Space and Time are Dead (Theory)

Time and Space clearly don't play by our rules in Signalis, with armor we obtain from ourselves and have never received prior, or doors that lead to rooms in impossible ways, it isnt hard to see the edges of reality begin to distort. Today we will not find any concrete answers, rather we will begin to unfold the complexity of the lore and attempt to understand just how little we truly understand. So with no more delay lets continue.

To start, we should kill time and space. Starting with time, there are plenty of examples within the game that give ample arguments as to the death of time, the example I used in the intro is the most glaring, how could we acquire something from a dead body that later becomes our own? But it goes beyond just this, one look into Adlers Manic rants and we will find he too reports a distortion of time, a day that repeats into infinity, a cycle that bends times forward momentum. Or if those don't work to prove times demise, then one could look at how the games save system, when a player dies in game their death is used as part of calculating the ending, so while their progress is lost clearly the event still affected reality, yet was it not lost to time?

Also before anyone in the comments goes, well time is constant, another Elster arrives to replace the fallen one, while I agree with that take, why is it that every puzzle is undone or enemy we kill returned? Thou that could just be calked up to gameplay, however when combined with the other more concrete examples I think solidly can provide proof that time itself is dead in this game.

I guess its time to kill space.

Nowhere is the best example, it clearly displays non-euclidean geometry with no problem showcasing Elster entering doors and exiting in ways that are not possible, but there are some other examples. One can look to the descent from Re-Education to Rotfront, that despite the fact we fell down a hole we emerge in a spot where the place above us is covered in mesh and that offers no clear way that we couldve entered. Or the fact that when one reaches the pure bottom of Sipenski they emerge on what could be seen as a surface. Or event the butterfly boxes that transfer items across vast distances with unlimited inventory space. Regardless which piece is needed to convince you, to me and hopefully now you, it should be evident that both time and space are dead.

But…are they?

Throwing

you for a loop halfway through the video, a key reminder that I started this out with the disclaimer that only questions will result from this video no answers. To begin we must revive space and to do that we have, well the beginning of the game, actually the majority of the game. It is factual that as we progress through the game, the world generally follows Euclidean Rules. Aside from Nowhere, all doors go where they state, all rooms are properly sized that they could fit in the space alloted, maps work, and holes from above do drop into rooms that coorespond on the map as being below.

So Sipensk generally follows Euclidean Rules, and following Nowhere as does Rotfront. This one is pretty important to me at least. Nowhere introduced Self-Referential doors, doors that lead into themselves and break Euclidean Rules, yet these doors don’t appear at all in Rotfront, instead flesh growths imped progress. So rather then using the code they already had for doors that are wonky the devs decided to show us a physical space based existence of flesh to stop us.

What about time? Well this one may seem stupid but, does the game progress? Wait wait don’t click off hear me out. Elster does complete puzzles, she does kill enemies, hell if she uses thermite those enemies stay dead, Elster takes damage and has to heal, she completes puzzles, and eventually she gets either deeper into Sipensk or closer to unlocking a door. Time still moves forwards at least in a way.

So time is dead, space is dead, but time is alive and space is alive? Well yeah, I did warn that only questions would result here. But there is actually something we can do with this newfound, I guess knowledge. And while I think dream theories are cool in this game, it isnt that.

Lets start with time, and with a character who is rather important to the plot. Isa Itou. Isa is…complicated, on one hand she is shown to have cut her hand and done a ritual similar to the lily ending, she is shown traveling alongside Elster, yet in the end its revealed she died in Rotfront likely long before the events of the game.

So what happened?

Well if we accept time is dead perhaps we can find something of the start to an answer, or at least here's a theory we can propose.

Isa got her hands on the King In Yellow while it was at her store, likely the same way that Ariane first saw it, connecting with the book she likely learned the blood ritual, and following her doing it she found herself in Siepnsk and thus the events of the gam. Since time is dead it matters not how far into the future the events happen, thus allowing her to be there. With this we can also try to explain Isa's death, either A-her disappearence from reality led her family to believe she was dead or B-her death at the end of the game, by dying here she dies and thus she can't return to reality and dies, allowing her to see her own grave. As reminder, while time is dead, events are events and seem to be examples where time is alive.

Regardless what it is, we should consider more arguments where time is dead, as I believe by doing so we may get closer to an actual answer.

Next we have space, If space is dead we can come to try and answer what is going on with Leng, Ariane, and the Penrose.

To begin we know the Penrose blasted itself into the Ort Cloud at minmium hundreds of cycles if not thousands ago. So how did it land on Leng a moon within the same Solar System? Well Space is dead. The ship could land anywhere as Euclidean Geometry has died, and as such the landing on Leng could be very possible.

Now it is very easy to calk this all up to a dream, seeing as in reality only in dreams do we see Non-Euclidean Space and Time. However its important to note that if a being held the power to distort reality, like the King in Yellow, there is no reason to believe that the components of reality Space and Time would hold any level of consistency.

Regardless what you believe, dream or no dream, space or time, I hope this opened some avenues for discussion or at the very least was interesting to you guys. This has been Crisbeast and I hope to see yall next time.