Oh Susie... Even with Noelle by your side, even with this absurd thing you call "Love", my vessels still got much further than you. You never had a chance!
Oh Susie... Even with Noelle by your side, even with this absurd thing you call "Love", my vessels still got much further than you. You never had a chance!
Me breaking into Gaster's shelter, only to uncover a terrible conspiracy and having to race against time to leak the Gaster Files before Chapter 5's launch
Here are all the artworks used in the video and their respective artists:
The Dark Amalgamate Theory : an attempt at creating a comprehensive model of Deltarune's past and its parallels with Undertale before Chapter 5
Hi, I’m SOUL Goodman. If you’re a UT/DR fan interested in the lore of Deltarune before Chapter 5, this post is for you. You might want to keep these ideas in mind before playing on June 24th.
This theory started as a small idea after Chapter 2, originally abandoned and never published. But with Chapters 3 and 4, it surprisingly became stronger and much larger than expected.
This is my first time writing and sharing a full theory, and it ended up becoming far bigger than I initially planned. With Chapter 5 fast approaching, this felt like my last chance to finally share it.
This, is the Dark Amalgamate theory !
(The theory covers more than this single concept, don't be fooled by the name, I chose it for the title because it sounds cool)
I first started developing this theory after Chapter 2, when it still felt like a simple hypothesis. But as I looked deeper into the game and community discoveries (including datamined elements), it started to feel like a real coherent model rather than just speculation.
I eventually stopped working on it, but Chapters 3 and 4 ended up reshaping and reinforcing many of its ideas. Now, with Chapter 5 approaching, I want to finally present it in full.
I might not consider every part perfect, but I believe the core ideas are meaningful and relevant.
The goal of this theory is not to predict future chapters or the ending of the game. Instead, it focuses on what happened before the events of Deltarune, and what set everything in motion.
If you enjoy Undertale / Deltarune lore, this will defintely be an interesting read while waiting for Chapter 5.
Before I start, here’s a few disclaimers:
I’ve rewritten this multiple times, but due to its length, some mistakes might remain.
You should be familiar with Undertale, the Gaster mystery, and all four released chapters of Deltarune. Some parts rely on community findings and datamined content (credit to HalfbreadChaos, linked in sources).
This theory is split into two main parts, the second being a bit more speculative and could almost stand alone, but is still deeply connected to the first.
Table of Contents
Part 1: The Shelter Incident
Quick character analysis
The Time and Place of The Incident
The First Darkner, the Devil's accomplice
The poor test subjects!
The sins of the Dreemurr family
Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
Part 2: A NEW FUTURE, born from an Eternal Night
The failed Deltarune
Space-time travelers
I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
ANOTHER DELTARUNE
Conclusion
Sources
With all that out of the way, let's begin!
PART 1: The Shelter Incident
My goal here is to explain what happened during the night where Kris, Asriel, Dess and Noelle explored the forest near hometown’s graveyard and explore the consequences for our main characters as well as what it implies for the events of the game we’ve seen so far.
My starting hypothesis is that there was an incident involving Dess, Kris and Gaster inside the shelter, leading to the creation of what I call a “Dark Amalgamate.” To support my hypothesis, I will be using information from the game itself but also some stuff that came from the sweepstakes or the newsletters (Although their canonicity is a bit dubious from what I understand, so I will try to rely on that as little as possible), linking various elements based around the same thematic as well as some texts hidden in the game’s code. For practical reasons, I’m not going to put a screenshot every time I quote an in-game dialogue, I will be highlighting those in red instead, so you can have the exact text and not me paraphrasing the game.
Quick character analysis
Before we delve into what happened in the forest, we need to take a quick look at how the four children are characterized. The idea isn’t to go on a long analysis for each of them, but simply to point out important elements of their personalities that we will have to take into account to figure out how and why they would even end up inside the shelter, when most people understandably assume whatever happened with Dess took place in the forest or near the shelter at best, not straight up inside it.
Asriel: This is the easiest one since there’s not much to talk about considering he has yet to appear in Deltarune. From what we’ve been told so far, his personality does seem relatively similar to his Undertale counterpart, a quiet and kind boy as well as a bit of a scaredy cat who’s a bit overzealous considering Father Alvin talks about how he would always confess his “sins”. We also know he was quite popular considering all the prizes in his room, how so many people in hometown always bring up Asriel and praise him when Kris talks to them. The important aspect of his character in Deltarune specifically is how close him and Dess were, which we’ll go over when we talk about Dess herself
Noelle: She’s pretty much the same as she is today in terms of personality, what is interesting about her is how easily scared she is and how she has a clear tendency to “freeze” when something scary or traumatic happens and how she seems to “forget” any memory of such events. We can actually see that on many occasions during chapter 2’s weird route: right after being forced to freeze an Addison to get the FreezeRing she goes “What… What just happened? Did I actually just… No, they… they must have given it to us. The ring”; when told to proceed during the second mice puzzle, as you push her closer and closer to the laser forcefield, she states “Th… there, looks like I… did it?” as if she had trouble remembering what had just happened. This is later reinforced when she asks herself “…what did I do when we got that ring? …when I solved that puzzle? … It… It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I can’t remember”. Similarly, right after using Snowgrave on Berdley, she once again asks “What… What happened? There was so much snow, I couldn’t see anything…” which really comes across as a form of denial considering Berdley’s frozen corpse is right in front of her at that moment. Basically, whenever she’s faced with something traumatic, her reaction is to freeze and forget it. This isn’t exclusive to the weird route either, we’ll go back to this later, but another smaller example that occurs in the normal route that I can give right now is in sans’ store in chapter two: one of the NPCs mentions that “Sometimes the hoofed girl comes here, opens the freezer door then stands in front of it, lost in thought”.
Kris: There’s obviously a lot to talk about when it comes to them, but what I want to focus on for this theory is the shift in their behavior. Not the shift caused by the presence of the SOUL/player control, but how they seemingly went from being a prankster as a child to a very weird, shut-in type of person. Whenever we have characters talking about younger Kris, it feels like they were a fairly normal mischievous kid. They were close to their brother, as well as the Holiday sisters, loved to mess with Noelle and overall, none of the weirder stuff we’ve seen from modern day teenage Kris is brought up. Like I said, that shift seems to have happened before the events of the game, considering it’s implied the Dreemurr and the Holyday have grown apart before the start of chapter 1, the last time Kris and Noelle spent time together was probably when Kris came to Noelle’s house to play the piano as mentioned in one of her blog posts. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but Kris had to have been old enough to have learned how to play piano (which they obviously couldn’t have done in a few weeks as a little kid). The important part here is that whenever the stuff Noelle talks about in that blog post took place, Kris had already started to act weird: they’d come over to Noelle’s house and after a while, she explains that “they would suddenly get very still, like they were remembering something” before going to play the piano. We learn about another event that took place before chapter 1 where Kris once again showed a strange behavior in Noelle’s blog post about Susie. This probably took place a few weeks/days before chapter 1, and is more in line with the Kris we see in-game. When Susie threatened them, they remained completely silent up until they eventually said something that seemingly made Susie back off. Noelle, who had seen all of this, hid in her locker. Yet, somehow, Kris was able to tell she was there, violently open the locker before slowly closing it without a word after seeing it was her. Unlike the previous Noelle blog post, this event hasn’t really been referenced in-game so far so I won’t talk about it too much but the main take-away here is that Kris used to be a normal kid, but started acting strange at some point before Chapter 1 which suggests this isn’t linked to the SOUL (or, more specifically, it’s not linked to what Kris does once we have control over the SOUL), which makes me wonder, what happened to Kris for them to have such a drastic change in their behavior?
Dess: Finally, we have the older Holiday sister. Like Asriel, she hasn’t appeared in-game so far, but we get a lot of info about her from other characters, or by investigating her room in chapter 4. I won’t go over every single detail about her, but the gist of it is that she seemed like an adventurous, rebellious tomboyish kind of girl who seemed to be really into exploring seeing how she was making a herbarium and owned a ton of exploration gear like binoculars, walkie-talkies, army rations, multitool knives. On top of that, it appeared she was also a musical prodigy considering we can find many different instruments in her room, from flutes and violins to that infamous red guitar. Lastly, we have to focus on her relationship with Asriel. Whether you believe these two were together or not, the fact of the matter is that they were very close, to the point where she had Asriel’s jacket in her room, as well as his retainer. Likewise, considering Dess kept a crude drawing of a dragon under her bed and that Asriel borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book, we can infer that he wanted to gift her something she’d enjoy. Her disappearance is probably the reason he never returned the book; he probably wanted to keep it as a token of rememberance or something like that. Which leads me to my main point regarding Asriel and Dess, as many have pointed out, the Ribbick battle dialogue seem to describe Asriel and Dess over the years “a poorly trimmed boy, a messy and unfocused girl”, “a rowdy and dirty girl, a quiet and smelly boy” and most importantly “a lost, and lost, and lost girl” which is an obvious reference to Dess’ disappearance, her being the “Lost girl” we’re meant to find, while “a crying and crying and crying boy” shows how hurt Asriel was by her going missing. Another detail that will be crucial later on is how she apparently had the habit of beating up Kris whenever they pranked Noelle, often using her wiffle bat to hit their head, which is alluded to when you check those items in her room with the flavor text reading “Rollerblades, wiffle bat. Looking at these things makes your head hurt”.
2. The Time and Place of the Incident
As you probably know, there is a forest south of Hometown, past the graveyard, where you can find what looks like some sort of shelter. Its doors are locked and can’t be entered by the player. If you get close to the doors you’ll hear a strange sound. If you speed up that sound by 666%, you’ll realize it’s actually smile.ogg (entry 17’s sound as well as the noise Kris’ phone will make if you try to use it in a dark world). Smile.ogg and the number 6 are directly tied to Gaster, which logically connects this place to him. Back in chapter 1, this place wasn’t mentioned by any character, but things got a bit more interesting with chapter two as a cutscene plays if you go there, as Monster kid and Snowy will be standing in front of it. Their dialogue implies there are ominous rumors about what is inside that place, with MK wondering “You think it’s true? You really think there’s…” before being cut off by snowy claiming only kids believe those rumors. Chapter 4’s church segment shows us that this isn’t the case at all, since when asked about “the shelter” even adults characters seem to fear that place to some extent, Ms.Boom tells Kris “Shelter? No, no, you know that’s not a wholesome place!” and Father Alvin seems particularly freaked out when Kris tells him they want to enter it, almost as if they had expressed the desire to do something very wrong “I do not know what you are experiencing recently, but… Kris please, look to the Angel for guidance […] Kris, stay away from the shelter” these dialogues from Alvin and Ms.Boom could imply Kris specifically has some history with that place. What is interesting is how MK proceeds to mention Kris before being once again cut off by Snowy asking if MK is going to be a weenie like Kris. After Susie scares these two off and asks Kris what is going on with this place, they remain completely silent. This cutscene strongly suggested Kris had been inside that shelter in the past and is scared of it, which was then further proven by chapter 3’s SWORD route where Kris will fight back against the player’s input and try to turn back when approaching the mini-game version of that same shelter. When asked about it, Alphys, while also being seemingly anxious about what could be inside, is a bit more informative stressing how it’s been closed ever since she moved to Hometown and how no one ever goes there aside from Undyne and the mayor, further suggesting that people in Hometown avoid the place in general. Most importantly, this place is alluded to during Noelle’s heart-to-heart with Kris in Cyber City. She doesn’t directly mention the shelter, but she explains that when they were kids, her, Kris, Asriel and Dess liked to explore areas around hometown (which was most definitely Dess’ idea considering what we’ve established about her character) and talks about one specific night where they “explored the forest behind the graveyard” which corresponds to the shelter’s rough location.
My hypothesis is that they found the shelter, Kris and Dess entered it and met Gaster and that something happened to Dess, turning her into that infamous “voice in the code”: the mysterious UNUSED dialogue people have found in the game’s data and that seems to get a new entry with each new chapter.
While as far as I can tell, this general idea has become fairly wide-spread with chapter 3 and 4, there was always a lack of evidence that whatever happened in the forest had something to do with the shelter itself and that the UNUSED voice (as well as the other strange messages in the game’s code, more on that later) had anything to do with Dess. In fact, some people actually seem to believe that Dess’ disappearance happened in the forest itself based on the fact that the forgotten man is found behind a tree and that the NPC in the roots prophecy room says “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail. The poor children”. However, I believe I’ve gathered enough evidence to prove that they did enter the shelter and that whatever happened to Dess occurred inside it and that this is the origin of the trauma Kris, Noelle and Asriel all seem to have to a different degree.
But first, let's go on a small tangent on WHEN this incident happened. We actually had a pretty big clue on that ever since chapter 2: while Noelle is talking about the night they explored the forest, you can actually see the outline of her sprite change to a smaller kid-like version as she walks past one of the panels. As you can see from the following screenshother sprite is identical to the one we see during Berdly’s flashback, which strongly suggests that it happened when Kris and Noelle were very young.
If they witnessed the Incident at such a young age, it perfectly explains why they’d be so traumatized, too. This idea is basically confirmed by Berdly’s spelling bee flashback when he explains that “When it came down to the two of us… she got nervous and couldn’t speak” and we see that the word that made her “nervous” was none other than DECEMBER, the name of her sister. Noelle having this reaction upon seeing that specific word only makes sense if it happened after her sister went missing. Furthermore, her reaction is similar to her behavior in sans’ store I mentioned earlier. It becomes obvious to me that when she opens the freezer, the cold reminds her of Dess which triggers some sort of traumatic response. So, we’ve established that Dess disappeared when Noelle and Kris were still young children, but thanks to Berdly we can figure out even more precisely when it happened. As I mentioned earlier, Asriel probably borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book from the library in order to make a nice gift for Dess. Considering Asriel was deeply hurt by her disappearance based on the “crying boy” Ribbick dialogue, and how the narrator says that “Your brother will never return this book…” upon inspecting it, it’s fair to assume Asriel kept it as a memento of Dess. Which brings me to Berdly’s dialogue in chapter 1, if you go talk to him at the library, he will reveal that the book is 2583 days overdue which is about 7 years. We can deduce that when chapter 1 takes place, this “shelter Incident” happened roughly seven years ago. We can go even further and calculate how old Kris and Noelle were when it happened: since we know Asriel is in college that means he’s around 18 years old during the events of the game, assuming he and Dess were of the same age, that would make them around 11 when the Incident happened and because they’re the older siblings, the younger pair of Kris and Noelle were obviously younger than 11. Since we know Noelle participated in a spelling bee around the same time, she must have been at an age when spelling was still a challenge that required practice (Berdly mentions he and Noelle had to study for that spelling bee), which would be around 7-9 years old. A 3–4-year-old gap between Kris/Noelle and Asriel/Dess sounds reasonable. Lastly, if we assume the game takes place in 202X based on the date written on the unused graphics for Ralsei’s manual, we can date the Incident to the early or mid 201X.
Basically, Asriel’s goon material and Berdly just allowed us to build a fairly precise timeline of events.
Now that this is out of the way, let’s delve into why I think there was an Incident inside the shelter specifically and not just in the forest. While Noelle never talks about the shelter in chapter 2, even mentioning that they “never found anything interesting” when exploring the forest, it’s important to remember that when she’s scared or dealing with something traumatic, Noelle has a tendency to forget stuff. Actually, right after saying this, she implies she doesn’t remember much from that night: “I mostly remember… crying, because I was scared”. Since Noelle can’t help us figure out more about what went down, let’s focus on Kris: as we saw earlier, they seem to be scared of the shelter specifically which wouldn’t make sense if nothing happened there. One may argue that the NPC from chapter 4 talks about the forest and says nothing about the shelter, but let’s look at the exact quote “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail”. The first thing to note is that the NPC uses the plural noun “children” implying that more than one child was present: it was not just Dess, but at least one other person. Second, he specifies that the children were “lost where the forest would grow”, not “lost in the forest” which seems like an important detail. Furthermore, the NPC says this right in front of this strange prophecy panel depicting a house between two trees with the word “ROOTS”.
Considering that trees grow from their roots, and given how much the panel emphasizes that word, I think the expression “where the forest would grow” might actually refer to an underground location, since roots are by definition underground. This would also explain why the two OSTs containing the term “roots” in their titles — “Digital Roots” and “Bit Roots” — only play while exploring underground areas. Also, if you didn’t know, the game files contain an unused song called “spamton_house,” which likely would have played outside Spamton’s shop and sounds nearly identical to “Digital Roots.” The reason Toby may have chosen not to use it could simply be because it would have conflicted with the idea of a musical theme specifically associated with underground locations. Which brings me back to the shelter: it is an underground location, and while there is a dark fountain inside it right now, when we enter the game version during the sword route, we end up in some sort of dark cave where the slowed entry 17 sound plays once again. If the NPC is talking about the shelter, it explains the image of the panel itself: the two trees represent the forest, and the house represents the shelter which would be Gaster’s underground “home”, located where the roots of the trees are, or should I say “located where the forest would grow”. The idea so far is that as part of their exploration, Dess, Kris, Noelle and Asriel went to the forest, entered the shelter and got lost inside before encountering Gaster. But how could they have entered the shelter if the place is closed? The segment in Noelle’s house gives us a pretty simple answer: Dess had managed to get the code from her mother and kept it inside her red guitar, unbeknownst to everyone else. It couldn’t have been Carol who kept it there because not only does it make no sense for her to keep something as important in her rebellious daughter’s belonging, she and Kris both did not expect it to be there : Kris clearly wants to prevent the SOUL from getting the code, if they knew the code was inside the guitar they would’ve removed the SOUL before it could inspect it and read most of the code, which strongly suggests they did not know about it and barely reacted on time. This would also explain why they even made a phone call right after that: they informed whoever they’re working with that the code is inside the guitar and that Susie is looking for it. It would explain why the voice insists on stopping Susie from getting the guitar.
3. The first Darkner, The Devil's accomplice
Now that we have established where and when the Incident happened, it’s time to try and figure out what happened inside the shelter. First off, even if it ultimately doesn’t matter much, I don’t think Asriel and Noelle entered the shelter. Based on how they’ve been portrayed so far, they seem like scaredy cats while Dess and Kris feel like more daredevil type of kids. Again, Noelle states that she was crying because she was scared and that Dess comforted her. It is true that Noelle is easily scared, but I don’t think it makes much sense for her to be scared of simply exploring the forest at night because exploring seems like something they would do every so often. The thought of entering a creepy structure like the shelter however, definitely sounds like something that would terrorize young Noelle. It’s more likely that Asriel stayed outside the shelter to watch over Noelle and that Kris and Dess were the only ones who actually entered the shelter, which would still make sense with the sentence “the children followed the pointed tail”. If only these two entered the shelter, it would also explain why Noelle and Asriel are physically ok during the events of the game, while Dess is missing and Kris is struggling with their soul which has seemingly been happening for a while, even before chapter 1. Regardless of whether or not Asriel and Noelle were there, we know thanks to the Harmonik NPC that they lost themselves inside the shelter and this is when they followed a “pointed tail”.
Many people seem to obsess over that tail and assume it’s the tail of this smiling figure with pink and yellow eye:
This sprite is called IMAGE_FRIEND and its first appearance was in Queen’s basement, while retrieving the EmptyDisk. Since then, it has appeared on many other instances, the most notable ones being during the SWORD route boss fight, during one of the dark sections of chapter 4’s dark world and in the battat mini game. Because the name of the sprite follows the same naming scheme as what is used in chapter one’s intro where Gaster helps you create a vessel, and that it appears in the battat minigame which is centered around cats and seems to be based on the CatPetterz game which Noelle used to play as a kid as revealed in one of her blog posts in the Spamton sweepstakes, it is a common belief that FRIEND is tied to Gaster and is a cat. This led people to assume the tail of hell is FRIEND’s cat tail and that it was therefore that entity that the children followed. While there is merit to the general idea, I feel like this interpretation is too literal which denotes from how the prophecy refers to other characters in a figurative manner: Kris is “The cage with human soul and parts”, Asgore is “The flower man” but that doesn’t mean Kris is literally a cage or that Asgore is made of flowers. As such, I believe we shouldn’t take these “pointed tail” and “tail of hell” expressions at face value. In my opinion, it’s more important to understand what the role of that “tail” is, and what it did specifically than to figure out its identity. As such, I’d like to focus on how the harmonic specifically says “the pointed tail”. Cats don’t have pointed tails so even if you are convinced that the tail really is FRIEND, even if FRIEND really is a cat, that phrasing in itself shows how these descriptions are figurative and symbolic first and foremost. With that in mind, that tail is seemingly mentioned in two other instances, first during the Harmonik battle “the tail, which must not be followed” which is a clear reference to the sentence we get in front of the ROOTS prophecy. Second, in this prophecy panel
“They’ll see the tail of hell take crawl”
So, we have a “tail” that must not be followed, implying it is malevolent and/or dangerous, it is “pointed”, seemingly comes from “hell”, and it apparently crawls. When taking all these elements into account, it hardly sounds like a cat tail anymore, it becomes pretty clear that Toby is trying to invoke satanic imagery: the expression “pointed tail” evokes the tail demons and the Devil are often depicted with, there is even an unused prophecy panel that shows exactly that
But since this panel went unused, it looks like Toby Fox changed his mind about how he wanted to relate that tail to the Devil (and thus Gaster) since the panel that is in the final game uses a different satanic symbol. The final panel talks about a “tail of hell” that will “take crawl”. The fact that the it crawls, coupled with the panel image actually makes it similar to another type of animal, a snake. The idea that dark creatures are thematically linked to, snake-like imagery is actually further reinforced during the Titan fight
Comparing the tail of hell to a snake is another way of connecting it to the Devil, as this is clearly a reference to Christianity: The Devil, taking the form of a snake, lured Adam and Eve to the apple tree and convinced them to eat the forbidden apple. Whether that tail is figuratively a devil’s tail or a snake, the fact of the matter is that it ties it to the Devil, and in both Undertale and Deltarune, the one character that has been repeatedly compared to the Devil is none other than Doctor W.D. Gaster. Which means that in a way, the tail is some sort of Gaster follower. To be clear, I’m NOT saying “the tail” is literally a snake or that it is one of those 3 grey NPCs from UT, when I say it’s a Gaster follower I mean that “the tail” serves Gaster, that it’s not an unrelated entity/character with completely different motives and affiliations, and that it led Kris and Dess to Gaster. This might be why the prophecy even calls it a tail in the first place: wherever the Devil goes, his tail follows. Keep that in mind, because the idea of a demonic entity vowing to serve some master might have been teased since Undertale, but I’m saving this for when we’ll go over who/what that tail really is. In any case, this tail being associated with snakes is probably why Kris is specifically linked to apples and why they can meet a man behind a tree: they were lured to the apple tree by the Devil’s tail.
