself becoming an android or automatic doll... It would be interesting playing that alongside some potential ML Politis stories (Politis ruling the world, potentially including Taranor, and the rebel organization waging a guerilla war against her). 

Fashion Week

This is by far the oddest ML world to imagine, if only because as an anime watcher the only thing that comes to mind is Kill la Kill. If you aren't familiar with that anime, give it a watch. I personally don't think it's as amazing as a lot of people think, but it is decent enough. And if you watch it you will swear that someone at SG brought in the blu-ray one day, made the team watch it, and said, "yup, we're doing that".

But, so far as we know, it has nothing to do with Orbis. As far as we know from the tidbits related to DLili and TMLuluca, Rekos hasn't been destroyed by Straze yet. He has Fastus, in the form of scissors instead of a sword, and is apparently making clothes for Roana to be his top model fighter... or something. But if Rekos isn't gone, there's no reason to go to Orbis. And if there's no reason to go to Orbis, then this little pocket story will be complete when ML Roana is released, assuming there's little chance they make a light version of Straze. 

You could find a way to an Orbis connection. All you'd need is some kind of McGuffin on Orbis that Straze and Roana would come in search of, similar to the rationale for Straze coming to Orbis in the regular story already. But at that point I'd be making up random stuff.

It really is a ridiculous story, only made more ridiculous in that it isn't so original that something doesn't exist to show how ridiculous it could be, only for that thing itself to be extremely ridiculous. 

See No Tiwig, Speak No Tiwig, Hear No Tiwig

If there is no Faustus driving Straze to wipe out worlds, that would also suggest that there's no destruction of Politis' home world, no corruption caused by the red stones that fall to Orbis, and therefore a large chunk of the background that has built up the world as seen in Ep 3 would not have occurred. No Politis means no Politia, no red stone means Mort's plans never happen so no mad dragons destroying Senya's village, no Senya becoming a Dragon Knight, and no dragon knights at all so no Wintenburg.

The effect's of Tiwig's actions are the direct cause of most of the E7 story, we are learning. Her absence itself could cause all sorts of havoc in terms of crafting a narrative. But we know that Fastus does still exist. So how does that effect Politis' home world? 

Politis' world was destroyed a very long time ago, prior to the Archdemon wars. We can assume to some extent that she arrived on Orbis after the start of the 7th cycle, as she and Belian seem to have no knowledge of prior world cycles, despite knowing about the Sanctuary and the Archdemon. 

We know that Straze came to Orbis after destroying Rekos. We aren't 100% sure where Rekos is. The clearest indication is that it is an alternate dimension, similar to the ML world. But, it's not the ML world, as the ML world Rekos does exist as per the TMLulu and DLili story. So it's a different alternate world. 

Therefore, we can assume Fastus destroyed Politis' home world before finding Straze and having him destroy Rekos (unless Politis' home world is Rekos, but that is a super complicating theory I rather not get into). 

This means, assuming similar events happen in a similar order across these worlds, Politis' world would have to be already gone by the time we meet the Lefundos, Wintenburg, and Politia MLs. Therefore, assuming ML Politis is from the ML world and not just a variation of "our" Politis, she will go a long way in explaining what this timeline looks like. Given how none of the continent is mentioned by any of the Ritania MLs, we can assume then that it either doesn't exist in nearly the same way, or at all. Read on for more.

Dark Mage Luna

Faustus destroying Politis is implied to be at least partially responsible for the red stones on Orbis. Only partially, since we also know that Faustus went on afterwards to Rekos, and there is something similar to the red stones (implied to be the body of Diche or another goddess) under the Sanctuary. But if that doesn't happen, there's not only no Politia, but Mort's use of the red stone to create mad dragons doesn't happen, at the very least delaying the formation of Wintenburg, if not completely bypassing Senya's wanting to become the first dragon knight. 

Except that we know FCC and Shadow Rose exist. So how did that world of theirs develop? It can be suggested that there was some inevitability to humans and dragons coming to war even without the mad dragons, but how likely would that really be to unfold in the same way? Would Senya have developed as a Dragon Knight without the power of the red stone to help her? One could argue that Wintenburg was inevitable - even absent the red stone Mort would have done something to drive the humans to seek their own city and come to power some other way.

But what of SRose and FCC? FCC is hunting down a mage who killed her family and turned them into magic stones, and she looks exactly like Luna. This action seems very similar to what was going on in the earlier parts of Ep 1 in the Suin village with the Chaos Sect, and before that with the corrupt officials in the church and Taranor with what happened to Kawerik. That would suggest a similar practice is occurring in the other world's Wintenburg as our world's old Taranor. 

There are a couple additional oddities with this, however. One, our Ceci isn't a dragon, or part dragon, while FCC clearly is. Second, FCC's blurb clearly indicates that Luna was the mage responsible for her family's death, not merely in the company of that mage. Barring the entirely plausible instance of her being mistaken, that would mean ML Luna's type and element are already known; Dark Mage. It's hard to imagine Luna as a mage, but assuming the role reversal between Ceci and FCC is not a one-off, that would suggest that maybe ML Luna herself is also not really a dragon either, but a human. 

SRose apparently hates Cecilia. Why? Who knows. But take everything together, you arrive at a simple possible story for Wintenburg in the ML world. Simply put, you have Ceci and Luna switch places. ML Luna is a human and the heir to the throne of Wintenburg, Ceci is a dragon. MLL, either as a betrayal or a function of the human/dragon conflict, turns a dragon village into magic stones, FCC being the sole survivor. SRose, loyal knight of Wintenburg, is Ceci's enemy because Ceci is Wintenburg's enemy. 