Thus, we have two kids who entered a dark place and were supposedly led to Gaster. This is a big assumption and while I’ve established that they did enter the shelter, I’ve mostly used symbolism to defend the idea that they actually met Gaster, so let’s go over something more concrete that will back up this idea and give us an idea on what really happened to Dess: Entry number seventeen.
This entry has been a huge mystery for years now, but I believe we now have enough context to understand what it’s really about. Before looking into what’s written in the entry itself, I want to point out something that’s rarely mentionned: unlike all of Alphys’ entries which are just written entries, entry 17 is actually an audio entry as you can hear Gaster’s voice beep. This is huge, because it means that this is actually a recording made by Gaster. With that in mind let’s go over what he says. Entry 17 can be separated into three parts; the first part is Gaster taking notes of a phenomenon he’s observing:
“DARK, DARKER YET DARKER.
THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING.
SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER.
PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE”
Now that we have Ralsei’s explanations about dark worlds and dark fountains in chapter 3, it’s clear that whenever and wherever Gaster recorded this, he was doing exactly what ralsei talks about at the start of chapter 3 “And when the light runs out, you see nothing. Of course, your mind can’t make anything of nothing. But what if it became even darker? Darker than dark. What if we could take away the light that wasn’t there until we reached another side? You could start to see things again, and hear them, and feel them. That is the dark world”.
Gaster had created a dark fountain and was observing its effects. Entry seventeen is just a less intelligible way of explaining what happens when a dark world is made. And if Gaster made a fountain, it can only be the one inside the shelter, or the Grand Fountain since all the other fountains already have a confirmed creator. I’m of the mind that he created both of these fountains and because of timeline reasons which I will go over in a bit, the one being made in entry 17 is the shelter one, while the one inside the closet was made much more recently.
On to the second part of entry 17:
“THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS
VERY
VERY
INTERESTING”
Whatever this next experiment may be, it can’t be the creation of a dark fountain because it’s literally what the first part of entry 17 is about. The only additional clue we have is that this exact sentence appeared on the Deltarune website back in 2015 before eventually being changed to another message in wingdings, meaning whatever this next experiment is, it is tied to Deltarune and never had anything to do with Undertale. It’s pretty wild to think entry 17 was basically a Deltarune cutscene hidden in Undertale.
Now, let’s look at the last part:
“…
WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?”
Have you noticed how Gaster marks a clear pause in his speech with those ellipsis points, as if he was done talking? Not only does it further reinforce the idea that this is a recording, it also means he was going to end the recording with “VERY VERY INTERESTING”. It’s almost as if he noticed two individuals that overheard what he said, which prompted him to ask them about what they thought about all of this which comes off more as a snarky, slightly ominous remark than anything else. You probably see where I’m going with this: entry 17 is some sort of audio/cutscene (or maybe even a video recording obscured by the fountain's darkness) of Kris and Dess inside the shelter, finding Gaster in the middle of his experiment. You could object that the two people Gaster is talking to could be sans, papyrus, alphys… but keep in mind that this is a recording that takes place in the Deltarune universe, and if I’m right about it taking place during the shelter fountain’s creation and during the night of Dess’ disappearance, this is happening roughly seven years before the events of the game, whereas sans and his brother only moved to hometown shortly before chapter 1. Similarly, some of Alphys’ dialogues imply she hasn’t been living in hometown for that long, so none of these characters could have been present inside the shelter at this point in time.
Now that I’ve established that the shelter contains both a dark fountain and the tail of hell when Kris and Dess entered it, we can focus on its identity. As you might’ve guessed I don’t think that the tail is FRIEND and I don't even think FRIEND is an actual character.
If the tail serves Gaster and was located inside the shelter where we know a Dark world exists, then there is a high chance that it is a Darkner (which would also explain why it serves Gaster in the first place, as Ralsei explains in chapter 1, the purpose of a Darkner is to serve their Lightner). For now, we only had the chance to enter the 8-bit version of the shelter, so let’s look at what we have there: when 8-bit kris enters, they find themselves in a dark cave, and are eventually confronted by an entity that seemingly knows Kris. This entity is one of the most fascinating characters we’ve seen so far and I believe that it is what the prophecy refers to as “the tail of hell”. It has no canon name; its sprites simply refer to it as “shadow mantle” and its battle theme is called nightmare_boss_heavy.ogg in the game files. Despite the name of its sprites however, we know for sure that it is not literally the shadow mantle, considering this dialogue “that’s why you’re searching for them, aren’t you? The SHADOW CRYSTALs… and the SHADOW MANTLE that I’m holding!”, and the fact that you can make out a stand-up collar, which is probably part of the mantle, as well as its horns.
It is clearly some sort of obscured horned creature wearing the mantle. As such I will be calling that thing the shadow mantle holder (or just the holder for short) from now on. I believe that the holder is a darkner and the actual “tail of hell”. Speaking of, have you ever noticed the shape of the dungeon where we fight that thing?
It is literally the shape of a snake.
But if the holder is the tail, then where does FRIEND fit into all of this? Like I said earlier, I am convinced FRIEND is not an actual character and everything people pin on it is actually the holder’s doing. My reasoning for that is based on what we see during the fight: the holder literally creates not just one, but multiple FRIENDs during the battle, which to me is hard evidence that FRIEND isn’t its own character but merely an extension of the shadow mantle holder, acting as drones. The reason we’ve been seeing FRIENDS since chapter 2 is that the holder was keeping an eye on Kris this whole time and that “eye” takes the shape of the FRIENDs it’s been creating. You could think of FRIEND as the holder’s equivalent of Spamton’s pipis. Most likely, the holder is also the one who took the mantle from Seam : regardless of where the mantle came from (if you believe king’s cape is the shadow mantle, that cape flies off after the battle which means seam had the opportunity to collect it anyways), Seam is unable to find it in chapter 2 after you give them Spamton’s shadow crystal stating “did someone take it ?”, the holder would have a very good reason to steal the mantle, it knows Kris is looking for the crystals and seemingly wants to bring out Kris’ violent behavior. Since the mantle greatly increases their chance of getting it, it’s the perfect bait to lure them out which is exactly what happens in the sword route. However, you might see a problem with this. If the holder is a darkner that was created by the shelter’s fountain, how can it and its FRIENDS show up in other dark worlds, wouldn’t they have to be brought to these dark worlds ? And wouldn’t that mean the holder should have turned to stone in chapter 3? The answer I propose to these questions brings us closer to figuring out the holder’s real identity: It isn’t just any Darkner, it is the same type of Darkner as Ralsei. To back up this claim, let’s look at Ralsei’s unique properties.
Ralsei can somehow travel from his dark world to any dark world, and more importantly, seems to be compatible with any of them. His immunity to turning into stone isn’t outright explained so far, but I think we can make a good guess as to why that is based on what he says in chapter 2 “Each Dark fountain creates a different “world”, a “world” whose Darkners reflect the will of its fountain. But tough those Darkners can exist in their own worlds, they might not “belong” if they go to another one. [...] Castle Town’s Grand Fountain is made of pure darkness, as long as it stays flowing, any Darkner can live there.” If a world made of pure darkness allows any Darkner to live there (with the sole exception of Gerson Boom of course), and since we know that Grand Fountain is the one that gives form to Ralsei’s body, it stands to reason that a Darkner created by a Fountain of pure darkness would belong in any darkworld. He’s also one of the only characters that is aware of when you are on a weird route save and has different/additional dialogues showing that. Since the holder is the only other dark world entity we’ve seen so far that possesses all these traits, we can deduce that it also comes from a fountain of pure darkness. And if the holder was born from the shelter fountain, that means it has to be a pure dark fountain. All of this circles back to Gaster and why I said that I believe he created the shelter fountain and the grand fountain: All the fountains we’ve seen so far were “tainted” by their creator’s will and exposed non-native darkners to becoming statues. Who else would be able to create pure darkness fountains if not the one character that happens to be most associated with darkness, has an entire entry dedicated to it and who probably was the one who theorized and discovered the existence of dark fountains, thus being the one behind the only two fountains we don’t know the creator of?
But the similarities between Ralsei and the holder don’t even stop there
- While Ralsei initially wears the riverman hood to hide his identity, the holder wears the shadow mantle to do so.
-Both are horned creatures, both have fangs
-Both can use fire magic
-Both try to isolate themselves with Kris, Ralsei makes us close our eyes and think of Susie to talk to Kris without us hearing, while the holder stole the mantle from seam and elaborated the sword route in order to get to Kris
- Finally, both have ties to Gaster and consider that they have to fulfill their purposes: If you attempt to fight the knight without the mantle, Gaster specifically goes out of his way to inform you that “YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING IMPORTANT”, which shows that he wants you to do the sword route and interact with the Holder, who happens to give you a piece of armor that reduces damage from Dark and star attacks by precisely 66% (for the record, the SkyMantle, a similar armor that exists within the game but hasn’t been used yet, offers a 50% damage reduction against holy/electric attacks, which suggests that the specific 66% reduction was definitely intended). Additionally, the holder is the most likely candidate for being the “tail of hell” thus associating it with devil imagery, some of its dialogues put emphasis on fun (such as the hidden “having fun?” dialogue in the first sword route minigame, as well as how it asks “Is it fun, Kris? Playing around like this…”) and it also happens to always be smiling and laughing. These 3 elements have been well established as recurring motifs related to Gaster: The devil imagery, the FUN value and the entry 17 sound being named “smile.ogg” as well as the smile from the mystery man who, while not confirmed to be Gaster straight up, is still an entity that ties back to him. With that in mind, there is one more piece of evidence I’d like to mention and that ties back to what I was saying earlier about the idea of a demonic entity being someone’s servant: the S-room vending machine. This machine is often disregarded yet it has a pretty interesting detail, aside from the TV slop item, it also sells a SMILE (written in all caps). While getting it doesn’t do much aside from taking away one dollar despite the machine claiming it is free, it will become sold out once you defeat the 8-bit version of the holder, suggesting the real deal was hiding there and left, and most importantly the description you get before buying a SMILE reads “Always at your humble service.” which pretty much sold me on the idea that the holder is serving someone once I realized the SMILE was linked to the Holder, because the phrasing is eerily reminiscent of the “demon message” in Undertale’s strings : in case you didn’t know, when Undertale was released, Toby Fox had left a message for dataminers in the game’s strings, basically asking them to not post about whatever secret they may find by looking through the game’s files. This message was eventually changed in later versions of the game to this :
These dialogues read like someone receiving orders and vowing fidelity to someone. Additionally, in version 1.05A, there was additional text near a “demonx” that read “HE IS” which might be yet another ominous reference to Gaster that would further confirm that he’s the person being addressed by this “humble servant”.
These “demon messages” have been speculated to be from Chara, but now that we have a demonic, horned character who is tied to this strange vending machine that has very similar dialogues, I believe it makes much more sense for them to be pronounced by the Holder, a Darkner born from the shelter fountain, pledging allegiance to Gaster upon being created. While the idea of plot-relevant dialogue being first teased within the previous game’s code may sound silly at first, you have to consider that this isn’t the first time an in-game dialogue quotes something that was initially in undertale or deltarune’s code, for instance Spamton NEO’s description in the weird route “Time to wake up and taste the PAIN” is a quote from undertale’s unused/debug room 271 “La, La. Time to wake up and smell the pain”. With all of these elements, I think it is safe to say that the Holder is undeniably Gaster’s servant.
As for Ralsei, his ties to Gaster are much more indirect and speculative. I am not claiming that Ralsei knows who Gaster is or that he’s been working for him the whole time, I simply believe that because he is also a Darkner born from a pure darkness fountain and that the Lightner that made his fountain is Gaster, it would be a decent explanation as to why he felt like he had to always be smiling, or why he has innate knowledge about the rules of the world, the prophecy and the fact it was “foretold by time and space”. Basically, while the Holder seems to be directly taking orders from Gaster, I feel like Ralsei was born with his orders imprinted in his mind.
There are two more questions regarding these two that I’d like to tackle before moving on to the specifics of what Gaster did to Dess and Kris: if they were both born from one of Gaster’s fountain, why are they so radically different, why is Ralsei a goody-two-shoes whose almost too kind for his own sake while the Holder is such a violent and vicious being? And if they’re Darkners, what objects are they in the Lightworld? While it’s perfectly possible that the Holder and Ralsei are just pure darkness with no light world counterpart and that these questions isn’t vital for my theory, I do have an answer to propose. Thanks to Swatch, we know that when a Lightner pours strong emotions into an object, it becomes something powerful in the Darkworld, and we can also deduce that more generally, the Darkner an object becomes is shaped by how its owner felt about it as well as the stories they imagined for it (which explains why all the darkners we saw in chapter 1 to 3 match the identities Kris and Noelle made up for the objects they used when they were playing make believe). So, if the emotions associated with an object is part of what determines a Darkner’s personality, it means that whatever emotions/memories are tied to the object that turned into Ralsei have to be positive, while those tied to the object Gaster used to create the Holder are negative. Thanks to that, we can narrow down the possibilities.
For Ralsei, the best candidates I found are the green crayon that is missing in Kris’ house and of course, the red horned headband. The former doesn’t have much going for it aside from the fact it’s green and is supposedly important enough to the narrator’s eyes that it being missing is worth mentioning, while the latter fits all the criterions : We know from Toriel that Kris wore it for months when they were little, as such, it would be filled with positive feelings as it is both a token of a time Kris’ life was much happier, and also an object that allowed them to feel like they belonged in the Dreemurr family, which would explain why Ralsei looks like a Dreemurr, can use fire magic and why he’s so kind. We also know that it is missing since Toriel wonders “whatever happened to it?” and considering we cannot find it anywhere in the Lightworld for now, I believe that if Ralsei has a Lightworld counterpart, then this headband is the best candidate. I know that Kris’ knife is also a popular idea but as I will demonstrate when we talk about Toriel’s role in all this, I doubt Kris has positive feelings about it and they seem to carry it all the time, so how would Ralsei be able to be present in Kris’ pockets as a knife while also making changes to CastleTown between each chapter at the same time?
The holder is even more tricky, some people argue that since the door that leads into the Ice palace has red horns, it’s possible that the Holder is actually the headband. While it is a fair assumption, you would have to explain why Kris would pour negative emotions onto it. I personally have a second possibility with strong evidence to back it up: during the Spamton Sweepstakes we got secret pages that were each meant to tease something about future chapters. Now that chapter 3 and 4 have been released, we have an explanation for almost all of them. One of the only exceptions being the ice-e sighting page.
Based on Noelle's spelling and the fact that Dess was still present in Hometown, we can place the events being told here before the night of the Incident, maybe a few weeks or a few months earlier. Noelle talks about an Ice-e pizza box and says that she saw the Ice-e mascot printed on the box wink at her, which made her scared of the box, to the point where Dess tried to “kill” it, most likely as a way to reassure her sister. To do so, she apparently burned the box, specifically burning out the eyes of ice-e making it look evil. When Kris, Noelle, Dess and Asriel went to the graveyard to bury it, Kris scared Noelle using the box, prompting Dess to be violent with them, before throwing the box away. So, we have an ice-e pizza box that Noelle feared, believing it to be violent and evil, and these feelings were amplified with Kris scaring Noelle and Dess using violence on Kris. Besides all of these negative feelings being tied to that box, it was also never buried but thrown away instead. All of this happened in the graveyard, with the shelter being nearby, meaning there is a high chance that Gaster got his hands on that box, and given its history, it would be a great object to make a Darkner with. Considering the emotions associated with it were mostly fear and violence, and that its Lightner saw it as evil, it would explain nearly all the characteristics of the shadow mantle holder: it has horns to symbolize its wickedness and that it acts as Gaster’s servant, it can use fire because its Lightworld form was literally burned, the reason the Shadow mantle holder boss battle theme is called “BURNING EYES” could very well be because ice-e’s eyes were burned. But the connection between the Holder and ice-e don’t stop there : as people have pointed out, one of the sound effects that plays right before the battle is called ERAM which is MARE in reverse and thus a synonym for nightmare, and as I mentioned earlier, the BURNING EYES theme is called “nightmare_boss_heavy” in the files ; it being compared to a nightmare makes perfect sense if the object it was made from was feared but it also ties back to “Nightmare mode”. In case you don't know what nightmare, mode is, it’s a fun event that adds another character on the ice-e word jumble sans gives you in undertale
As you can see, this FUN event adds a snowman character called nightmare. This FUN event never really made much sense within the context of undertale, but now that we have Deltarune and this ice-e blog post, it seems like it was actually teasing the story of this pizza box. Moreover, if you pay attention to the words you’re meant to find in this word jumble, there are 3 sets of words: the words are arranged in three columns. In the first column, the four seasons represent the climate of the four regions featured in Undertale in the order they are visited. In the second column, the four words each describe one of the main bosses. The order is the same in both columns, so each season matches the boss from the same region. Meanwhile, the third one doesn’t make any sense at first glance, until you take Deltarune in consideration : in chapter two, one of the puzzles required to get one of the hacker’s blue checkmarks tasks you with spelling “giasfclfebrehber” Ralsei and Susie have some dialogue about that word revealing it’s just ICE-E’s catchphrase “Perhaps this isn’t a real word, Kris…” ; “Yes it is, it’s ICE-E’s catchphrase.” as for cig and cigars, Noelle mentions that when Dess burned the box, it smelled like “charcle pizza” (charcoal pizza) which can be compared to the smell of cigarettes or cigarette ash, while hot simply refers to the fact that the box was burned. With all of these elements, I believe we can make a fairly strong case in favor of the pizza box being the object that made the Holder. It also fits nicely into our timeline : at this point Kris and Noelle are small children, Dess isn’t missing, Gaster is doing research on darkness inside the shelter but hasn’t opened a fountain yet, he gets his hands on an object filled with strong, negative emotions which is perfect for the creation of the first ever Darkner; the night Kris and Dess enter the shelter, Gaster has finally managed to create the first fountain and the box turns into the first Darkner, a malevolent, demonic entity that vows to obey its creator. Meanwhile, Kris and Dess, get lost in the shelter’s newly created dark world, the Darkner lures them to Gaster who is already thinking about his next experiment.
4. The poor test subjects!
At this point, we know that during one night, seven years before the events of Deltarune, the first dark fountain was created inside the shelter by Gaster, the darkness spawned a malicious darkner that swore to serve him. On the same night, Kris and Dess entered the shelter and got lost inside. The darkner that had been created led them to Gaster, as he was recording his observations on the effects of the darkness and expressing his excitement regarding the next experiment. The way Gaster, a scientist, asks mere children with zero scientific background what they think of his next experiment imply they are going to be a part of it, almost as guinea pigs. So, what do I think this experiment was? I believe that just like Alphys; while doing research on a substance she called “Determination” ended up injecting it into people, Gaster used Darkness on Dess. Look at it from Gaster’s perspective: you have been studying darkness for a while, created a fountain and realized that it created a dark world, turning inanimate objects into darkners. Disregarding any form of morality, if using darkness on an object gives it life, what would happen if it was used on a living being? Moreover, considering that Toby Fox refers to Deltarune as “Undertale’s parallel story” it would make perfect sense to look for something similar to the true lab experiments: Gaster “injecting” Dess with Darkness, would be a direct parallel to Alphys’ experiments with determination only in reverse: Alphys initially injected monster people with determination, and then tried it on flowers, while Gaster initially used darkness on objects before using it on a child.
And if we follow that logic, since Alphys ended up creating Amalgamates, Gaster eventually created the Knight which I believe is a Dark Amalgamate. To prove my point, let’s first address the issue you may have with the idea of using Darkness on Dess: when is it established that what the game calls “darkness” can take the form of a physical substance? And the answer to that lies with the fact that Darkness is constantly being compared with water. I’m not going to go over every single instance to prove it, as there are A LOT of examples, I’ll simply give a few exemples : the background image used for the goner maker sequence and the dark fountains is a stock image of the ocean, and is called IMAGE_DEPTHS in the files, the dark fountains are literally fountains, the game even calls them geysers at some point, the shadow crystals’ darkworld description reads “a sharp shadow moves like water in the hand”. If shadows are like water, then they can take a liquid form which could be injected. But then, why am I saying this resulted in the creation of something similar to an amalgamate? First off, let’s focus on what the knight looks like: it has antlers that look similar to the holiday antlers, but most importantly it can shapeshift into a quadruped cervine form :
But while it has features associated with the holiday family, it also possesses some traits that are very similar to the mystery man such as these “holes” in its hands as well as an eerie smile, just like the Shadow mantle holder, and is directly tied to darkness itself. All of these things are thematically associated with Gaster. On top of that, the knight’ design is a nearly identical to the Titans that can be seen during the roaring cutscene in chapter 2. The Knight’s design is thus an amalgam of Titan-like features, Gaster imagery, and cervine elements unique to the Holiday family, similar to how the amalgamates in Undertale were amalgams of key features of different types of monsters.
The process that created the amalgamates and the effects of darkness on its surroundings are also nearly the same : Amalgamates came to be because the determination Alphys injected into her patients made them melt, in other words the outlines of their bodies blurred, and it formed these abominations, while in chapter 3 Ralsei explains that “when it gets dark, things become more indistinct” : Amalgamates are indistinct just like what happens when it gets dark, and I believe this is the point the game tries to make when it shows how the FRIEND we see in that cutscene is similar to endogeny
If you focus on the white part of endogeny, you see a dog-like creature, but if you focus on the black parts between its legs, you can see cat outlines. Meanwhile, FRIEND has the shape of a cat, but the outlines between its legs look more like dogs, which hammers how both creatures are indistinct. Shapeshifting is also a property that is shared between amalgamates and entities created with pure darkness: the knight can change into a ball and their quadruped cervine form while the holder takes on a bat-like form when it spews bombs, amalgamates can change into the battle warning indicator, pellets and even save points.
The main take away is that using pure darkness on something, or someone, will form a creature that is very similar to an amalgamate, the knight being what you get when you do that with a monster, and that this is what Gaster did to Dess. You may believe that the Knight is someone else, like Carol for example, but the rest of the theory will provide more concrete evidence to back up the idea that the Knight is its own entity, one that Dess was “reborn” as.
5. The sins of the Dreemurr family
Before we continue on Dess, we need to talk about what Gaster did to Kris. I actually don’t have strong evidence regarding this, as such I don’t want to waste much time speculating: Since Kris is the only human in hometown, meaning this is the only human soul Gaster would have easy access to, I believe he did something to their soul directly and that it was after this incident that Kris started doing things like ripping it off and putting it inside the bird cage. This would explain why the cage is already quite damaged in chapter 1 and why there is no particular sign of Kris doing anything like that in their early life (the heart-shaped pillow prank they did on Noelle was clearly just that, I see it more as ironic foreshadowing)
While I don’t have any solid lead on what Gaster did to Kris, there are interesting hints on what Kris did inside the shelter which actually gives us a general idea of where Toriel and Asgore fit into all of this. Then, I will demonstrate how their actions that night, coupled with what they saw Gaster do to Dess is the root of their trauma, which I will then use to further prove that Kris has been inside the shelter and that Dess has been used to create the knight (in case the entry 17 part wasn’t enough evidence for you).
The staring point actually lies within the last board of the sword route: As you explore this manhole dungeon thing, you eventually end up in this room, where a black monster is present and as you may already know, dataminers have found something interesting about this ennemy. I’m know almost nothing about coding, so I’ll just keep it simple. Basically, when the game loads in the sprite for that enemy, it doesn’t use the sprite you see when you enter the room, that sprite actually “replaces” this one :
This black deer is clearly meant to represent a member of the holiday family, and it can’t be Noelle since she’s already represented by the white cloak character. Which means this black deer can only be Carol, Rudy or Dess. This enemy also happens to be the only ennemy 8-bit Kris will kill themselves. On one hand, we have a deer associated with the color black, that Kris kills on their own and on the other hand, we have a deer family composed of four members, 3 of them are still present during the events of the game and none of them are associated with black, while the fourth one is missing and has never been seen in-game meaning we can’t rule out the possibility that it is associated with this color in some way, and we also have a black creature that happens to look like a deer. By process of elimination, I think the most likely candidate for who that black deer is meant to represent is Dess. But if Kris killed Dess as the sword route suggest, how can she also be the knight? I propose two interpretations, with interpretation B being the one that I feel is the most likely.
Interpretation A: the sword route is symbolic, and thus 8-bit kris killing the black deer with its sword is simply meant to represent the fact that Kris was able to run away from the shelter and leaving Dess to her fate. Considering she seemingly went missing after the fact, they would thus feel like they “killed” her, when in reality she was used as a test subject for Gaster’s experiments Interpretation B: the sword route is literal, meaning 8-bit Kris killing a black deer with their sword is meant to reveal that Kris used their knife to kill Dess when they were inside the shelter. This brings context as to why the shadow mantle holder tells Kris “Without play, the knife grows dull” : since it was present when it happened, it’s tormenting Kris over that (and since we had to do something similar to the 8-bit versions of Susie and Ralsei, the Holder’s sentence could also imply that Kris will be forced to do the same thing to their two closest friends that they did to Dess). This idea is reinforced by one of the chapter 4 egg room NPCs stating “Are you here for Art Club? Right, this is where we draw pictures and don’t kill each other”. Since there are many details that imply the egg plotline in general seem to be directly correlated with Kris’ trauma regarding the shelter incident, such as how the ticket to nowhere you need to get the chapter’s egg can be obtained from the gumball machine after you access the strange 1225 room that is obviously related to Dess, the fact we know from the PlayStation achievements that the eggs represent Kris’ “issues” and the chapter 4 egg room most likely being a reminiscence of Kris going to therapy in Hometown’s hospital to deal with the traumatic experience of that night in the forest, with Noelle and Asriel most definitely being the ones occupying the two other inaccessible hospital rooms. Them trying to draw what they saw that night but being so terrified that their drawing is just a monochrome smear, upon which they draw a tree is also another proof that the Man is the one who traumatized them, which only reinforced the popular idea that him and Gaster are one and the same. It would also explain why the motif of hands keeps showing up: when Kris washes their hands, the narration reads “You ran the water over your hands and dried them. Between your fingers, a faint grey crease glittered stubbornly. You can never wash it all away”. If interpretation B is correct, then that text is telling us that Kris killed someone with their own hands, and that they will never be able to wash off that sin. This is why they’re obsessed with bathrooms, and why they’ve been locking themselves inside them to repeatedly wash their hands. They feel immense guilt over what they did, it seems like they’d do anything to get rid of that “crease”… and if washing it doesn’t work then it explains why the game seems to be foreshadowing Kris losing one of their hands, mostly through chapter 1 shadow crystal’s vision that reads “For some strange reason, for just a brief moment, you thought you saw through your hand” as well as the narration you get in the 1225 room stating “It was a small, dark triangle. You tried to take it… but it slipped through your hand. And you couldn’t find it anymore. You couldn’t find you hand”
If the game is implying self-harm, then it’s also a possible explanation for that blood stain in Kris’ room. Maybe they thought that a cut on their hand could make the “crease” disappear. Of course, all of that symbolism would technically still work under interpretation A, it’s just not as strong as it is if Kris literally killed someone.
This is all well and good, but if interpretation B is correct, then Dess can’t be the Knight. At best, she would be another Darkner, similar to Gerson, one created from an object with monster dust sprinkled on it, meaning that the knight is someone else as it is able to open fountains and thus can only be a Lightner, right? But what if Dess and the holiday family are Boss Monsters? To my knowledge nothing in the game confirms or denies the idea thus far, and if Dess is a Boss Monster, then everything falls into place. Kris killed her, but her soul persisted, which is what Gaster used the Darkness on. Not only is this a nice parallel to what Alphys was initially trying to do with determination in the first place, allowing monster souls to persist after death as she explains in entry 3 and 6 : “And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans... The SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...”; “ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had fallen down. Their bodies came in today. They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject "determination" into them? If their SOULS persist after they perish, then... Freedom might be closer than we all thought”, this would give credit to what I suggested earlier, that what Gaster did to Kris had something to do with their SOUL specifically, meaning he tempered with the souls of both children. If I’m right about this, then it would be logical that next experiment he talks about would be about using darkness on souls, which is something Darkners don’t have. This might also be why the bird NPC one of the Gaster followers is based on and who’s behavior has become more and more bizarre as the game progressed seem so obsessed with the books, specifically those on the library’s second floor (and is also, ironically, the one preventing us from reading): Aside from “how to care for humans” all the books upstairs so far are about SOULS. Could it be that Gaster is somehow using that NPC to bring our attention to these books? Or to prevent us from realizing something about his true motives considering that NPC is also the one that has been limiting our access to these very same books?
There is one more crucial detail about the black deer in the sword route: the variable that causes this sprite to be replaced with the more standard monster sprite is actually called “Toriel”
So, in a way, “Toriel” is covering up the truth of “Kris” using its “sword” to kill a “black deer” by replacing it with something benign. If you replace all the elements by what they represent in reality: Toriel is covering up Kris killing Dess with their knife. And this realization is what allowed me to finally understand what the hell was going on in chapter two’s intro which everyone seems to gloss over. Chapter two opens with a scene where we only get to hear Toriel say the following “Kris ? Kris, honey… Are you awake ? …w… wait ! Is that a… a knife ?!! NOOOOO---”
I believe this scene is a flashback that takes place during the same night where the kids explored the forest, specifically, I think this is Kris coming back home after escaping from the shelter. Not only is the scene very similar to the one from Undertale, where after falling down in Waterfall, Frisk we get a flashback of Asriel meeting Chara, Toriel’s words imply it’s the first time she sees Kris with a knife, while she seems pretty casual about it in chapter 2. Her dialogue also confirms this took place during the night so as far as the chronology of events goes, it would fit nicely with my idea. With the added context of this “Toriel” variable, I think we can make a good case for the idea that she caught Kris holding their knife, maybe covered in blood, as they returned from the shelter, and chose to hide the truth to protect her child from the consequences. A questionable thing to do, but it definitely fits with her character. This event is probably what kickstarted her falling out with Asgore : as the chief’s police, he was most likely tasked with finding out what happened to Dess, and because she’s the daughter of his best friend, it’s no surprise he would obsess over solving the case even to this day. But Toriel knows that Asgore figuring out the truth would mean that both Kris and her would face severe consequences, and that Asgore is a man of Honor, driven by his unyielding sense of duty and that as much as it will pain him, he won’t do what Toriel did. I’m particularly confident with this idea since it is yet another parallel to their falling out in Undertale, that also involved the murder of children and a strong disagreement over a major moral dilemma. Furthermore, if Carol is supporting Asgore’s investigation, it also explains why she seems to have grown distant from Carol aswell, to the point where she won’t even say her name when talking with Rudy in chapter 4.
6. Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
What the theory states so far is that Kris has a severe trauma that relates to the night where they went inside the shelter with Dess, ended up in a dark world that had just been made by Gaster, where a vile Darkner, acting as Gaster’s servant, lured them to him. Gaster did something to Kris, supposedly to their SOUL, and they ended up killing Dess. As a Boss Monster, her soul persisted just long enough for him to use Darkness on it, as Kris was able to escape (or maybe they were allowed to, in exchange of something. Gaster IS the Devil after all; would he pass up the opportunity to force Kris to make a promise?). This was probably the moment they lost their horned headband, which would be another object gaster would be interested with for his experiments. When they returned home, Toriel realized they had seemingly killed someone and that Dess was missing, she decided to cover up the truth. Asriel, Noelle and Kris were all left deeply affected by this experience, and would attend Hometown’s hospital for therapy.
The results for Kris are… less than optimal, and their fear is what I’m going to use to provide more evidence for the fact they’ve been inside the shelter as well as figuring out what Gaster’s experiments led to, how he wasn’t just studying Darkness but also the space-time continuum itself and how that infamous “voice in the code” is undeniably Dess. I’m aware Dess being the one talking in the UNUSED text is a very common idea, but I feel like there is a lack of arguments being provided for this, we’ve all just kind of agreed to assume it to be the case. I will do my best to achieve this!
In case you didn’t know, there are a lot of ominous messages hidden in the game’s data, similar to the demon text from undertale. If you want more details about the stuff I’m going to be mentioning from now on, I have linked some of HalfbreadChaos’ videos on the matter at the end.
Let’s start with the “voice in the code”, this refers to a bunch of scripts found in the game’s files, there is one UNUSED script for each chapter and they seem to tell the story of an unknown character that seems to be stuck in a dark space:
As many people have pointed out, this UNUSED text seems to be quoted by Spamton in one of his shop dialogues “…can anyone hear me? Help…” which is another instance of in-game dialogue referencing something from the game’s code. What is often disregarded however, is the context in which Spamton suddenly starts quoting this text, which will actually be pivotal to understanding why he says that, who’s this voice in the code and how it even helps making sense of the other messages in the code besides UNUSED. You actually get this Spamton dialogue by choosing the “FEAR” dialogue option, and his full dialogue reads “WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF??? ACCORDING TO [[Encyclopedia of]] [[Being Afraid]] THERE'S NOTHING TO FEAR EXCEPT ... can anyone hear me? Help... HUH??? WHAT?? NO, I DIDN'T HEAR ANYTHING JUST NOW!!! ... BUT IT SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE TALKING TO YOU.” This added context sheds a new light on this strange piece of dialogue, Spamton is telling Kris what they are afraid of, which prompts him to quote the UNUSED text, before specifying that the voice was talking to Kris. This strongly suggests that the story being told in the UNUSED text and the character speaking are directly tied to Kris’ fear, meaning this somehow relates to their Shelter trauma, which fits nicely with what we’ve established so far. Let’s focus on the UNUSED text itself now and let’s look for details that could hint at who this person is and what happened to them. The first part is very similar to what Asriel, posing as Toriel, describes of his experience before being reborn as Flowey “Where am I…? It’s so cold here… And so dark… Someone help me… Anyone… please… Help me…” while the fourth part tells us that they don’t eat or drink. This strongly implies that whatever is going on, they aren’t just a normal person trapped somewhere, it seems they are in a strange in-between state between life and death. In the fourth part, they also mention late night-TV and breakfast. While this detail is sometimes used to rule out Dess since it sounds more like a typical morning for a Dreemurr, considering how close the two families were, it’s just as likely that she’s talking about sleepovers at their house. Another detail that sets their case apart from Flowey, is the scratching noise they hear, meaning that they are still conscious and to some extent, aware of their surroundings. So, we are dealing with someone experiencing something similar to what Flowey went through before being reborn, who’s also aware of the sounds around them. Earlier, I suggested that Dess could’ve been reduced to a soul, and injected with Darkness to allow it to persist. This UNSUED text would be a good description of how this process would look like to Dess, after all we know from Undertale that even when their bodies have been destroyed, the SOULs are still aware and retain their memories, this is why they answer our call for help against omega Flowey and eventually rebel against him when he starts torturing Frisk, why we are able to save the Monster souls by making them remember everything during the true pacifist final boss battle.
But what are the scratching sounds? And if Dess is the voice in the code, how can she also be the Knight? Considering Dess is being used by Gaster as a test subject, I think it’s highly likely that the scratching noise is Gaster taking notes, silently observing the effects of Darkness on Dess. I believe that’s what this UNUSED text is, Gaster’s notes. This would explain why unused is written in all caps, but also why Dess is both the knight and the UNUSED voice. The stuff described in UNSUED isn’t happening in parallel of the game’s event, these are written records of Gaster’s next experiment. You could almost say they are the follow-up entries to entry 17. This would also explain why the person behind the scratching isn’t answering Dess’s call for help: to Gaster, this would be an experiment, a way to find out what effects Darkness can have on the soul. Eventually, the voice’s mental state starts to deteriorate because of the dark, they lose track of time, implying it could very well have been years since they’ve been in there (which once again fits nicely with our timeline, Dess has been missing for seven years, and her transformation into the Knight wasn’t instantaneous which would explain why it only started acting shortly before the game started) and start to be irrationally grateful to the one behind the scratching “This sounds crazy, but even though no one can hear me, when I hear that noise, I feel like someone's listening. Anyone, if you're there... thank you”.
Someone’s mind slowly being broken by an unseen entity that is listening to them, and who says “thank you” to that entity… This is clearly meant to draw a parallel between what Gaster supposedly did to Dess and what we do to Noelle in the weird route: we both are unseen entities that are always listening “It’s rude to talk about someone who’s listening”; “Who…? Who’s going to hear?” We slowly break their mind until eventually, we turn them into obedient weapons. This is evidenced by how Noelle says the same thing as the UNUSED voice when we choose to think of her in chapter four: “Thank you.” This would make a nice parallel between Gaster/Dess and Us/Noelle and it also explains why Gaster’s dialogue at the end of chapter 4 doesn’t change in the weird route. He’s done the same thing we did; these are acceptable methods to him. The idea that being lost in darkness will eventually break your mind is visually alluded to in the Roaring cutscene and carries on to the Knight. Look at the human’s stance and notice how the knight’s position before they roar is nearly identical with the way they are both clutching their head with their hands, as if their minds were suffering:
Thus, I believe the Knight is a “Dark amalgamate”, a creature born from Dess (more specifically her soul) merging with Darkness. A couple questions remain regarding the Knight: Is it acting on instinct or is it intelligent, and what are its motives? I believe it’s pretty obvious that the Knight has some form of intelligence, they laugh at Susie’s words in chapter 4 and they nod when Kris coughs, meaning they understand words and cues. It also has the intelligence to hide or stay out of view whenever necessary, if we assume that it was hiding in the church’s closet and that it is the hand that pushes back Kris in the last prophecy room (which would be another clue in favor of Dess Knight, since a guitar sound is meant to be playing during this interaction). Furthermore, unlike Gaster’s, the fountains it creates aren’t pure darkness, and its dark worlds are filled with elements from Dess’ past or Kris and Noelle’s childhood: seam who’s apparently based on some sort of cat character Kris and Asriel made on their laptop, the baseball moon, the smiling plugs, the puppet scarf that feels like guitar strings, or the ribbons that look familiar according to Noelle. There’s also the fact that the knight’s fountain was able to make specific enough darkness to bring back Gerson as a Darkner, which would be possible for Dess as she probably had him as a teacher when she was younger. As for her motives and why she hasn’t caused the Roaring, thanks to the parallel with the weird route it becomes clear that the Knight has no motives aside from serving Gaster, as such, it’s most likely assisting him with his Dark Fountain experiments. After all, unlike the tail of hell, the knight is technically still a Lightner, it can thus make its own fountains. This would provide a fairly solid explanation as to why it tried to abduct Toriel, why it took Undyne to the shelter, and why it opened a fountain inside the church. All of these things would help satiate the questions a man experimenting with Dark Fountains would ask himself: What happens if we use Darkness on an object covered with monster dust? What would happen if we used it on another type of Boss Monster? What would happen if the one monster that managed to achieve a formidable transformation using Determination was injected with Darkness instead?
Now that we’re done with UNUSED, let’s look at the other strange texts that can be found in Deltarune’s files, the error handler text. There are quite of lot of them, so i've divided them into diffent categories for clarity’s sake.
The “Repressed narration category”:
This category includes the following sentences
Based on my interpretation of the demon text and UNUSED, it looks like we have a pattern of text related to the Shelter Incident being hidden in the game’s code. This, coupled with the fact Kris’ trauma was caused by this Incident, leads me to believe that these messages are hidden in the game's code as a way to symbolize how Kris is repressing their memories of what they saw inside the shelter. As such, these bits of text would be narrative flavor text of what Kris saw/felt when they explored the place. This would imply that the blueprints for the broken machine from sans lab, are inside the shelter considering the error handler text is nearly identical to the narration we get when we check the blueprints in Undertale. This would further support the popular idea that these blueprints were made by Gaster. The other messages could almost be put in their own sub category because of they seem to describe a fight-or-flight response “It could not be” “Your eyesight became blurry” “Your heartbeat quickened” “Suddenly, you body seizes up. What are you looking at ?” which makes sense if these are what Kris remembers of their encounter with Gaster. These messages can even be used to tie the Knight into all of this because some of the flavor text during their fight is almost identical
Here are the flavor texts similar to “Your heartbeat quickened” :
"Kris held their breath. their heartbeat quickened"
"Your chest feels tight"
"Your heartbeat becomes twisted"
As for “Your eyesight became blurry” one of the flavor texts during the fight reads "Your vision narrows"
These details could imply that the Knight’s presence is making Kris’ repressed memories resurface, linking it even more closely to Kris’ trauma.