While I like this idea, it's not very well supported by any real facts yet. It's part of the reason I think the ML story of one of the dragons will be a big narrative event for the game, as there's just so little to go on despite the first two MLs associated with that potential story are a couple of the earliest MLs to the game. 

Its's harder to connect the Politia bits without fully inventing a reason for Politis to venture to Orbis (scientific investigation? imperialism of her home world?). If Politis' home world isn't destroyed, they'd have to manufacture a reason for her to leave it and venture to Orbis. If I head that route, there's no end to the number of stories that could be used to explain that situation. Exploration, imperialism, experimentation... best to wait for Politis' ML to come out, since that's likely only a month or so away. 

As for Lefundos, there's not much there. The only playable hero from Lefundos that doesn't have an ML is Ervalen. BRomann is an automatic doll from "our" world, so he's out of the picture. All we know about ATywin is that he is deceitful and hopes to rise in power riding someone else's coattails. He makes little to no mention of the ML world, or much about himself at all, so we don't really know anything from him. Since he doesn't even comment about familiarity with Schniel or Ervalen (so far as I can recall) we can only assume neither of them is of particular prominence in the ML world, which is a strange idea, or as more likely he just chose not to say anything. 

Lefundos' role in Ep 3 was actually rather small when you think on it. If not for Ras and his goal of unifying the efforts on the continent, Lefundos could have almost been entirely ignored. Meaning, absent Ras, the ML world's Lefundos is likely small and of minor consequence. No one from there has enough prominence to cross over worlds. If it were up to me to write it, I would imagine Lefundos being just a part of Politia, annexed in the early days of Politia's founding by Politis, or else Politia as we know it being a part of Lefundos and Politis rising to monarch of Lefundos in place of Schneil and Ervalen's families. 

It means we know zero about the other Lefundos and will be relying almost exclusively on ML Politis or ML Ervalen to ever learn anything about it. 

What About The Dolls?

We have three other major Ep 3 units that don't have an ML; Kanna, Flan, and Landy. While it's likely Laika and Brinnus will be released sooner or later (one of them I suspect will be a ltd unit coming up soon), we don't know for certain an if or when on those two. 

Chole's ML version is just her "present" self, while her non-ML version is her "past" self. It is implied this is also the case with 3* units Sonia and Ainos. It isn't strictly the case on Sonia/Ainos as you can't use one to imprint the other, but this is more or less the case narratively. 

Fundamentally the idea of an alternate world version of a robot is a somewhat odd concept. It presupposes that, given the chance, Politis and/or Belian would recreate the almost the exact same physical model of an automatic doll. 

That relatively minor detail aside, ML Politis will almost certainly not reference these three directly unless Belian also exists. suggested that Chloe and Ainos/Sonia are among the last dolls created by Politis, Flan, Landy, and Kanna coming along after she died. There's little reason to presuppose that Politis, if alive, wouldn't continue to be the creator of the the high spec dolls rather than handing that task off to even her own creation. Therefore, for Flan, Landy, and Kanna to exist in the potential Politia ML world, would suggest a significant change in Politis' mentality, Belian went rogue again, or Politis somehow designed in her ML world dolls her creation would make in our world. The first two seem far more likely than the last one.

I personally suspect that these three are going to get some manner of alt self MLs rather than other world versions. There is heavy suggestion at the end of Ep3 that the "old" Landy might not be recoverable entirely as she was, and that Flan's role is likely about to change greatly after Belian's fall. As for Kanna, she also has a "growing up" moment, so she's narratively due for some extended narrative related to her current self rather than exploring an alternate self. So, she'll also likely just go the Chloe route.

Finally, I'll include Choux here since I don't think I really need another section just for her. Choux's story has a number of unique elements to it. They sort of started using her as a support to the protags of Ras and Meru, but then she had no role whatsoever in the last couple chapters, and isn't even mentioned in the epilogue at the end of Ep 3. In story she was really just a sherpa helping Ras and co. get around unfamiliar territory and giving them some background info. It's hard to predict what an ML of her character would even be narratively, so I'll just say I don't know. 

Conclusion

In the end, as it was when I first got into this game, I find the dragons the most interesting of the bunch. Yufine, Alencia, and Luna in the ML world are, I believe, going to be very fascinating, based on what we know of FCC. Luna as a mage is an odd class shift to imagine, but I actually think that would be an interesting class shift for Alencia - the idea of her as a wizened old-crone style witch having passed her dark arts along to her granddaughter Luna, maybe Yufine being a magical girl styled apprentice. And that doesn't even get into Mort, Senya, and Ilynav.

For me the Politia story outside of Politis has a little lees promise, only because I don't expect they'll do much there. Part of me isn't even so sure that Politis will be an other world ML, so I'll have to see what they end up doing with her. 

And Lefundos, sadly, brings up the rear. It's not because I don't think it has potential, but the opposite - it has too much potential. We know nothing at all about ML Lefundos, and right now only one hero exists to say we have a shot of learning anything about it. If it's just filling in gaps with whatever, I can certainly do that. But that also makes it less fun to speculate, as those ideas have almost zero basis in anything concrete. I could make up anything and it could be just as right as it is wrong.