The “Gaster Poems” category
These are 3 error handler messages that rhyme when put together, forming some kind of poem. As many have pointed out, it seems to describe the Mystery man's face "Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye?"; "The gash weaves down as if you cry"; "The pain itself is reason why"
As such, this text seems to be specifically about motifs related to Gaster: Pain, the Mystery Man, and rhyming. Indeed, the two other major instances where we find rhymes are in parts of the Prophecy itself (which was likely written by Gaster) and in the speech of one of Gaster’s followers
Now that we’re done with the error handler text, we can focus on the flavor text you get when fighting Echidna aka G BODY. This is something pretty obscure, so in case you don't know what I’m talking about, I once again recommend checking HalfbreadChaos' video on the matter, they explain what this enemy is way better than I could.
In any case, if you somehow start a battle with this enemy, you will get the following flavor text "You've come again to this wonderful place. Now tear off the mask beneath your face!"
This is yet another text that rhymes and this one also uses the adjective “wonderful” which is one of Gaster’s favorite words (it keeps coming back in his tweets, and is also used multiple times in the Goner maker sequence). The text also states that whoever is being addressed has already been in a the “wonderful place” it mentions. Considering all these elements, I believe it is directed to Kris, and that we will most likely see it in-game when we enter the shelter, either from Gaster himself or from the shadow mantle holder, this message seems to be particularly in-character for the latter. The forgotten man also seems to vaguely allude to this place and the strange “Now, tear off the mask beneath your face!” thing in his chapter 3 dialogue “IF YOU WILL IT, WE SHALL MEET AGAIN AT THAT PLACE”; “SO TAKE YOUR TIME, WASH YOUR FACE, AND GET DRESSED!” as well as his Valentine letter “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT”. Overall, this text is another piece connecting Kris, their trauma, Gaster, and the Shelter.
Now that we’re done with the first part of this theory, let’s sum everything up
One night, Asriel, Kris, Noëlle and Dess explored the forest past the graveyard. Using the code she stole from her mother, Dess opened the Shelter, wanting to go inside. But because Noëlle was scared, only Dess and Kris, the two more adventurous kids of the bunch, went inside while Asriel stayed outside watching over Noëlle. At the same time, Doctor W.D. Gaster, a scientist that had been doing researches on Souls and Darkness, managed to open the first ever Dark Fountain, creating a Dark world inside the shelter. The Darkness had also created the first ever Darkner from a burnt pizza box Gaster had retrieved nearby a few weeks before. Because of the negative emotions and memories poured into that box however, the Darkner was particularly malicious. It became Gaster’s humble servant, promising to follow him to the utmost, figuratively making it the “tail of hell”. Kris and Dess, who were lost inside the shelter's dark world, were then brought to Gaster by the tail. As he was recording his observations, he came up with a new experiment: He would use Darkness on living beings. Amidst the chaos of this terrifying encounter, Kris, perhaps after Gaster tempered with their soul, making them able to be controlled by someone else, stabbed (or was forced to stab) Dess. Gaster used this opportunity to use Darkness on her boss monster soul, saving it from destruction. (It’s possible that this is the point where Kris made that infamous promise. A deal with the Devil, in exchange for Dess’s salvation. They would agree to let their soul be controlled, and follow instructions, in exchange for Gaster’s help. Using Darkness, he would save Dess. This might be what “the promise in our hearts” refers to assuming don’t forget is sung by Dess). Either way, Kris make it out of the shelter, losing their headband in the process. When they returned home, Toriel caught them with the Knife they used to stab Dess, and decided to hide the truth to protect her child. Asgore on the other hand, would become obsessed with finding Dess, which would cause a falling out between him and Toriel, leasing to their divorce. Kris would remain deeply traumatized by that night, and they would go on to struggle with their own soul, as well as with an immense feeling of guilt over what happened. They would resort to self-harm, and would try to repress any memory of what they saw. Meanwhile, in the shelter, Dess merged with Darkness itself, would slowly break because of the dark. After many years, she would end up completely subjugated to the one behind the scratching noises, Dr. Gaster. She would be reborn, not as Dess, but as a amalgamation of Darkness, of traits inherited from her newfound master, and remaining features of the rowdy girl she once was. With the previous experiment being conclusive, Gaster created another pure Dark Fountain, this time inside the school's closet. Using the headband he took from Kris, another special Darkner was created, Ralsei. This one would have the same unique properties as the tail of hell, but because the object that was used to make him was filled with positive memories and feelings, he would have a nearly opposite personality. Ralsei would be born with innate knowledge about the rules of the world and its Prophecy, he would be completely dedicated to its purpose: carrying out the Prophecy, or as chapter 4 puts it, “recording the fate”, acting as a control case for Gaster’s next experiments.
PART 2 : ANOTHER DELTARUNE
This theory was originally supposed to end there, but it still felt like I was missing something. Where does the Prophecy fit into this? What’s going on with the Forgotten man? Why is he so different and yet so similar to Gaster? What about the FUN events and all that Gaster stuff from Undertale? If Alphys' determination experiments are a parallel to Gaster's experiments, shouldn’t there be a point where his experience go wrong? Eventually, it clicked. If Gaster kept experimenting with Dark Fountains, and if FUN events are actually telling parts of Deltarune’s lore, then this Gaster follower dialogue takes on a whole new meaning:
What if Gaster’s experiments going wrong wasn’t something that happened in Undertale, but in Deltarune?
In this second part, I’m going to develop an explanation that will hopefully bring us closer to understanding what the deal with Gaster is.
Here’s the gist of it: I believe that the voice we hear in chapter 1’s intro and the Forgotten man are both Gaster, but unlike what most people believe I don’t think one is from Deltarune and one is from Undertale. I believe that they’re both from Deltarune, except the Forgotten man is from a “failed” timeline, one where we, the player, weren’t present.
In this timeline, the heroes failed to stop the knight, and Gaster’s experiments unwillingly caused the Roaring, dooming the world to eternal darkness. However, aside from his experiments with Darkness and similarly to Alphys, Gaster had also been studying alternate universes, and discovered the existence of the Undertale universe, his reports showed that an anomaly was messing with this universe’s timelines. Gaster thus planned to travel to this universe with the objective of bringing the anomaly to the Deltarune universe, using its powers to change the inevitable fate he had created for his universe, correcting his failing experiment into a success.
Using the blueprints he had designed, and with the help of two men he met some point after his experiments went wrong, these men being sans, who had been studying quantum physics, and his little brother, who excelled in creating complex machinery that he usually used to create puzzles, Gaster was able to complete a machine that could achieve space-time travel. During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, and while sans and his brother were able to make it to their destination, Gaster ended up in the past, long before the anomaly’s arrival. With the machine broken and its creator missing, sans and his brother had no choice but to accept Undertale as their new home. As for Gaster, seeing he ended up in a point in time too far from the anomaly, decided to leave hints about him that would arouse the anomaly’s curiosity. Thanks to his scientific background, he was hired by King Asgore as the Royal Scientist. He eventually built the CORE, and used it to create GONERs, these creatures would tell bits of information about Gaster and events from his home world in order to make sure the anomaly would look for him. Having left all these breadcrumbs, Gaster vanished as suddenly as he appeared, once again crossing time and space to return to the Deltarune universe as the Forgotten man, a being shattered across time and space. Now experiencing time in reverse, he eventually met his own, non-shattered self. The Forgotten man told Gaster what had happened to him, said events would form The Prophecy as well as the existence of the anomaly. With this knowledge, Gaster created the SURVEY_PROGRAM, before contacting the anomaly that had been looking for him. Using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect it to the Deltarune world, this Gaster’s goal is to use our power to create a new future. Not out of any desire for good, or evil. But because this would certainly be the most interesting experiment he ever conceived.
I know this all sounds completely crazy, but let me go over the evidence.
The failed Deltarune
I believe this is a good way to start this crazy part so let’s go over everything that implies the events of Deltarune have somehow already happened once before. Our first main clue comes from the Legend and Roaring cutscenes. Both of these are told through sepia-colored screens, which in both Undertale and Deltarune, they’ve only ever been used to tell flashbacks, which implies that one way or another, the roaring and the prophecy have already happened once.
Speaking of the Roaring, let’s pay attention to how it’s described. Ralsei tells us in chapter 2 that it is an event that ends with the world being plunged in a never-ending night, which will start “when the fountains fill the sky”. What Ralsei is saying is that when darkness fills the sky, the Roaring will start, leading to the eternal night. This is very similar to what Gaster says when you choose to give up upon getting a game over “THEN THE WORLD WAS COVERED IN DARKNESS” and on top of that, the theme that plays (which also happens to be 66 seconds long) is called “DARKNESS FALLS”. So, when the end of the world happens, Darkness fills the sky, before falling from it, covering up the entire world. As I’ve explained before, Darkness and water are thematically the same thing, so Darkness falling from the sky is the same thing as saying water falls from the sky, which is called raining. But if darkness is water, does that mean it can exist in the two other primary states of water: gaseous and solid? Turns out it absolutely does: the dark fountains literally make smoke, while darkness has been associated with coldness on multiple occasions: Earlier, I quoted Flowey posing as a deceased Toriel, specifying that everything was dark and cold. Furthermore, just before Gaster took over the UT/DR X account, we got this tweet.
The reason I’m establishing a link between darkness and cold/ice is because of this prophecy panel:
This panel ties back to the idea of darkness falling from the sky, except it uses snowflakes. But considering the panel doesn’t use the term “snow” but specifically “cold water” and how darkness has been established to be cold, we can safely assume that Darkness, water, cold and ice all refer to the same general idea. Therefore, if darkness falling from the sky refers to the end of the world, the fact Gaster immediately says that this is what happens as a consequence of us, the player, choosing to give up means that he already knows that without us, the Roaring will not be stopped. This further suggests the existence of a playerless timeline that ended up in failure, and gives context as to why he says that he aims to “CREATE A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU” and how we apparently need each other. Another element that supports this idea is the first sentence from the Forgotten man in chapter 3 “WELL, SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER, AND SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD.” have you ever wondered what this sentence was supposed to mean? He initially goes from spring to summer, nothing strange there, but then, not only does he skip fall, he says COLD, not winter. The choice to use the world cold feels deliberate. He’s not talking about the passing of seasons; he’s talking about what happened in his failed timeline. One of the few things we know about Deltarune’s time period is that the game’s events are set around the end of spring/the beginning of summer since Asriel is meant to come back to hometown next week for his college vacation, and Kris has the search query “summer vacation college when” inside their cyber world room. SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER thus refers to the events of the game, while SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD means that the world ended up covered in darkness. As we’re going to see in a moment, the forgotten man seems to experience time in reverse, most of the things he says are either in reverse or out of order, but this sentence is one of the only times he follows the normal flow of time. If this man has been travelling through space and time, it makes sense he would struggle to keep track of everything, but would recall the events of his original timeline in a normal order.
Finally, let’s look at this quote from the Forgotten man’s valentine letter: “AS YOU ARE WAITING PATIENTLY, THE TIME IS GOING AROUND”. The correct expression would be “time is going by” to suggest the passing of time, but here, the Forgotten man says that it’s “going around” almost like time is repeating itself. To my knowledge, he is the only character that has suggested this so far. I know that there have been theories that Deltarune is stuck in a never-ending time loop, but I don’t think that is what’s going on, I think this is rather signaling time is repeating from his perspective. After all, if the forgotten man is from a failed timeline, everything leading up to the game’s ending is just a repetition for him. Furthermore, if he’s experiencing this new timeline in reverse after reaching “the end” of his own timeline, he is quite literally going around through time.
2. Space-time travelers
Now that I’ve established the existence of a failed timeline, let me demonstrate how Gaster, with the help of sans and his brother, was able to escape the fate he brought upon his own world, and how he became the forgotten man. Small heads up before I go on though: since I’ll be referring to two different Gasters, I’ll use “Forgaster” (Forget + Gaster) for simplicity to describe the one who came from the failed timeline, went to Undertale, and returned as the Forgotten Man. I’ll keep “Gaster” for the one who appears to be speaking to us on social media and in the goner maker sequence.
Forgaster ended up creating an unavoidable fate for everyone in the Deltarune universe, with no means to stop it. So, what could he do? Like I implied earlier, I have reasons to believe Gaster was aware of the existence of Undertale and had been researching that universe, on top of his Darkness researches. Even alphys, who’s researched primarily focused on determination and MTT is confirmed to have been studying alternate universes based on this dialogue you get for answer “Nobody” to the final question of MTT’s quiz “Hey, I’ve done research about this! There are alternate universes out there!” so the idea that Gaster would also do this as a side gig isn’t out of the question. Furthermore, I established that the blueprints for the broken machine in sans’ lab were most likely in the shelter. Finally, during his fight, sans states that “our reports have shown a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting. Until suddenly, everything ends” what “reports” is he talking about? This guy sells hotdogs for a living; how would he have the means of producing a scientific report? This dialogue, is sans admitting he has a scientific background, and based on the books we find in his undertale house, or how he makes a joke reference to the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, it’s pretty clear that his field of research is quantum physics. The fact he specifies “our reports” means he didn’t do this research alone. While his colleague could be Alphys, the fact she never shows any knowledge about what is going on with the timelines in Undertale disproves the idea. I think it’s far more likely in light of everything we know today, that sans somehow met Forgaster at some point. These reports are what allowed them to learn of the existence of the anomaly (which is just how sans refers to what fans tend to call “the player”) and come up with the idea of luring it to Deltarune to change fate. After all, an anomaly that has the power to rewind time and exert complete control on timelines would’ve been seen as a godsent in their situation. Sans’ brother’s involvement in this is rather speculative, but if this brother really is Papyrus, then it throws a few wrenches in the next part of my theory which is basically me agreeing with the “sans undertale is the same as sans deltarune” but I’ll address these in due time. If Papyrus was involved, I doubt he took part in the whole time-space research. At best, I think it’s more likely that he helped build the machine, seeing how undertale implies that his knowledge of machinery is rather impressive, judging by the complex books on puzzle creation on his bookshelf.
In any case, this machine is definitely how sans and papyrus ended up in undertale, but I also think that it’s the reason for Papyrus being so lost and naïve as well as what caused Forgaster being shattered across time and space. Let’s go over the major evidence in favor of “sans is from deltarune”
The first clue implying that sans and Papyrus do not originate from Undertale (and by extension, the idea of an Undertale counterpart for Gaster being incorrect) actually comes from what the snowdin shopkeeper tells us about them “There’s two of ‘em. Brothers, I think. They just showed up one day and… asserted themselves”. The way they just suddenly appeared out of nowhere would make sense if they arrived there thanks to the machine. As for Forgaster, the riverman has one dialogue that was always believed to be about him “Beware of the man who speaks in hands” seeing how Deltarune has been bringing back this hand motif with the knight most notably, and how the Wingdings font uses multiple hand signs, this is a fair assumption. However, there is another line from the Riverman that is nowhere as iconic as the previous one, and that was always harder to connect to Gaster “Beware of the man who came from the other world”, back when we only had Undertale, there wasn’t much to suggest this had anything to do with him, aside from how both sentences used a similar structure and mentioned a man. But thanks to what we learned in Deltarune and what I’ve established so far, this sentence makes a lot more sense. The riverman is telling us that a man came from another world that he doomed because of his experiences, and is trying to lure us in order to take advantage of our power. Besides that, one of Gaster’s followers states that “one day, he vanished without a trace” which sounds like the inverse of sans and papyrus: while the two brothers suddenly appeared out of nowhere one day, Forgaster appears to have suddenly disappeared. I’m not exactly sure if him vanishing is alluding to when he returned to the Deltarune universe, or if the follower is talking about how he escaped from the failed timeline thanks to the machine.
Sans also has dialogues that sound a bit nonsensical if you only consider Undertale, especially during the hangout at MTT resort, and during his fight.
“Your journey’s almost over, huh? You must really wanna go home. Hey, I know the feeling, buddo. Though maybe sometimes it’s better to just take what’s given to you. Down here you’ve already got food, drink, friends… is what you have to do… really worth it?”
There’s the obvious fact he says he wants to “go home”, but even if we disregard that and chalk it up to sans meaning he wants to go back to the surface, he seems to be projecting a bit in this scene. Him stating that Frisk already has food and friends in the underground sound like what he’s been telling himself to cope with the fact he’s stranded in a world that’s not his own. Going off of that, the way he asks if what we have to do is really worth it could also be him implying he came here with a goal, supposedly getting the anomaly, and wonders if it’s really worth it. It’s not like he’d have a way back anyway. These doubts might also partly explain why he prioritizes the promise he made to Toriel over his desire (or his mission) to kill us, especially if the two were close in Deltarune.
As for his desire to go home, he outright confirms he’s not talking about the surface during his fight “Look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago. And getting to the surface doesn’t really appeal anymore, either” Moreover, the theme that plays during that scene is called “It’s raining somewhere else” and in Chapter 4, we got to hear a very similar track called “The place where it rained”. I’ve already showed that darkness and water are the same thing thematically, and that the world of deltarune ended with Darkness (water) falling from the sky, covering everything. Figuratively, you could say that the end of the world is represented by rain. With that in mind, the name of these two tracks can not only be interpreted differently, they also respond to each other: He knows that while he’s stuck in undertale, darkness is still falling from the sky in his home world, that’s why the track uses the present continuous, it’s raining somewhere else. And thus, the track from Deltarune not only tells us what this “somewhere else” is, it also alludes to the existence of the failed timeline, it tells us that the world of deltarune is the place where it rained. The use of past tense is significant, because it doesn’t make sense from our perspective as players, since the roaring hasn’t happened yet, but it does for someone who came from Forgaster’s failed timeline or who simply knows what happened
As for Papyrus, we have this dialogue from the Fangamer Q&A:
Considering there isn’t really any spot with green grass in the Underground, this is a huge hint because it means Papyrus may also be from Deltarune. But it poses a few problems: why does sans state his brother never saw any human? Why does he appear to be a shut-in type of person in Deltarune when his personality in Undertale is the exact opposite of that? Considering his supposed Deltarune memories seem a bit hazy, I believe what’s being implied here is that Papyrus either suffers from amnesia/cognitive issues or trauma (maybe a mix of both). The reason why I believe that lies with the fact the machine is broken. It implies it malfunctioned when it was used by Forgaster, sans and papyrus when traveling to Undertale. If the machine was built in a hurry, as the Roaring was happening, then we have a pretty good explanation for why it happened. It seems like sans was able to make it out in one piece, however Papyrus’s mind seemingly suffered from it, while Forgaster was unaccounted for. If Papyrus has trouble remembering things, then that’s something he has in common with the Forgotten man. What if this is because their memory issues have the same origin? Considering sans seems fairly depressed over his situation, I guess this would explain why he seems to purposely interrupt the Q&A: he’s preventing his brother from remembering what happened so that he won’t suffer from it. This is a solid explanation for why the Forgotten Man speaks in a way that is very similar to Gunter’s, but not quite identical: Forgaster speaks like someone who was shattered across time and space, while Gaster is just normal. This also implies that the trip from Deltarune to Undertale was the moment when Forgaster was shattered. That makes perfect sense: what machine would have the potential to shatter someone across time and space without it coming from nowhere, if not a device literally designed to travel between dimensions and timelines? Perhaps this really was what one of the Gaster followers meant when he said that “he fell in his creation”. It would have the added bonus of confirming that the idea that he fell into his own creation and the fact that he was broken refer to the same thing, which would be nice since it simplifies things for us.
Thanks to all these elements, it also becomes clear that all of the main characters from Undertale have a Deltarune counterpart, with the exception of sans, Papyrus and Gaster. In other words, Forgaster discovered a world similar to his own, but in which he didn’t exist.
“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same… Except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you… Ha, ha… the thought terrifies me”
I’m positive this is what the goner kid was talking about all along, they embody Forgaster’s feelings upon making that discovery. More generally, Goner kid seems to reflect his fear and his sadness, the more human side of a man who has otherwise been horrifyingly cold to everyone who ever crossed his path so far. This last bit is more speculative, but I wonder if their dialogue when we bring them an umbrella is meant to give us some insight into how Forgaster might have felt some fort of guilt or grief about causing the roaring “An umbrella? But it’s not raining. You know, that does make me feel a little better about this. Thank you. Please forget about me” especially since Forgaster has a strange dialogue if you answer no when he asks if you want to meet him again “WELL. I’M STARTING TO REALIZE WHY I WAS FORGOTTEN” I’m probably reaching hard here, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s implying, he was forgotten as punishment for what he did to the people in Deltarune. Food for thought, I guess.
3. I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
We’ve covered what happened to sans and papyrus, but what became of Forgaster after he was shattered? His story pretty much goes on accordingly to what the followers tell us from this point on. He ended up in the past, long before the events of Undertale. Since the anomaly had not yet arrived, the only thing left to do was setting up the baits that would allow him to lure it into Deltarune. He became the Royal scientist, most likely worked in the true Lab and eventually built the CORE. According to Alphys, it converts geothermal energy into magical electricity, and powers the entire underground. Before Forgaster built this structure, monsters seemingly had no access to electricity and used primitive light sources as revealed by one of the signs in Waterfall “Without candles or magic to guide them Home, the monsters used crystals to navigate”
The signs inside the CORE have a very similar interface to the one we see for the save file menu in chapter 1, which isn’t surprising since both were made by the same person. The way these signs are written are similar to how Gaster speaks, using vague and drawn-out expressions “Traverse the northern room, and the end will open”. Another sign reads “North, the warrior’s path, West, the sage’s path. Any path leads to The End” which is a hint on how the player can reach the last room of the CORE, you can either solve a puzzle (the sage’s path) or cross a bridge where you’ll have to fight powerful enemies in order to reach a switch (the warrior's path). The way the CORE is designed is almost an allegory for Deltarune: regardless of whether you choose to use violence or to avoid fighting, you reach the same end either way. This is further reinforced by what we see when we reach “The End” of the CORE:
A room with an effigy of the Angel on top of its entrance.
Another sign reads “I cannot fight. I cannot think. But, with patience, I will make my way through” while this initially appears like another hint for the player to help them cross the laser room, the fact this sign was made by Forgaster could also apply to his situation after being shattered. He’s the only one with battle stats but no boss fight, and the Forgotten man has cognitive issues judging from his dialogues. The second part of the quote is also interesting, because both Gaster and Forgaster keep talking about they have been waiting for a long time. I believe this sign supports the idea that Forgaster was left in a fairly bad state after his machine incident and that “making his way through” might be about making his way through Undertale specifically, setting up baits for the anomaly before returning to Deltarune. Even then, he’d still have to wait for the anomaly to arrive and find the breadcrumbs he left.
But does the CORE have anything to do with this plan? After all, it’s just a power plant, isn’t it?
This is what Alphys thinks, but let’s look at the other room where the Angel symbol appears:
See these pillars that appear all throughout the CORE? They’re called “spr_darknesstotem” in the game files. How could there be advanced darkness technology inside the CORE if the Gaster that built the CORE was from Undertale? Nothing in Undertale suggests Darkness technology was developed, the only exception being entry 17 but as I’ve established, this is from Deltarune. This might be the best evidence to back up the claim that “Undertale Gaster” was always from Deltarune, because if the man who built the CORE is the man who came from the other world, he would have the knowledge necessary to make these totems. But what could be the use for these totems? Well, have we ever seen something similar? A machine that uses Darkness to make something? If we had seen one, we could assume that the CORE might have a secret functionality that would be similar. And it turns out we have: the Goner maker device. It uses darkness as suggested by the IMAGE_DEPTHS background, when said image appears, we clearly hear the sound of a machine booting up, and this is the part where we create a goner. This is the actual reason Forgaster built the CORE, it wasn’t about helping monsterkind, it was about making goners that would relate the events of Forgaster’s failed timeline. They would be the bait that would help lure out the anomaly, as only a being that has the power of RESET could eventually find all of them. One more element in favor of the CORE having a secret “goner maker” feature lies with the fact all goners are grey and the infamous “COPIES ARE MONOCHROME” quote. Goners are grey, and happen to all be copies of existing NPCs (whether they’re copies of Deltarune NPCs or Undertale NPCs doesn’t matter as far as my theory goes, Forgaster could have used either of those) so that would mean the CORE acts as a copy machine. It just so happens that the area right after the CORE is New Home, which as you probably realized, is literally a grey copy of the ruins aka Home. The CORE having this copy feature would explain why that is. Since monsters no longer feared humans, they all moved out of Home, and Forgaster, as the Royal scientist, was probably tasked with helping with the construction of the new capital, and thus, used the core’s secret feature to make a copy of Home. You could even speculate that the creation of New Home was nothing but a test run for the CORE, and after it had successfully created New Home, Forgaster used it for his real objective, creating lures for the anomaly. And once that was done, he simply disappeared, not having any business left in Undertale. How Forgaster returned to Deltarune isn’t clear, but seeing how the Forgotten man can just vanish in an instant and isn’t bound by the limits between the Light and Dark worlds, I believe this is how Forgaster was able to make it back to Deltarune. This might be what being shattered across time and space means: he can travel from the beginning of one universe's timeline to the end of another universe's timeline.
As such, most remaining FUN events would then be just that, lures. The sound test room, Something Forgaster hastily stitched together with the sole purpose of making sure the anomaly hears his theme: after all, the sound test room only has 4 songs, and 3 of them are uninteresting loops, almost as if they were just filler meant to justify this room being called a sound test room, while Gaster’s theme (aka him.ogg) is the only one that somewhat sounds like actual music. Moreover, not only does the game not allow you to play any of the other songs once you’ve started “Gaster’s theme”, listening to it is also the only way out of the room, as if it won’t let you leave until you’ve heard that theme. The message you get afterwards is also pretty suspicious “Thanks for your feedback! Be seeing you soon!” as the phrasing is similar to what Gaster said before chapter 1 was dropped.
The wrong number song has been speculated to be many things, from Spamton trying to reach Gaster on the phone, to Kris making a phone prank, regardless, its function is the same as the other events I’ve talked about: teasing Deltarune.
This finally brings me to the Clam goner. We learn from her dialogue that she lives in New Home and that her neighbor has a daughter named Suzy. She states that she might be the reason we came to the underground, and that we should become friends with her, that fate will find a way. The clam goner event where she states that the time we will meet Suzy is “fast approaching” was part in the switch version a few weeks before Deltarune’s reveal implying that Susie is somehow related to Suzy. It's possible Suzy is the Undertale counterpart of Susie, but in any case, what really matters is that this girl is implied to be the reason we came to Undertale, and is associated with fate. This is important, because Susie is one of the characters Gaster lists as “VERY VERY WONDERFUL” and has been established as a character willing to defy fate, also having the unique ability to override the player’s choices. As such, what if this FUN event is Forgaster trying to push us to befriend Susie when we go to Deltarune in order to make sure we’ll be able to change the inevitable fate of the Deltarune world? After all, two entities, each having the power to change fate, working together would be very useful to someone trying to create a new future, wouldn’t it?
4. ANOTHER DELTARUNE
We have finally reached the last section of this massive theory. With everything set up to draw the anomaly’s attention, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, no longer being “Gaster” but the Forgotten man. Because he’s been shattered, it appears that he can navigate through time in any and all directions.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, people have pointed out that Forgaster’s dialogues imply he’s experiencing time in reverse. In case you’re not convinced by the idea, let’s look at the main pieces of evidence. First off, Forgaster’s schedule. If you pay attention, he’s actually giving you a recipe for making donuts in reverse “I GO TO SELL THE DONUTS, I TOSS THE LEFTOVERS IN THE DUMPSTER, I LET IT COOL ON THE WINDOWSILL, I HARVEST THE WHEAT”
If we read this dialogue in reverse, it suddenly makes more sense: he starts by harvesting the wheat, lets the donuts cool, throws the dough scraps into the trash, and finally goes to the bakery sale.
Towards the end of his speech in chapter 3, he also says “COUNT BACKWARDS TO 100”
This is an odd choice of words, since we would normally say "from 100." If Forgaster experiences time backwards, though, the phrasing could be intentional: he sees 100 as the point he’s moving toward rather than the point he’s are moving away from, meaning that the sequence we see as normal (1 to 100) is perceived by him as moving in reverse.
And lastly, in his valentine letter, Forgaster begins with “HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR WAS IT THE OLD YEAR?” If he were experiencing time normally, he wouldn’t be confused about this. The only situation in which it would make sense for him to doubt the order of the new year and the old year is if he were experiencing time in reverse.
So Forgaster can experience time both in reverse, as I’ve just demonstrated, but he can also follow the normal flow of time: in his schedule, the days are in order, and the events of the failed timeline he describes through the passing of seasons is also normal. The fact his Lightworld appearances and the number of coins he puts in chapter 4’s water fountain both depend on whether or not you got the eggs in the previous chapters which means he’s at least aware of how things happened in what would be his “future” from his perspective. Alternatively, this could be explained by the fact that he can not only experience time in reverse, but also appear at any point in time. This idea would explain why, besides his dialogues showing that he is in reverse, he also says things that are completely mixed up. Look at the story he tells us “WELL, THE WORLD CHANGED. SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED. THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER? DINAUSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE”.
The correct order would be THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER, DINOSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE, SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED, meaning Forgaster’s story doesn’t follow any order at all, which he points out himself “IS IT MIXED UP?”
All in all, Forgaster’s time shenanigans are perfectly summed up by his sentence in the valentine letter: “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT. NOT NECESSARLY IN THAT ORDER. OR, IN ANY ORDER AT ALL.”
He can go anywhere, anytime. This is definitive proof that the Forgotten man IS the Gaster that was shattered across time and space, while the one in the goner maker is normal.
So, what is he trying to do? Considering both Forgaster and Gaster are “waiting” for Deltarune, I believe they share the same goal: to create a NEW FUTURE with us, the anomaly.
Because there is no anomaly in the Deltarune universe, all timelines converge to the same point. This means that even if the timeline we see in the game isn’t the one Forgaster experienced, things aren’t going to be any different. In this new timeline, Gaster has made the same researches on Darkness, the shelter Incident happened all the same, the knight was still created. As such, the fate of this world has already been decided. This is where Forgaster truly factors in. Because he’s experienced it all before, he knows who to contact if he wants to change things: the Gaster from this timeline. He would have the means to do so thanks to his shattered state. Forgaster most likely informed gaster of everything that happened in the failed timeline. This is the true origin of the prophecy, it wasn’t made by Gaster, but by Forgaster which is why it was “foretold by time and space” why the Prophecy text is identical to how the Forgotten man speaks and why it is so specific, why everything it says will come to pass.
To Gaster, this is his chance to change one key parameter in his experiment. Thanks to Forgaster, Since he knows that the current model ends in failure, adding the Anomaly as a variable would be a very interesting experience. Thanks to the breadcrumbs Forgaster left in Undertale, Gaster was able to lure us into Deltarune, using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect us to this world. Forgaster is the reason Gaster knows we’ve been searching for him, and the knowledge that his experiments will go wrong is the reason he’s been looking for us. By connecting this anomaly to Deltarune, and by combining its power with Susie’s hope, Gaster has the chance to conduct the most ambitious experiment he’s ever imagined and turn his biggest failure into an absolute triumph over fate itself. In his own words “HOW LUCKY WE ARE TO NEED EACH OTHER IN THIS WAY”
This finally explains why Gaster’s theme in undertale was called “him” while the gaster theme in Deltarune is called “ANOTHER HIM”: “him” was a piece left by the Gaster who came from the failed timeline, it’s Forgaster’s theme, while ANOTHER HIM is the theme of the Gaster from the game’s timeline.
As such, I have a hard time believing Forgaster is going against Gaster, I believe he’s doing the same thing as Gaster, following the scientific method, changing specific parameters to modify the outcome of the experiment. This is why Forgaster is giving EGGs to Kris. They are the one Forgaster wants to help, and that’s why he’s asking help from us. We are the ones taking Kris to these egg rooms. He’s probably trying to help them remember the Incident and overcome their fear. Considering he’s experienced the failed timeline, it’s likely that he’s doing this because Kris never overcame their trauma in the original timeline, which might have been played a role in the heroes’ failure.
As for the shadow crystals, while their origin is hard to pinpoint, it’s clear now that the visions they show are what will happen in the future. This is why they don’t change the prophecy text; the two show the same thing.
Let’s look at all the shadow crystal visions to demonstrate this.
“You thought you saw toys strewn on the floor”: This predicted that the Card castle fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw through your hand”: This is predicting that Kris will lose their hand
“You thought you saw the computer lab”: This predicted that the computer room’s fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw Susie glaring at you, coldly...” This probably predicts what Susie’s reaction will be when she finds out that Kris has been working with the Knight and hiding many things from her. As she puts it “there’s nothing that pisses me off more than people who don’t tell you the whole deal”
“You thought you saw the television get smashed to pieces”: This is literally just an alternate version of “THE LORD OF SCREENS, CLEAVED RED BY BLADE”
“You thought you saw the lobby of the church”: This predicted that the fountains inside the church would be sealed
“You thought you saw Undyne frozen in ice”: this one is unused for now, so it should be taken with a grain of salt, still, it may predict the “police sacrifice” we heard about
Finally, we have “You thought you saw Noelle close against you, whispering” this one feel like it’s predicting something that hasn’t happened yet. As such we can only speculate for now. Some say it’s from the couch scene in the weird route, but Noelle isn’t whispering during that scene, if anything we are the ones directly whispering inside her mind. This might just imply that Kris and Noelle’s relationship will become a focal point later on. Considering their shared history with the shelter Incident, their relationship might be the single most important one moving forward.
This would also explain why the Darkners who used these crystals went crazy: the knowledge of a failed timeline, and of an entire universe marching toward an unavoidable eternal night that no one can escape, no matter what they do, seems like enough reason to go off the deep end.
CONCLUSION
We have finally reached the end of this theory. I can only apologize for how long this turned out to be, so let me recap sum up the take-home message of the entire thing.
Asriel, Kris, Noelle and Dess explored the forest seven years before the events of Deltarune, Dess and Kris entered the Shelter using Carol’s code
On the same night, Gaster created the first dark fountain in the shelter, creating a dark world, and turning the ice-e pizza box, he retrieved a few weeks before into a malevolent Darkner that would act as its servant, the tail of hell
Entry 17 is a cutscene/recording of gaster taking notes on the fountain, before being interrupted by Kris and Dess who are the two persons he’s talking to at the end of entry 17
Gaster tries to use them for his next experiments, and Kris ends up accidentally killing Dess in the confusion
Gaster tempers with Kris’ soul, and inject Dess’ with Darkness, before letting Kris escape, supposedly after the two made a Faustian deal
Toriel finds Kris holding a knife, potentially covered in blood, as Dess apparently disappeared. She decides to hide the truth from everyone and keep this a secret so that Kris will not get into serious trouble
Asgore becomes obsessed with finding Dess, eventually leading to arguments with Toriel who ends up divorcing him, while the Holiday and Dreemurr families, especially Toriel and Carol, grow distant
UNUSED are follow-up entries to entry 17, transcripts of Dess’ thoughts written down by Gaster as her mind slowly breaks because of the darkness.
Dess is reborn as a Dark Amalgamate, a powerful creatures subjugated by Gaster that helps him with his dark fountain experiments
These experiments eventually cause the Roaring, causing all of gaster’s work to go to waste
Having observed an alternate universe where an anomaly capable of changing fate resides, Gaster builds a space-time machine with sans’ help in order to travel to Undertale, capture the anomaly and use its powers to prevent the Roaring
During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, causing Gaster to shatter across space and time, while sans and papyrus get stranded in Undertale’s present with no way back, while gaster becomes Forgaster and lands in Undertale’s past
Forgaster becomes the royal scientist, uses his position and his Darkness technology to build the CORE, a power plant that doubles as a GONER MAKER. Using it, he’s able to create New Home, and set up all the FUN events that the anomaly will eventually come across when it arrives in the Underground
Having finished his work in the Undertale universe, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, in a new timeline where things are set to repeat identically to the failed timeline and contacts the gaster from this timeline
Forgaster recounts what happened in the failed timeline to Gaster, thus creating the Prophecy
In order to change fate, Gaster creates the SURVEY_PROGRAM and uses the anomaly’s curiosity to connect it to Deltarune, with the objective of creating a new future, his own story for this world: HIS Deltarune. To achieve this, he contacts specific Darkners with high-potential and gives them Shadow Crystals, in order to make them realize what is really going on, in hopes that this will help change fate. He allows the anomaly to keep trying to win against his knight, not because it has a chance of defeating it – the knight is Gaster’s perfected weapon, the anomaly cannot win, period – but because it and Susie can achieve something that might cause a butterfly effect that could change fate: retrieving the blackshard, a weapon that can take down darkness. Meanwhile Forgaster is helping Kris with overcoming their fear, in preparation for what is coming.
As a closing thought, I want to address a question you may be asking yourself after reading all this: if Gaster and Forgaster know that their experiments led to the world’s destruction, why do they continue creating yet another experiment, therefore putting another timeline at risk?
Because Gaster isn’t Sans. He isn’t about accepting what is given to him. He is driven to perform endless experiments in order to gain ever more knowledge, to reach Absolute Truth. And isn’t that, in his eyes, what True Freedom is? As such, he will never give up his experiments, no matter what.
And this is where we realize who Sans was really talking about during his Genocide fight:
“I know your type. You’re very determined, aren’t you? You’ll never give up, even if there’s absolutely NO benefit to persevering whatsoever. No matter what, you’ll just keep going. Not out of any desire for good or evil, but simply because you think you can. And because you can, you have to.”
In this moment, Sans saw Gaster in us: two beings filled with determination to satisfy their curiosity, regardless of morality, simply because they have the power to. If Undertale taught us that “to will is to be able,” then Gaster’s philosophy suggests that “to be able is to be obliged.”
SOURCES
UT/DR text dump: hushbugger dot github dot io
Most screenshots were captured in-game, or taken from the Undertale and Deltarune wiki :
Thank you so much for reading through the entire theory. It means a lot. Getting this out before Chapter 5's launch was a real pain. I'm looking forward to how Chapter 5 will impact this model. I'm expecting to learn more about Toriel, Asgore and Carol. The final egg room will most certainly be fascinating, and will probably make or break the second part of this theory if it reveals the Forgotten man. You may have noticed she was almost completely ignored, this is intended, as I feel we still lack information about her motives, so we can't do anything but speculate. The way I see it, it's ok to do this with ellusive characters like Gaster, part 2 is mostly just that to be honest. But when it comes to more mundane characters like Carol, I don't find it as appealing, it's basically the same as making predictions about the next chapters, while I wanted to provide a good basis regarding what happened before the story.
Once I’ve gone through Chapter 5 and had time to refine my ideas, I might come back with a V3 !
The Dark Amalgamate Theory : an attempt at creating a comprehensive model of Deltarune's past and its parallels with Undertale before Chapter 5
Hi, I’m SOUL Goodman. If you’re a UT/DR fan interested in the lore of Deltarune before Chapter 5, this post is for you. You might want to keep these ideas in mind before playing on June 24th.
This theory started as a small idea after Chapter 2, originally abandoned and never published. But with Chapters 3 and 4, it surprisingly became stronger and much larger than expected.
This is my first time writing and sharing a full theory, and it ended up becoming far bigger than I initially planned. With Chapter 5 fast approaching, this felt like my last chance to finally share it.
This, is the Dark Amalgamate theory !
(The theory covers more than this single concept, don't be fooled by the name, I chose it for the title because it sounds cool)
I first started developing this theory after Chapter 2, when it still felt like a simple hypothesis. But as I looked deeper into the game and community discoveries (including datamined elements), it started to feel like a real coherent model rather than just speculation.
I eventually stopped working on it, but Chapters 3 and 4 ended up reshaping and reinforcing many of its ideas. Now, with Chapter 5 approaching, I want to finally present it in full.
I might not consider every part perfect, but I believe the core ideas are meaningful and relevant.
The goal of this theory is not to predict future chapters or the ending of the game. Instead, it focuses on what happened before the events of Deltarune, and what set everything in motion.
If you enjoy Undertale / Deltarune lore, this will defintely be an interesting read while waiting for Chapter 5.
Before I start, here’s a few disclaimers:
I’ve rewritten this multiple times, but due to its length, some mistakes might remain.
You should be familiar with Undertale, the Gaster mystery, and all four released chapters of Deltarune. Some parts rely on community findings and datamined content (credit to HalfbreadChaos, linked in sources).
This theory is split into two main parts, the second being a bit more speculative and could almost stand alone, but is still deeply connected to the first.
Table of Contents
Part 1: The Shelter Incident
Quick character analysis
The Time and Place of The Incident
The First Darkner, the Devil's accomplice
The poor test subjects!
The sins of the Dreemurr family
Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
Part 2: A NEW FUTURE, born from an Eternal Night
The failed Deltarune
Space-time travelers
I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
ANOTHER DELTARUNE
Conclusion
Sources
With all that out of the way, let's begin!
PART 1: The Shelter Incident
My goal here is to explain what happened during the night where Kris, Asriel, Dess and Noelle explored the forest near hometown’s graveyard and explore the consequences for our main characters as well as what it implies for the events of the game we’ve seen so far.
My starting hypothesis is that there was an incident involving Dess, Kris and Gaster inside the shelter, leading to the creation of what I call a “Dark Amalgamate.” To support my hypothesis, I will be using information from the game itself but also some stuff that came from the sweepstakes or the newsletters (Although their canonicity is a bit dubious from what I understand, so I will try to rely on that as little as possible), linking various elements based around the same thematic as well as some texts hidden in the game’s code. For practical reasons, I’m not going to put a screenshot every time I quote an in-game dialogue, I will be highlighting those in red instead, so you can have the exact text and not me paraphrasing the game.
Quick character analysis
Before we delve into what happened in the forest, we need to take a quick look at how the four children are characterized. The idea isn’t to go on a long analysis for each of them, but simply to point out important elements of their personalities that we will have to take into account to figure out how and why they would even end up inside the shelter, when most people understandably assume whatever happened with Dess took place in the forest or near the shelter at best, not straight up inside it.
Asriel: This is the easiest one since there’s not much to talk about considering he has yet to appear in Deltarune. From what we’ve been told so far, his personality does seem relatively similar to his Undertale counterpart, a quiet and kind boy as well as a bit of a scaredy cat who’s a bit overzealous considering Father Alvin talks about how he would always confess his “sins”. We also know he was quite popular considering all the prizes in his room, how so many people in hometown always bring up Asriel and praise him when Kris talks to them. The important aspect of his character in Deltarune specifically is how close him and Dess were, which we’ll go over when we talk about Dess herself
Noelle: She’s pretty much the same as she is today in terms of personality, what is interesting about her is how easily scared she is and how she has a clear tendency to “freeze” when something scary or traumatic happens and how she seems to “forget” any memory of such events. We can actually see that on many occasions during chapter 2’s weird route: right after being forced to freeze an Addison to get the FreezeRing she goes “What… What just happened? Did I actually just… No, they… they must have given it to us. The ring”; when told to proceed during the second mice puzzle, as you push her closer and closer to the laser forcefield, she states “Th… there, looks like I… did it?” as if she had trouble remembering what had just happened. This is later reinforced when she asks herself “…what did I do when we got that ring? …when I solved that puzzle? … It… It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I can’t remember”. Similarly, right after using Snowgrave on Berdley, she once again asks “What… What happened? There was so much snow, I couldn’t see anything…” which really comes across as a form of denial considering Berdley’s frozen corpse is right in front of her at that moment. Basically, whenever she’s faced with something traumatic, her reaction is to freeze and forget it. This isn’t exclusive to the weird route either, we’ll go back to this later, but another smaller example that occurs in the normal route that I can give right now is in sans’ store in chapter two: one of the NPCs mentions that “Sometimes the hoofed girl comes here, opens the freezer door then stands in front of it, lost in thought”.
Kris: There’s obviously a lot to talk about when it comes to them, but what I want to focus on for this theory is the shift in their behavior. Not the shift caused by the presence of the SOUL/player control, but how they seemingly went from being a prankster as a child to a very weird, shut-in type of person. Whenever we have characters talking about younger Kris, it feels like they were a fairly normal mischievous kid. They were close to their brother, as well as the Holiday sisters, loved to mess with Noelle and overall, none of the weirder stuff we’ve seen from modern day teenage Kris is brought up. Like I said, that shift seems to have happened before the events of the game, considering it’s implied the Dreemurr and the Holyday have grown apart before the start of chapter 1, the last time Kris and Noelle spent time together was probably when Kris came to Noelle’s house to play the piano as mentioned in one of her blog posts. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but Kris had to have been old enough to have learned how to play piano (which they obviously couldn’t have done in a few weeks as a little kid). The important part here is that whenever the stuff Noelle talks about in that blog post took place, Kris had already started to act weird: they’d come over to Noelle’s house and after a while, she explains that “they would suddenly get very still, like they were remembering something” before going to play the piano. We learn about another event that took place before chapter 1 where Kris once again showed a strange behavior in Noelle’s blog post about Susie. This probably took place a few weeks/days before chapter 1, and is more in line with the Kris we see in-game. When Susie threatened them, they remained completely silent up until they eventually said something that seemingly made Susie back off. Noelle, who had seen all of this, hid in her locker. Yet, somehow, Kris was able to tell she was there, violently open the locker before slowly closing it without a word after seeing it was her. Unlike the previous Noelle blog post, this event hasn’t really been referenced in-game so far so I won’t talk about it too much but the main take-away here is that Kris used to be a normal kid, but started acting strange at some point before Chapter 1 which suggests this isn’t linked to the SOUL (or, more specifically, it’s not linked to what Kris does once we have control over the SOUL), which makes me wonder, what happened to Kris for them to have such a drastic change in their behavior?
Dess: Finally, we have the older Holiday sister. Like Asriel, she hasn’t appeared in-game so far, but we get a lot of info about her from other characters, or by investigating her room in chapter 4. I won’t go over every single detail about her, but the gist of it is that she seemed like an adventurous, rebellious tomboyish kind of girl who seemed to be really into exploring seeing how she was making a herbarium and owned a ton of exploration gear like binoculars, walkie-talkies, army rations, multitool knives. On top of that, it appeared she was also a musical prodigy considering we can find many different instruments in her room, from flutes and violins to that infamous red guitar. Lastly, we have to focus on her relationship with Asriel. Whether you believe these two were together or not, the fact of the matter is that they were very close, to the point where she had Asriel’s jacket in her room, as well as his retainer. Likewise, considering Dess kept a crude drawing of a dragon under her bed and that Asriel borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book, we can infer that he wanted to gift her something she’d enjoy. Her disappearance is probably the reason he never returned the book; he probably wanted to keep it as a token of rememberance or something like that. Which leads me to my main point regarding Asriel and Dess, as many have pointed out, the Ribbick battle dialogue seem to describe Asriel and Dess over the years “a poorly trimmed boy, a messy and unfocused girl”, “a rowdy and dirty girl, a quiet and smelly boy” and most importantly “a lost, and lost, and lost girl” which is an obvious reference to Dess’ disappearance, her being the “Lost girl” we’re meant to find, while “a crying and crying and crying boy” shows how hurt Asriel was by her going missing. Another detail that will be crucial later on is how she apparently had the habit of beating up Kris whenever they pranked Noelle, often using her wiffle bat to hit their head, which is alluded to when you check those items in her room with the flavor text reading “Rollerblades, wiffle bat. Looking at these things makes your head hurt”.
2. The Time and Place of the Incident
As you probably know, there is a forest south of Hometown, past the graveyard, where you can find what looks like some sort of shelter. Its doors are locked and can’t be entered by the player. If you get close to the doors you’ll hear a strange sound. If you speed up that sound by 666%, you’ll realize it’s actually smile.ogg (entry 17’s sound as well as the noise Kris’ phone will make if you try to use it in a dark world). Smile.ogg and the number 6 are directly tied to Gaster, which logically connects this place to him. Back in chapter 1, this place wasn’t mentioned by any character, but things got a bit more interesting with chapter two as a cutscene plays if you go there, as Monster kid and Snowy will be standing in front of it. Their dialogue implies there are ominous rumors about what is inside that place, with MK wondering “You think it’s true? You really think there’s…” before being cut off by snowy claiming only kids believe those rumors. Chapter 4’s church segment shows us that this isn’t the case at all, since when asked about “the shelter” even adults characters seem to fear that place to some extent, Ms.Boom tells Kris “Shelter? No, no, you know that’s not a wholesome place!” and Father Alvin seems particularly freaked out when Kris tells him they want to enter it, almost as if they had expressed the desire to do something very wrong “I do not know what you are experiencing recently, but… Kris please, look to the Angel for guidance […] Kris, stay away from the shelter” these dialogues from Alvin and Ms.Boom could imply Kris specifically has some history with that place. What is interesting is how MK proceeds to mention Kris before being once again cut off by Snowy asking if MK is going to be a weenie like Kris. After Susie scares these two off and asks Kris what is going on with this place, they remain completely silent. This cutscene strongly suggested Kris had been inside that shelter in the past and is scared of it, which was then further proven by chapter 3’s SWORD route where Kris will fight back against the player’s input and try to turn back when approaching the mini-game version of that same shelter. When asked about it, Alphys, while also being seemingly anxious about what could be inside, is a bit more informative stressing how it’s been closed ever since she moved to Hometown and how no one ever goes there aside from Undyne and the mayor, further suggesting that people in Hometown avoid the place in general. Most importantly, this place is alluded to during Noelle’s heart-to-heart with Kris in Cyber City. She doesn’t directly mention the shelter, but she explains that when they were kids, her, Kris, Asriel and Dess liked to explore areas around hometown (which was most definitely Dess’ idea considering what we’ve established about her character) and talks about one specific night where they “explored the forest behind the graveyard” which corresponds to the shelter’s rough location.
My hypothesis is that they found the shelter, Kris and Dess entered it and met Gaster and that something happened to Dess, turning her into that infamous “voice in the code”: the mysterious UNUSED dialogue people have found in the game’s data and that seems to get a new entry with each new chapter.
While as far as I can tell, this general idea has become fairly wide-spread with chapter 3 and 4, there was always a lack of evidence that whatever happened in the forest had something to do with the shelter itself and that the UNUSED voice (as well as the other strange messages in the game’s code, more on that later) had anything to do with Dess. In fact, some people actually seem to believe that Dess’ disappearance happened in the forest itself based on the fact that the forgotten man is found behind a tree and that the NPC in the roots prophecy room says “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail. The poor children”. However, I believe I’ve gathered enough evidence to prove that they did enter the shelter and that whatever happened to Dess occurred inside it and that this is the origin of the trauma Kris, Noelle and Asriel all seem to have to a different degree.
But first, let's go on a small tangent on WHEN this incident happened. We actually had a pretty big clue on that ever since chapter 2: while Noelle is talking about the night they explored the forest, you can actually see the outline of her sprite change to a smaller kid-like version as she walks past one of the panels. As you can see from the following screenshother sprite is identical to the one we see during Berdly’s flashback, which strongly suggests that it happened when Kris and Noelle were very young.
If they witnessed the Incident at such a young age, it perfectly explains why they’d be so traumatized, too. This idea is basically confirmed by Berdly’s spelling bee flashback when he explains that “When it came down to the two of us… she got nervous and couldn’t speak” and we see that the word that made her “nervous” was none other than DECEMBER, the name of her sister. Noelle having this reaction upon seeing that specific word only makes sense if it happened after her sister went missing. Furthermore, her reaction is similar to her behavior in sans’ store I mentioned earlier. It becomes obvious to me that when she opens the freezer, the cold reminds her of Dess which triggers some sort of traumatic response. So, we’ve established that Dess disappeared when Noelle and Kris were still young children, but thanks to Berdly we can figure out even more precisely when it happened. As I mentioned earlier, Asriel probably borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book from the library in order to make a nice gift for Dess. Considering Asriel was deeply hurt by her disappearance based on the “crying boy” Ribbick dialogue, and how the narrator says that “Your brother will never return this book…” upon inspecting it, it’s fair to assume Asriel kept it as a memento of Dess. Which brings me to Berdly’s dialogue in chapter 1, if you go talk to him at the library, he will reveal that the book is 2583 days overdue which is about 7 years. We can deduce that when chapter 1 takes place, this “shelter Incident” happened roughly seven years ago. We can go even further and calculate how old Kris and Noelle were when it happened: since we know Asriel is in college that means he’s around 18 years old during the events of the game, assuming he and Dess were of the same age, that would make them around 11 when the Incident happened and because they’re the older siblings, the younger pair of Kris and Noelle were obviously younger than 11. Since we know Noelle participated in a spelling bee around the same time, she must have been at an age when spelling was still a challenge that required practice (Berdly mentions he and Noelle had to study for that spelling bee), which would be around 7-9 years old. A 3–4-year-old gap between Kris/Noelle and Asriel/Dess sounds reasonable. Lastly, if we assume the game takes place in 202X based on the date written on the unused graphics for Ralsei’s manual, we can date the Incident to the early or mid 201X.
Basically, Asriel’s goon material and Berdly just allowed us to build a fairly precise timeline of events.
Now that this is out of the way, let’s delve into why I think there was an Incident inside the shelter specifically and not just in the forest. While Noelle never talks about the shelter in chapter 2, even mentioning that they “never found anything interesting” when exploring the forest, it’s important to remember that when she’s scared or dealing with something traumatic, Noelle has a tendency to forget stuff. Actually, right after saying this, she implies she doesn’t remember much from that night: “I mostly remember… crying, because I was scared”. Since Noelle can’t help us figure out more about what went down, let’s focus on Kris: as we saw earlier, they seem to be scared of the shelter specifically which wouldn’t make sense if nothing happened there. One may argue that the NPC from chapter 4 talks about the forest and says nothing about the shelter, but let’s look at the exact quote “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail”. The first thing to note is that the NPC uses the plural noun “children” implying that more than one child was present: it was not just Dess, but at least one other person. Second, he specifies that the children were “lost where the forest would grow”, not “lost in the forest” which seems like an important detail. Furthermore, the NPC says this right in front of this strange prophecy panel depicting a house between two trees with the word “ROOTS”.
Considering that trees grow from their roots, and given how much the panel emphasizes that word, I think the expression “where the forest would grow” might actually refer to an underground location, since roots are by definition underground. This would also explain why the two OSTs containing the term “roots” in their titles — “Digital Roots” and “Bit Roots” — only play while exploring underground areas. Also, if you didn’t know, the game files contain an unused song called “spamton_house,” which likely would have played outside Spamton’s shop and sounds nearly identical to “Digital Roots.” The reason Toby may have chosen not to use it could simply be because it would have conflicted with the idea of a musical theme specifically associated with underground locations. Which brings me back to the shelter: it is an underground location, and while there is a dark fountain inside it right now, when we enter the game version during the sword route, we end up in some sort of dark cave where the slowed entry 17 sound plays once again. If the NPC is talking about the shelter, it explains the image of the panel itself: the two trees represent the forest, and the house represents the shelter which would be Gaster’s underground “home”, located where the roots of the trees are, or should I say “located where the forest would grow”. The idea so far is that as part of their exploration, Dess, Kris, Noelle and Asriel went to the forest, entered the shelter and got lost inside before encountering Gaster. But how could they have entered the shelter if the place is closed? The segment in Noelle’s house gives us a pretty simple answer: Dess had managed to get the code from her mother and kept it inside her red guitar, unbeknownst to everyone else. It couldn’t have been Carol who kept it there because not only does it make no sense for her to keep something as important in her rebellious daughter’s belonging, she and Kris both did not expect it to be there : Kris clearly wants to prevent the SOUL from getting the code, if they knew the code was inside the guitar they would’ve removed the SOUL before it could inspect it and read most of the code, which strongly suggests they did not know about it and barely reacted on time. This would also explain why they even made a phone call right after that: they informed whoever they’re working with that the code is inside the guitar and that Susie is looking for it. It would explain why the voice insists on stopping Susie from getting the guitar.
3. The first Darkner, The Devil's accomplice
Now that we have established where and when the Incident happened, it’s time to try and figure out what happened inside the shelter. First off, even if it ultimately doesn’t matter much, I don’t think Asriel and Noelle entered the shelter. Based on how they’ve been portrayed so far, they seem like scaredy cats while Dess and Kris feel like more daredevil type of kids. Again, Noelle states that she was crying because she was scared and that Dess comforted her. It is true that Noelle is easily scared, but I don’t think it makes much sense for her to be scared of simply exploring the forest at night because exploring seems like something they would do every so often. The thought of entering a creepy structure like the shelter however, definitely sounds like something that would terrorize young Noelle. It’s more likely that Asriel stayed outside the shelter to watch over Noelle and that Kris and Dess were the only ones who actually entered the shelter, which would still make sense with the sentence “the children followed the pointed tail”. If only these two entered the shelter, it would also explain why Noelle and Asriel are physically ok during the events of the game, while Dess is missing and Kris is struggling with their soul which has seemingly been happening for a while, even before chapter 1. Regardless of whether or not Asriel and Noelle were there, we know thanks to the Harmonik NPC that they lost themselves inside the shelter and this is when they followed a “pointed tail”.
Many people seem to obsess over that tail and assume it’s the tail of this smiling figure with pink and yellow eye:
This sprite is called IMAGE_FRIEND and its first appearance was in Queen’s basement, while retrieving the EmptyDisk. Since then, it has appeared on many other instances, the most notable ones being during the SWORD route boss fight, during one of the dark sections of chapter 4’s dark world and in the battat mini game. Because the name of the sprite follows the same naming scheme as what is used in chapter one’s intro where Gaster helps you create a vessel, and that it appears in the battat minigame which is centered around cats and seems to be based on the CatPetterz game which Noelle used to play as a kid as revealed in one of her blog posts in the Spamton sweepstakes, it is a common belief that FRIEND is tied to Gaster and is a cat. This led people to assume the tail of hell is FRIEND’s cat tail and that it was therefore that entity that the children followed. While there is merit to the general idea, I feel like this interpretation is too literal which denotes from how the prophecy refers to other characters in a figurative manner: Kris is “The cage with human soul and parts”, Asgore is “The flower man” but that doesn’t mean Kris is literally a cage or that Asgore is made of flowers. As such, I believe we shouldn’t take these “pointed tail” and “tail of hell” expressions at face value. In my opinion, it’s more important to understand what the role of that “tail” is, and what it did specifically than to figure out its identity. As such, I’d like to focus on how the harmonic specifically says “the pointed tail”. Cats don’t have pointed tails so even if you are convinced that the tail really is FRIEND, even if FRIEND really is a cat, that phrasing in itself shows how these descriptions are figurative and symbolic first and foremost. With that in mind, that tail is seemingly mentioned in two other instances, first during the Harmonik battle “the tail, which must not be followed” which is a clear reference to the sentence we get in front of the ROOTS prophecy. Second, in this prophecy panel
“They’ll see the tail of hell take crawl”
So, we have a “tail” that must not be followed, implying it is malevolent and/or dangerous, it is “pointed”, seemingly comes from “hell”, and it apparently crawls. When taking all these elements into account, it hardly sounds like a cat tail anymore, it becomes pretty clear that Toby is trying to invoke satanic imagery: the expression “pointed tail” evokes the tail demons and the Devil are often depicted with, there is even an unused prophecy panel that shows exactly that
But since this panel went unused, it looks like Toby Fox changed his mind about how he wanted to relate that tail to the Devil (and thus Gaster) since the panel that is in the final game uses a different satanic symbol. The final panel talks about a “tail of hell” that will “take crawl”. The fact that the it crawls, coupled with the panel image actually makes it similar to another type of animal, a snake. The idea that dark creatures are thematically linked to, snake-like imagery is actually further reinforced during the Titan fight
Comparing the tail of hell to a snake is another way of connecting it to the Devil, as this is clearly a reference to Christianity: The Devil, taking the form of a snake, lured Adam and Eve to the apple tree and convinced them to eat the forbidden apple. Whether that tail is figuratively a devil’s tail or a snake, the fact of the matter is that it ties it to the Devil, and in both Undertale and Deltarune, the one character that has been repeatedly compared to the Devil is none other than Doctor W.D. Gaster. Which means that in a way, the tail is some sort of Gaster follower. To be clear, I’m NOT saying “the tail” is literally a snake or that it is one of those 3 grey NPCs from UT, when I say it’s a Gaster follower I mean that “the tail” serves Gaster, that it’s not an unrelated entity/character with completely different motives and affiliations, and that it led Kris and Dess to Gaster. This might be why the prophecy even calls it a tail in the first place: wherever the Devil goes, his tail follows. Keep that in mind, because the idea of a demonic entity vowing to serve some master might have been teased since Undertale, but I’m saving this for when we’ll go over who/what that tail really is. In any case, this tail being associated with snakes is probably why Kris is specifically linked to apples and why they can meet a man behind a tree: they were lured to the apple tree by the Devil’s tail.
Thus, we have two kids who entered a dark place and were supposedly led to Gaster. This is a big assumption and while I’ve established that they did enter the shelter, I’ve mostly used symbolism to defend the idea that they actually met Gaster, so let’s go over something more concrete that will back up this idea and give us an idea on what really happened to Dess: Entry number seventeen.
This entry has been a huge mystery for years now, but I believe we now have enough context to understand what it’s really about. Before looking into what’s written in the entry itself, I want to point out something that’s rarely mentionned: unlike all of Alphys’ entries which are just written entries, entry 17 is actually an audio entry as you can hear Gaster’s voice beep. This is huge, because it means that this is actually a recording made by Gaster. With that in mind let’s go over what he says. Entry 17 can be separated into three parts; the first part is Gaster taking notes of a phenomenon he’s observing:
“DARK, DARKER YET DARKER.
THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING.
SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER.
PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE”
Now that we have Ralsei’s explanations about dark worlds and dark fountains in chapter 3, it’s clear that whenever and wherever Gaster recorded this, he was doing exactly what ralsei talks about at the start of chapter 3 “And when the light runs out, you see nothing. Of course, your mind can’t make anything of nothing. But what if it became even darker? Darker than dark. What if we could take away the light that wasn’t there until we reached another side? You could start to see things again, and hear them, and feel them. That is the dark world”.
Gaster had created a dark fountain and was observing its effects. Entry seventeen is just a less intelligible way of explaining what happens when a dark world is made. And if Gaster made a fountain, it can only be the one inside the shelter, or the Grand Fountain since all the other fountains already have a confirmed creator. I’m of the mind that he created both of these fountains and because of timeline reasons which I will go over in a bit, the one being made in entry 17 is the shelter one, while the one inside the closet was made much more recently.
On to the second part of entry 17:
“THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS
VERY
VERY
INTERESTING”
Whatever this next experiment may be, it can’t be the creation of a dark fountain because it’s literally what the first part of entry 17 is about. The only additional clue we have is that this exact sentence appeared on the Deltarune website back in 2015 before eventually being changed to another message in wingdings, meaning whatever this next experiment is, it is tied to Deltarune and never had anything to do with Undertale. It’s pretty wild to think entry 17 was basically a Deltarune cutscene hidden in Undertale.
Now, let’s look at the last part:
“…
WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?”
Have you noticed how Gaster marks a clear pause in his speech with those ellipsis points, as if he was done talking? Not only does it further reinforce the idea that this is a recording, it also means he was going to end the recording with “VERY VERY INTERESTING”. It’s almost as if he noticed two individuals that overheard what he said, which prompted him to ask them about what they thought about all of this which comes off more as a snarky, slightly ominous remark than anything else. You probably see where I’m going with this: entry 17 is some sort of audio/cutscene (or maybe even a video recording obscured by the fountain's darkness) of Kris and Dess inside the shelter, finding Gaster in the middle of his experiment. You could object that the two people Gaster is talking to could be sans, papyrus, alphys… but keep in mind that this is a recording that takes place in the Deltarune universe, and if I’m right about it taking place during the shelter fountain’s creation and during the night of Dess’ disappearance, this is happening roughly seven years before the events of the game, whereas sans and his brother only moved to hometown shortly before chapter 1. Similarly, some of Alphys’ dialogues imply she hasn’t been living in hometown for that long, so none of these characters could have been present inside the shelter at this point in time.
Now that I’ve established that the shelter contains both a dark fountain and the tail of hell when Kris and Dess entered it, we can focus on its identity. As you might’ve guessed I don’t think that the tail is FRIEND and I don't even think FRIEND is an actual character.
If the tail serves Gaster and was located inside the shelter where we know a Dark world exists, then there is a high chance that it is a Darkner (which would also explain why it serves Gaster in the first place, as Ralsei explains in chapter 1, the purpose of a Darkner is to serve their Lightner). For now, we only had the chance to enter the 8-bit version of the shelter, so let’s look at what we have there: when 8-bit kris enters, they find themselves in a dark cave, and are eventually confronted by an entity that seemingly knows Kris. This entity is one of the most fascinating characters we’ve seen so far and I believe that it is what the prophecy refers to as “the tail of hell”. It has no canon name; its sprites simply refer to it as “shadow mantle” and its battle theme is called nightmare_boss_heavy.ogg in the game files. Despite the name of its sprites however, we know for sure that it is not literally the shadow mantle, considering this dialogue “that’s why you’re searching for them, aren’t you? The SHADOW CRYSTALs… and the SHADOW MANTLE that I’m holding!”, and the fact that you can make out a stand-up collar, which is probably part of the mantle, as well as its horns.
It is clearly some sort of obscured horned creature wearing the mantle. As such I will be calling that thing the shadow mantle holder (or just the holder for short) from now on. I believe that the holder is a darkner and the actual “tail of hell”. Speaking of, have you ever noticed the shape of the dungeon where we fight that thing?
It is literally the shape of a snake.
But if the holder is the tail, then where does FRIEND fit into all of this? Like I said earlier, I am convinced FRIEND is not an actual character and everything people pin on it is actually the holder’s doing. My reasoning for that is based on what we see during the fight: the holder literally creates not just one, but multiple FRIENDs during the battle, which to me is hard evidence that FRIEND isn’t its own character but merely an extension of the shadow mantle holder, acting as drones. The reason we’ve been seeing FRIENDS since chapter 2 is that the holder was keeping an eye on Kris this whole time and that “eye” takes the shape of the FRIENDs it’s been creating. You could think of FRIEND as the holder’s equivalent of Spamton’s pipis. Most likely, the holder is also the one who took the mantle from Seam : regardless of where the mantle came from (if you believe king’s cape is the shadow mantle, that cape flies off after the battle which means seam had the opportunity to collect it anyways), Seam is unable to find it in chapter 2 after you give them Spamton’s shadow crystal stating “did someone take it ?”, the holder would have a very good reason to steal the mantle, it knows Kris is looking for the crystals and seemingly wants to bring out Kris’ violent behavior. Since the mantle greatly increases their chance of getting it, it’s the perfect bait to lure them out which is exactly what happens in the sword route. However, you might see a problem with this. If the holder is a darkner that was created by the shelter’s fountain, how can it and its FRIENDS show up in other dark worlds, wouldn’t they have to be brought to these dark worlds ? And wouldn’t that mean the holder should have turned to stone in chapter 3? The answer I propose to these questions brings us closer to figuring out the holder’s real identity: It isn’t just any Darkner, it is the same type of Darkner as Ralsei. To back up this claim, let’s look at Ralsei’s unique properties.
Ralsei can somehow travel from his dark world to any dark world, and more importantly, seems to be compatible with any of them. His immunity to turning into stone isn’t outright explained so far, but I think we can make a good guess as to why that is based on what he says in chapter 2 “Each Dark fountain creates a different “world”, a “world” whose Darkners reflect the will of its fountain. But tough those Darkners can exist in their own worlds, they might not “belong” if they go to another one. [...] Castle Town’s Grand Fountain is made of pure darkness, as long as it stays flowing, any Darkner can live there.” If a world made of pure darkness allows any Darkner to live there (with the sole exception of Gerson Boom of course), and since we know that Grand Fountain is the one that gives form to Ralsei’s body, it stands to reason that a Darkner created by a Fountain of pure darkness would belong in any darkworld. He’s also one of the only characters that is aware of when you are on a weird route save and has different/additional dialogues showing that. Since the holder is the only other dark world entity we’ve seen so far that possesses all these traits, we can deduce that it also comes from a fountain of pure darkness. And if the holder was born from the shelter fountain, that means it has to be a pure dark fountain. All of this circles back to Gaster and why I said that I believe he created the shelter fountain and the grand fountain: All the fountains we’ve seen so far were “tainted” by their creator’s will and exposed non-native darkners to becoming statues. Who else would be able to create pure darkness fountains if not the one character that happens to be most associated with darkness, has an entire entry dedicated to it and who probably was the one who theorized and discovered the existence of dark fountains, thus being the one behind the only two fountains we don’t know the creator of?
But the similarities between Ralsei and the holder don’t even stop there
- While Ralsei initially wears the riverman hood to hide his identity, the holder wears the shadow mantle to do so.
-Both are horned creatures, both have fangs
-Both can use fire magic
-Both try to isolate themselves with Kris, Ralsei makes us close our eyes and think of Susie to talk to Kris without us hearing, while the holder stole the mantle from seam and elaborated the sword route in order to get to Kris
- Finally, both have ties to Gaster and consider that they have to fulfill their purposes: If you attempt to fight the knight without the mantle, Gaster specifically goes out of his way to inform you that “YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING IMPORTANT”, which shows that he wants you to do the sword route and interact with the Holder, who happens to give you a piece of armor that reduces damage from Dark and star attacks by precisely 66% (for the record, the SkyMantle, a similar armor that exists within the game but hasn’t been used yet, offers a 50% damage reduction against holy/electric attacks, which suggests that the specific 66% reduction was definitely intended). Additionally, the holder is the most likely candidate for being the “tail of hell” thus associating it with devil imagery, some of its dialogues put emphasis on fun (such as the hidden “having fun?” dialogue in the first sword route minigame, as well as how it asks “Is it fun, Kris? Playing around like this…”) and it also happens to always be smiling and laughing. These 3 elements have been well established as recurring motifs related to Gaster: The devil imagery, the FUN value and the entry 17 sound being named “smile.ogg” as well as the smile from the mystery man who, while not confirmed to be Gaster straight up, is still an entity that ties back to him. With that in mind, there is one more piece of evidence I’d like to mention and that ties back to what I was saying earlier about the idea of a demonic entity being someone’s servant: the S-room vending machine. This machine is often disregarded yet it has a pretty interesting detail, aside from the TV slop item, it also sells a SMILE (written in all caps). While getting it doesn’t do much aside from taking away one dollar despite the machine claiming it is free, it will become sold out once you defeat the 8-bit version of the holder, suggesting the real deal was hiding there and left, and most importantly the description you get before buying a SMILE reads “Always at your humble service.” which pretty much sold me on the idea that the holder is serving someone once I realized the SMILE was linked to the Holder, because the phrasing is eerily reminiscent of the “demon message” in Undertale’s strings : in case you didn’t know, when Undertale was released, Toby Fox had left a message for dataminers in the game’s strings, basically asking them to not post about whatever secret they may find by looking through the game’s files. This message was eventually changed in later versions of the game to this :
These dialogues read like someone receiving orders and vowing fidelity to someone. Additionally, in version 1.05A, there was additional text near a “demonx” that read “HE IS” which might be yet another ominous reference to Gaster that would further confirm that he’s the person being addressed by this “humble servant”.
These “demon messages” have been speculated to be from Chara, but now that we have a demonic, horned character who is tied to this strange vending machine that has very similar dialogues, I believe it makes much more sense for them to be pronounced by the Holder, a Darkner born from the shelter fountain, pledging allegiance to Gaster upon being created. While the idea of plot-relevant dialogue being first teased within the previous game’s code may sound silly at first, you have to consider that this isn’t the first time an in-game dialogue quotes something that was initially in undertale or deltarune’s code, for instance Spamton NEO’s description in the weird route “Time to wake up and taste the PAIN” is a quote from undertale’s unused/debug room 271 “La, La. Time to wake up and smell the pain”. With all of these elements, I think it is safe to say that the Holder is undeniably Gaster’s servant.
As for Ralsei, his ties to Gaster are much more indirect and speculative. I am not claiming that Ralsei knows who Gaster is or that he’s been working for him the whole time, I simply believe that because he is also a Darkner born from a pure darkness fountain and that the Lightner that made his fountain is Gaster, it would be a decent explanation as to why he felt like he had to always be smiling, or why he has innate knowledge about the rules of the world, the prophecy and the fact it was “foretold by time and space”. Basically, while the Holder seems to be directly taking orders from Gaster, I feel like Ralsei was born with his orders imprinted in his mind.
There are two more questions regarding these two that I’d like to tackle before moving on to the specifics of what Gaster did to Dess and Kris: if they were both born from one of Gaster’s fountain, why are they so radically different, why is Ralsei a goody-two-shoes whose almost too kind for his own sake while the Holder is such a violent and vicious being? And if they’re Darkners, what objects are they in the Lightworld? While it’s perfectly possible that the Holder and Ralsei are just pure darkness with no light world counterpart and that these questions isn’t vital for my theory, I do have an answer to propose. Thanks to Swatch, we know that when a Lightner pours strong emotions into an object, it becomes something powerful in the Darkworld, and we can also deduce that more generally, the Darkner an object becomes is shaped by how its owner felt about it as well as the stories they imagined for it (which explains why all the darkners we saw in chapter 1 to 3 match the identities Kris and Noelle made up for the objects they used when they were playing make believe). So, if the emotions associated with an object is part of what determines a Darkner’s personality, it means that whatever emotions/memories are tied to the object that turned into Ralsei have to be positive, while those tied to the object Gaster used to create the Holder are negative. Thanks to that, we can narrow down the possibilities.
For Ralsei, the best candidates I found are the green crayon that is missing in Kris’ house and of course, the red horned headband. The former doesn’t have much going for it aside from the fact it’s green and is supposedly important enough to the narrator’s eyes that it being missing is worth mentioning, while the latter fits all the criterions : We know from Toriel that Kris wore it for months when they were little, as such, it would be filled with positive feelings as it is both a token of a time Kris’ life was much happier, and also an object that allowed them to feel like they belonged in the Dreemurr family, which would explain why Ralsei looks like a Dreemurr, can use fire magic and why he’s so kind. We also know that it is missing since Toriel wonders “whatever happened to it?” and considering we cannot find it anywhere in the Lightworld for now, I believe that if Ralsei has a Lightworld counterpart, then this headband is the best candidate. I know that Kris’ knife is also a popular idea but as I will demonstrate when we talk about Toriel’s role in all this, I doubt Kris has positive feelings about it and they seem to carry it all the time, so how would Ralsei be able to be present in Kris’ pockets as a knife while also making changes to CastleTown between each chapter at the same time?
The holder is even more tricky, some people argue that since the door that leads into the Ice palace has red horns, it’s possible that the Holder is actually the headband. While it is a fair assumption, you would have to explain why Kris would pour negative emotions onto it. I personally have a second possibility with strong evidence to back it up: during the Spamton Sweepstakes we got secret pages that were each meant to tease something about future chapters. Now that chapter 3 and 4 have been released, we have an explanation for almost all of them. One of the only exceptions being the ice-e sighting page.
Based on Noelle's spelling and the fact that Dess was still present in Hometown, we can place the events being told here before the night of the Incident, maybe a few weeks or a few months earlier. Noelle talks about an Ice-e pizza box and says that she saw the Ice-e mascot printed on the box wink at her, which made her scared of the box, to the point where Dess tried to “kill” it, most likely as a way to reassure her sister. To do so, she apparently burned the box, specifically burning out the eyes of ice-e making it look evil. When Kris, Noelle, Dess and Asriel went to the graveyard to bury it, Kris scared Noelle using the box, prompting Dess to be violent with them, before throwing the box away. So, we have an ice-e pizza box that Noelle feared, believing it to be violent and evil, and these feelings were amplified with Kris scaring Noelle and Dess using violence on Kris. Besides all of these negative feelings being tied to that box, it was also never buried but thrown away instead. All of this happened in the graveyard, with the shelter being nearby, meaning there is a high chance that Gaster got his hands on that box, and given its history, it would be a great object to make a Darkner with. Considering the emotions associated with it were mostly fear and violence, and that its Lightner saw it as evil, it would explain nearly all the characteristics of the shadow mantle holder: it has horns to symbolize its wickedness and that it acts as Gaster’s servant, it can use fire because its Lightworld form was literally burned, the reason the Shadow mantle holder boss battle theme is called “BURNING EYES” could very well be because ice-e’s eyes were burned. But the connection between the Holder and ice-e don’t stop there : as people have pointed out, one of the sound effects that plays right before the battle is called ERAM which is MARE in reverse and thus a synonym for nightmare, and as I mentioned earlier, the BURNING EYES theme is called “nightmare_boss_heavy” in the files ; it being compared to a nightmare makes perfect sense if the object it was made from was feared but it also ties back to “Nightmare mode”. In case you don't know what nightmare, mode is, it’s a fun event that adds another character on the ice-e word jumble sans gives you in undertale
As you can see, this FUN event adds a snowman character called nightmare. This FUN event never really made much sense within the context of undertale, but now that we have Deltarune and this ice-e blog post, it seems like it was actually teasing the story of this pizza box. Moreover, if you pay attention to the words you’re meant to find in this word jumble, there are 3 sets of words: the words are arranged in three columns. In the first column, the four seasons represent the climate of the four regions featured in Undertale in the order they are visited. In the second column, the four words each describe one of the main bosses. The order is the same in both columns, so each season matches the boss from the same region. Meanwhile, the third one doesn’t make any sense at first glance, until you take Deltarune in consideration : in chapter two, one of the puzzles required to get one of the hacker’s blue checkmarks tasks you with spelling “giasfclfebrehber” Ralsei and Susie have some dialogue about that word revealing it’s just ICE-E’s catchphrase “Perhaps this isn’t a real word, Kris…” ; “Yes it is, it’s ICE-E’s catchphrase.” as for cig and cigars, Noelle mentions that when Dess burned the box, it smelled like “charcle pizza” (charcoal pizza) which can be compared to the smell of cigarettes or cigarette ash, while hot simply refers to the fact that the box was burned. With all of these elements, I believe we can make a fairly strong case in favor of the pizza box being the object that made the Holder. It also fits nicely into our timeline : at this point Kris and Noelle are small children, Dess isn’t missing, Gaster is doing research on darkness inside the shelter but hasn’t opened a fountain yet, he gets his hands on an object filled with strong, negative emotions which is perfect for the creation of the first ever Darkner; the night Kris and Dess enter the shelter, Gaster has finally managed to create the first fountain and the box turns into the first Darkner, a malevolent, demonic entity that vows to obey its creator. Meanwhile, Kris and Dess, get lost in the shelter’s newly created dark world, the Darkner lures them to Gaster who is already thinking about his next experiment.
4. The poor test subjects!
At this point, we know that during one night, seven years before the events of Deltarune, the first dark fountain was created inside the shelter by Gaster, the darkness spawned a malicious darkner that swore to serve him. On the same night, Kris and Dess entered the shelter and got lost inside. The darkner that had been created led them to Gaster, as he was recording his observations on the effects of the darkness and expressing his excitement regarding the next experiment. The way Gaster, a scientist, asks mere children with zero scientific background what they think of his next experiment imply they are going to be a part of it, almost as guinea pigs. So, what do I think this experiment was? I believe that just like Alphys; while doing research on a substance she called “Determination” ended up injecting it into people, Gaster used Darkness on Dess. Look at it from Gaster’s perspective: you have been studying darkness for a while, created a fountain and realized that it created a dark world, turning inanimate objects into darkners. Disregarding any form of morality, if using darkness on an object gives it life, what would happen if it was used on a living being? Moreover, considering that Toby Fox refers to Deltarune as “Undertale’s parallel story” it would make perfect sense to look for something similar to the true lab experiments: Gaster “injecting” Dess with Darkness, would be a direct parallel to Alphys’ experiments with determination only in reverse: Alphys initially injected monster people with determination, and then tried it on flowers, while Gaster initially used darkness on objects before using it on a child.
And if we follow that logic, since Alphys ended up creating Amalgamates, Gaster eventually created the Knight which I believe is a Dark Amalgamate. To prove my point, let’s first address the issue you may have with the idea of using Darkness on Dess: when is it established that what the game calls “darkness” can take the form of a physical substance? And the answer to that lies with the fact that Darkness is constantly being compared with water. I’m not going to go over every single instance to prove it, as there are A LOT of examples, I’ll simply give a few exemples : the background image used for the goner maker sequence and the dark fountains is a stock image of the ocean, and is called IMAGE_DEPTHS in the files, the dark fountains are literally fountains, the game even calls them geysers at some point, the shadow crystals’ darkworld description reads “a sharp shadow moves like water in the hand”. If shadows are like water, then they can take a liquid form which could be injected. But then, why am I saying this resulted in the creation of something similar to an amalgamate? First off, let’s focus on what the knight looks like: it has antlers that look similar to the holiday antlers, but most importantly it can shapeshift into a quadruped cervine form :
But while it has features associated with the holiday family, it also possesses some traits that are very similar to the mystery man such as these “holes” in its hands as well as an eerie smile, just like the Shadow mantle holder, and is directly tied to darkness itself. All of these things are thematically associated with Gaster. On top of that, the knight’ design is a nearly identical to the Titans that can be seen during the roaring cutscene in chapter 2. The Knight’s design is thus an amalgam of Titan-like features, Gaster imagery, and cervine elements unique to the Holiday family, similar to how the amalgamates in Undertale were amalgams of key features of different types of monsters.
The process that created the amalgamates and the effects of darkness on its surroundings are also nearly the same : Amalgamates came to be because the determination Alphys injected into her patients made them melt, in other words the outlines of their bodies blurred, and it formed these abominations, while in chapter 3 Ralsei explains that “when it gets dark, things become more indistinct” : Amalgamates are indistinct just like what happens when it gets dark, and I believe this is the point the game tries to make when it shows how the FRIEND we see in that cutscene is similar to endogeny
If you focus on the white part of endogeny, you see a dog-like creature, but if you focus on the black parts between its legs, you can see cat outlines. Meanwhile, FRIEND has the shape of a cat, but the outlines between its legs look more like dogs, which hammers how both creatures are indistinct. Shapeshifting is also a property that is shared between amalgamates and entities created with pure darkness: the knight can change into a ball and their quadruped cervine form while the holder takes on a bat-like form when it spews bombs, amalgamates can change into the battle warning indicator, pellets and even save points.
The main take away is that using pure darkness on something, or someone, will form a creature that is very similar to an amalgamate, the knight being what you get when you do that with a monster, and that this is what Gaster did to Dess. You may believe that the Knight is someone else, like Carol for example, but the rest of the theory will provide more concrete evidence to back up the idea that the Knight is its own entity, one that Dess was “reborn” as.
5. The sins of the Dreemurr family
Before we continue on Dess, we need to talk about what Gaster did to Kris. I actually don’t have strong evidence regarding this, as such I don’t want to waste much time speculating: Since Kris is the only human in hometown, meaning this is the only human soul Gaster would have easy access to, I believe he did something to their soul directly and that it was after this incident that Kris started doing things like ripping it off and putting it inside the bird cage. This would explain why the cage is already quite damaged in chapter 1 and why there is no particular sign of Kris doing anything like that in their early life (the heart-shaped pillow prank they did on Noelle was clearly just that, I see it more as ironic foreshadowing)
While I don’t have any solid lead on what Gaster did to Kris, there are interesting hints on what Kris did inside the shelter which actually gives us a general idea of where Toriel and Asgore fit into all of this. Then, I will demonstrate how their actions that night, coupled with what they saw Gaster do to Dess is the root of their trauma, which I will then use to further prove that Kris has been inside the shelter and that Dess has been used to create the knight (in case the entry 17 part wasn’t enough evidence for you).
The staring point actually lies within the last board of the sword route: As you explore this manhole dungeon thing, you eventually end up in this room, where a black monster is present and as you may already know, dataminers have found something interesting about this ennemy. I’m know almost nothing about coding, so I’ll just keep it simple. Basically, when the game loads in the sprite for that enemy, it doesn’t use the sprite you see when you enter the room, that sprite actually “replaces” this one :
This black deer is clearly meant to represent a member of the holiday family, and it can’t be Noelle since she’s already represented by the white cloak character. Which means this black deer can only be Carol, Rudy or Dess. This enemy also happens to be the only ennemy 8-bit Kris will kill themselves. On one hand, we have a deer associated with the color black, that Kris kills on their own and on the other hand, we have a deer family composed of four members, 3 of them are still present during the events of the game and none of them are associated with black, while the fourth one is missing and has never been seen in-game meaning we can’t rule out the possibility that it is associated with this color in some way, and we also have a black creature that happens to look like a deer. By process of elimination, I think the most likely candidate for who that black deer is meant to represent is Dess. But if Kris killed Dess as the sword route suggest, how can she also be the knight? I propose two interpretations, with interpretation B being the one that I feel is the most likely.
Interpretation A: the sword route is symbolic, and thus 8-bit kris killing the black deer with its sword is simply meant to represent the fact that Kris was able to run away from the shelter and leaving Dess to her fate. Considering she seemingly went missing after the fact, they would thus feel like they “killed” her, when in reality she was used as a test subject for Gaster’s experiments Interpretation B: the sword route is literal, meaning 8-bit Kris killing a black deer with their sword is meant to reveal that Kris used their knife to kill Dess when they were inside the shelter. This brings context as to why the shadow mantle holder tells Kris “Without play, the knife grows dull” : since it was present when it happened, it’s tormenting Kris over that (and since we had to do something similar to the 8-bit versions of Susie and Ralsei, the Holder’s sentence could also imply that Kris will be forced to do the same thing to their two closest friends that they did to Dess). This idea is reinforced by one of the chapter 4 egg room NPCs stating “Are you here for Art Club? Right, this is where we draw pictures and don’t kill each other”. Since there are many details that imply the egg plotline in general seem to be directly correlated with Kris’ trauma regarding the shelter incident, such as how the ticket to nowhere you need to get the chapter’s egg can be obtained from the gumball machine after you access the strange 1225 room that is obviously related to Dess, the fact we know from the PlayStation achievements that the eggs represent Kris’ “issues” and the chapter 4 egg room most likely being a reminiscence of Kris going to therapy in Hometown’s hospital to deal with the traumatic experience of that night in the forest, with Noelle and Asriel most definitely being the ones occupying the two other inaccessible hospital rooms. Them trying to draw what they saw that night but being so terrified that their drawing is just a monochrome smear, upon which they draw a tree is also another proof that the Man is the one who traumatized them, which only reinforced the popular idea that him and Gaster are one and the same. It would also explain why the motif of hands keeps showing up: when Kris washes their hands, the narration reads “You ran the water over your hands and dried them. Between your fingers, a faint grey crease glittered stubbornly. You can never wash it all away”. If interpretation B is correct, then that text is telling us that Kris killed someone with their own hands, and that they will never be able to wash off that sin. This is why they’re obsessed with bathrooms, and why they’ve been locking themselves inside them to repeatedly wash their hands. They feel immense guilt over what they did, it seems like they’d do anything to get rid of that “crease”… and if washing it doesn’t work then it explains why the game seems to be foreshadowing Kris losing one of their hands, mostly through chapter 1 shadow crystal’s vision that reads “For some strange reason, for just a brief moment, you thought you saw through your hand” as well as the narration you get in the 1225 room stating “It was a small, dark triangle. You tried to take it… but it slipped through your hand. And you couldn’t find it anymore. You couldn’t find you hand”
If the game is implying self-harm, then it’s also a possible explanation for that blood stain in Kris’ room. Maybe they thought that a cut on their hand could make the “crease” disappear. Of course, all of that symbolism would technically still work under interpretation A, it’s just not as strong as it is if Kris literally killed someone.
This is all well and good, but if interpretation B is correct, then Dess can’t be the Knight. At best, she would be another Darkner, similar to Gerson, one created from an object with monster dust sprinkled on it, meaning that the knight is someone else as it is able to open fountains and thus can only be a Lightner, right? But what if Dess and the holiday family are Boss Monsters? To my knowledge nothing in the game confirms or denies the idea thus far, and if Dess is a Boss Monster, then everything falls into place. Kris killed her, but her soul persisted, which is what Gaster used the Darkness on. Not only is this a nice parallel to what Alphys was initially trying to do with determination in the first place, allowing monster souls to persist after death as she explains in entry 3 and 6 : “And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans... The SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...”; “ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had fallen down. Their bodies came in today. They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject "determination" into them? If their SOULS persist after they perish, then... Freedom might be closer than we all thought”, this would give credit to what I suggested earlier, that what Gaster did to Kris had something to do with their SOUL specifically, meaning he tempered with the souls of both children. If I’m right about this, then it would be logical that next experiment he talks about would be about using darkness on souls, which is something Darkners don’t have. This might also be why the bird NPC one of the Gaster followers is based on and who’s behavior has become more and more bizarre as the game progressed seem so obsessed with the books, specifically those on the library’s second floor (and is also, ironically, the one preventing us from reading): Aside from “how to care for humans” all the books upstairs so far are about SOULS. Could it be that Gaster is somehow using that NPC to bring our attention to these books? Or to prevent us from realizing something about his true motives considering that NPC is also the one that has been limiting our access to these very same books?
There is one more crucial detail about the black deer in the sword route: the variable that causes this sprite to be replaced with the more standard monster sprite is actually called “Toriel”
So, in a way, “Toriel” is covering up the truth of “Kris” using its “sword” to kill a “black deer” by replacing it with something benign. If you replace all the elements by what they represent in reality: Toriel is covering up Kris killing Dess with their knife. And this realization is what allowed me to finally understand what the hell was going on in chapter two’s intro which everyone seems to gloss over. Chapter two opens with a scene where we only get to hear Toriel say the following “Kris ? Kris, honey… Are you awake ? …w… wait ! Is that a… a knife ?!! NOOOOO---”
I believe this scene is a flashback that takes place during the same night where the kids explored the forest, specifically, I think this is Kris coming back home after escaping from the shelter. Not only is the scene very similar to the one from Undertale, where after falling down in Waterfall, Frisk we get a flashback of Asriel meeting Chara, Toriel’s words imply it’s the first time she sees Kris with a knife, while she seems pretty casual about it in chapter 2. Her dialogue also confirms this took place during the night so as far as the chronology of events goes, it would fit nicely with my idea. With the added context of this “Toriel” variable, I think we can make a good case for the idea that she caught Kris holding their knife, maybe covered in blood, as they returned from the shelter, and chose to hide the truth to protect her child from the consequences. A questionable thing to do, but it definitely fits with her character. This event is probably what kickstarted her falling out with Asgore : as the chief’s police, he was most likely tasked with finding out what happened to Dess, and because she’s the daughter of his best friend, it’s no surprise he would obsess over solving the case even to this day. But Toriel knows that Asgore figuring out the truth would mean that both Kris and her would face severe consequences, and that Asgore is a man of Honor, driven by his unyielding sense of duty and that as much as it will pain him, he won’t do what Toriel did. I’m particularly confident with this idea since it is yet another parallel to their falling out in Undertale, that also involved the murder of children and a strong disagreement over a major moral dilemma. Furthermore, if Carol is supporting Asgore’s investigation, it also explains why she seems to have grown distant from Carol aswell, to the point where she won’t even say her name when talking with Rudy in chapter 4.
6. Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
What the theory states so far is that Kris has a severe trauma that relates to the night where they went inside the shelter with Dess, ended up in a dark world that had just been made by Gaster, where a vile Darkner, acting as Gaster’s servant, lured them to him. Gaster did something to Kris, supposedly to their SOUL, and they ended up killing Dess. As a Boss Monster, her soul persisted just long enough for him to use Darkness on it, as Kris was able to escape (or maybe they were allowed to, in exchange of something. Gaster IS the Devil after all; would he pass up the opportunity to force Kris to make a promise?). This was probably the moment they lost their horned headband, which would be another object gaster would be interested with for his experiments. When they returned home, Toriel realized they had seemingly killed someone and that Dess was missing, she decided to cover up the truth. Asriel, Noelle and Kris were all left deeply affected by this experience, and would attend Hometown’s hospital for therapy.
The results for Kris are… less than optimal, and their fear is what I’m going to use to provide more evidence for the fact they’ve been inside the shelter as well as figuring out what Gaster’s experiments led to, how he wasn’t just studying Darkness but also the space-time continuum itself and how that infamous “voice in the code” is undeniably Dess. I’m aware Dess being the one talking in the UNUSED text is a very common idea, but I feel like there is a lack of arguments being provided for this, we’ve all just kind of agreed to assume it to be the case. I will do my best to achieve this!
In case you didn’t know, there are a lot of ominous messages hidden in the game’s data, similar to the demon text from undertale. If you want more details about the stuff I’m going to be mentioning from now on, I have linked some of HalfbreadChaos’ videos on the matter at the end.
Let’s start with the “voice in the code”, this refers to a bunch of scripts found in the game’s files, there is one UNUSED script for each chapter and they seem to tell the story of an unknown character that seems to be stuck in a dark space:
As many people have pointed out, this UNUSED text seems to be quoted by Spamton in one of his shop dialogues “…can anyone hear me? Help…” which is another instance of in-game dialogue referencing something from the game’s code. What is often disregarded however, is the context in which Spamton suddenly starts quoting this text, which will actually be pivotal to understanding why he says that, who’s this voice in the code and how it even helps making sense of the other messages in the code besides UNUSED. You actually get this Spamton dialogue by choosing the “FEAR” dialogue option, and his full dialogue reads “WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF??? ACCORDING TO [[Encyclopedia of]] [[Being Afraid]] THERE'S NOTHING TO FEAR EXCEPT ... can anyone hear me? Help... HUH??? WHAT?? NO, I DIDN'T HEAR ANYTHING JUST NOW!!! ... BUT IT SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE TALKING TO YOU.” This added context sheds a new light on this strange piece of dialogue, Spamton is telling Kris what they are afraid of, which prompts him to quote the UNUSED text, before specifying that the voice was talking to Kris. This strongly suggests that the story being told in the UNUSED text and the character speaking are directly tied to Kris’ fear, meaning this somehow relates to their Shelter trauma, which fits nicely with what we’ve established so far. Let’s focus on the UNUSED text itself now and let’s look for details that could hint at who this person is and what happened to them. The first part is very similar to what Asriel, posing as Toriel, describes of his experience before being reborn as Flowey “Where am I…? It’s so cold here… And so dark… Someone help me… Anyone… please… Help me…” while the fourth part tells us that they don’t eat or drink. This strongly implies that whatever is going on, they aren’t just a normal person trapped somewhere, it seems they are in a strange in-between state between life and death. In the fourth part, they also mention late night-TV and breakfast. While this detail is sometimes used to rule out Dess since it sounds more like a typical morning for a Dreemurr, considering how close the two families were, it’s just as likely that she’s talking about sleepovers at their house. Another detail that sets their case apart from Flowey, is the scratching noise they hear, meaning that they are still conscious and to some extent, aware of their surroundings. So, we are dealing with someone experiencing something similar to what Flowey went through before being reborn, who’s also aware of the sounds around them. Earlier, I suggested that Dess could’ve been reduced to a soul, and injected with Darkness to allow it to persist. This UNSUED text would be a good description of how this process would look like to Dess, after all we know from Undertale that even when their bodies have been destroyed, the SOULs are still aware and retain their memories, this is why they answer our call for help against omega Flowey and eventually rebel against him when he starts torturing Frisk, why we are able to save the Monster souls by making them remember everything during the true pacifist final boss battle.
But what are the scratching sounds? And if Dess is the voice in the code, how can she also be the Knight? Considering Dess is being used by Gaster as a test subject, I think it’s highly likely that the scratching noise is Gaster taking notes, silently observing the effects of Darkness on Dess. I believe that’s what this UNUSED text is, Gaster’s notes. This would explain why unused is written in all caps, but also why Dess is both the knight and the UNUSED voice. The stuff described in UNSUED isn’t happening in parallel of the game’s event, these are written records of Gaster’s next experiment. You could almost say they are the follow-up entries to entry 17. This would also explain why the person behind the scratching isn’t answering Dess’s call for help: to Gaster, this would be an experiment, a way to find out what effects Darkness can have on the soul. Eventually, the voice’s mental state starts to deteriorate because of the dark, they lose track of time, implying it could very well have been years since they’ve been in there (which once again fits nicely with our timeline, Dess has been missing for seven years, and her transformation into the Knight wasn’t instantaneous which would explain why it only started acting shortly before the game started) and start to be irrationally grateful to the one behind the scratching “This sounds crazy, but even though no one can hear me, when I hear that noise, I feel like someone's listening. Anyone, if you're there... thank you”.
Someone’s mind slowly being broken by an unseen entity that is listening to them, and who says “thank you” to that entity… This is clearly meant to draw a parallel between what Gaster supposedly did to Dess and what we do to Noelle in the weird route: we both are unseen entities that are always listening “It’s rude to talk about someone who’s listening”; “Who…? Who’s going to hear?” We slowly break their mind until eventually, we turn them into obedient weapons. This is evidenced by how Noelle says the same thing as the UNUSED voice when we choose to think of her in chapter four: “Thank you.” This would make a nice parallel between Gaster/Dess and Us/Noelle and it also explains why Gaster’s dialogue at the end of chapter 4 doesn’t change in the weird route. He’s done the same thing we did; these are acceptable methods to him. The idea that being lost in darkness will eventually break your mind is visually alluded to in the Roaring cutscene and carries on to the Knight. Look at the human’s stance and notice how the knight’s position before they roar is nearly identical with the way they are both clutching their head with their hands, as if their minds were suffering:
Thus, I believe the Knight is a “Dark amalgamate”, a creature born from Dess (more specifically her soul) merging with Darkness. A couple questions remain regarding the Knight: Is it acting on instinct or is it intelligent, and what are its motives? I believe it’s pretty obvious that the Knight has some form of intelligence, they laugh at Susie’s words in chapter 4 and they nod when Kris coughs, meaning they understand words and cues. It also has the intelligence to hide or stay out of view whenever necessary, if we assume that it was hiding in the church’s closet and that it is the hand that pushes back Kris in the last prophecy room (which would be another clue in favor of Dess Knight, since a guitar sound is meant to be playing during this interaction). Furthermore, unlike Gaster’s, the fountains it creates aren’t pure darkness, and its dark worlds are filled with elements from Dess’ past or Kris and Noelle’s childhood: seam who’s apparently based on some sort of cat character Kris and Asriel made on their laptop, the baseball moon, the smiling plugs, the puppet scarf that feels like guitar strings, or the ribbons that look familiar according to Noelle. There’s also the fact that the knight’s fountain was able to make specific enough darkness to bring back Gerson as a Darkner, which would be possible for Dess as she probably had him as a teacher when she was younger. As for her motives and why she hasn’t caused the Roaring, thanks to the parallel with the weird route it becomes clear that the Knight has no motives aside from serving Gaster, as such, it’s most likely assisting him with his Dark Fountain experiments. After all, unlike the tail of hell, the knight is technically still a Lightner, it can thus make its own fountains. This would provide a fairly solid explanation as to why it tried to abduct Toriel, why it took Undyne to the shelter, and why it opened a fountain inside the church. All of these things would help satiate the questions a man experimenting with Dark Fountains would ask himself: What happens if we use Darkness on an object covered with monster dust? What would happen if we used it on another type of Boss Monster? What would happen if the one monster that managed to achieve a formidable transformation using Determination was injected with Darkness instead?
Now that we’re done with UNUSED, let’s look at the other strange texts that can be found in Deltarune’s files, the error handler text. There are quite of lot of them, so i've divided them into diffent categories for clarity’s sake.
The “Repressed narration category”:
This category includes the following sentences
Based on my interpretation of the demon text and UNUSED, it looks like we have a pattern of text related to the Shelter Incident being hidden in the game’s code. This, coupled with the fact Kris’ trauma was caused by this Incident, leads me to believe that these messages are hidden in the game's code as a way to symbolize how Kris is repressing their memories of what they saw inside the shelter. As such, these bits of text would be narrative flavor text of what Kris saw/felt when they explored the place. This would imply that the blueprints for the broken machine from sans lab, are inside the shelter considering the error handler text is nearly identical to the narration we get when we check the blueprints in Undertale. This would further support the popular idea that these blueprints were made by Gaster. The other messages could almost be put in their own sub category because of they seem to describe a fight-or-flight response “It could not be” “Your eyesight became blurry” “Your heartbeat quickened” “Suddenly, you body seizes up. What are you looking at ?” which makes sense if these are what Kris remembers of their encounter with Gaster. These messages can even be used to tie the Knight into all of this because some of the flavor text during their fight is almost identical
Here are the flavor texts similar to “Your heartbeat quickened” :
"Kris held their breath. their heartbeat quickened"
"Your chest feels tight"
"Your heartbeat becomes twisted"
As for “Your eyesight became blurry” one of the flavor texts during the fight reads "Your vision narrows"
These details could imply that the Knight’s presence is making Kris’ repressed memories resurface, linking it even more closely to Kris’ trauma.
The “Gaster Poems” category
These are 3 error handler messages that rhyme when put together, forming some kind of poem. As many have pointed out, it seems to describe the Mystery man's face "Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye?"; "The gash weaves down as if you cry"; "The pain itself is reason why"
As such, this text seems to be specifically about motifs related to Gaster: Pain, the Mystery Man, and rhyming. Indeed, the two other major instances where we find rhymes are in parts of the Prophecy itself (which was likely written by Gaster) and in the speech of one of Gaster’s followers
Now that we’re done with the error handler text, we can focus on the flavor text you get when fighting Echidna aka G BODY. This is something pretty obscure, so in case you don't know what I’m talking about, I once again recommend checking HalfbreadChaos' video on the matter, they explain what this enemy is way better than I could.
In any case, if you somehow start a battle with this enemy, you will get the following flavor text "You've come again to this wonderful place. Now tear off the mask beneath your face!"
This is yet another text that rhymes and this one also uses the adjective “wonderful” which is one of Gaster’s favorite words (it keeps coming back in his tweets, and is also used multiple times in the Goner maker sequence). The text also states that whoever is being addressed has already been in a the “wonderful place” it mentions. Considering all these elements, I believe it is directed to Kris, and that we will most likely see it in-game when we enter the shelter, either from Gaster himself or from the shadow mantle holder, this message seems to be particularly in-character for the latter. The forgotten man also seems to vaguely allude to this place and the strange “Now, tear off the mask beneath your face!” thing in his chapter 3 dialogue “IF YOU WILL IT, WE SHALL MEET AGAIN AT THAT PLACE”; “SO TAKE YOUR TIME, WASH YOUR FACE, AND GET DRESSED!” as well as his Valentine letter “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT”. Overall, this text is another piece connecting Kris, their trauma, Gaster, and the Shelter.
Now that we’re done with the first part of this theory, let’s sum everything up
One night, Asriel, Kris, Noëlle and Dess explored the forest past the graveyard. Using the code she stole from her mother, Dess opened the Shelter, wanting to go inside. But because Noëlle was scared, only Dess and Kris, the two more adventurous kids of the bunch, went inside while Asriel stayed outside watching over Noëlle. At the same time, Doctor W.D. Gaster, a scientist that had been doing researches on Souls and Darkness, managed to open the first ever Dark Fountain, creating a Dark world inside the shelter. The Darkness had also created the first ever Darkner from a burnt pizza box Gaster had retrieved nearby a few weeks before. Because of the negative emotions and memories poured into that box however, the Darkner was particularly malicious. It became Gaster’s humble servant, promising to follow him to the utmost, figuratively making it the “tail of hell”. Kris and Dess, who were lost inside the shelter's dark world, were then brought to Gaster by the tail. As he was recording his observations, he came up with a new experiment: He would use Darkness on living beings. Amidst the chaos of this terrifying encounter, Kris, perhaps after Gaster tempered with their soul, making them able to be controlled by someone else, stabbed (or was forced to stab) Dess. Gaster used this opportunity to use Darkness on her boss monster soul, saving it from destruction. (It’s possible that this is the point where Kris made that infamous promise. A deal with the Devil, in exchange for Dess’s salvation. They would agree to let their soul be controlled, and follow instructions, in exchange for Gaster’s help. Using Darkness, he would save Dess. This might be what “the promise in our hearts” refers to assuming don’t forget is sung by Dess). Either way, Kris make it out of the shelter, losing their headband in the process. When they returned home, Toriel caught them with the Knife they used to stab Dess, and decided to hide the truth to protect her child. Asgore on the other hand, would become obsessed with finding Dess, which would cause a falling out between him and Toriel, leasing to their divorce. Kris would remain deeply traumatized by that night, and they would go on to struggle with their own soul, as well as with an immense feeling of guilt over what happened. They would resort to self-harm, and would try to repress any memory of what they saw. Meanwhile, in the shelter, Dess merged with Darkness itself, would slowly break because of the dark. After many years, she would end up completely subjugated to the one behind the scratching noises, Dr. Gaster. She would be reborn, not as Dess, but as a amalgamation of Darkness, of traits inherited from her newfound master, and remaining features of the rowdy girl she once was. With the previous experiment being conclusive, Gaster created another pure Dark Fountain, this time inside the school's closet. Using the headband he took from Kris, another special Darkner was created, Ralsei. This one would have the same unique properties as the tail of hell, but because the object that was used to make him was filled with positive memories and feelings, he would have a nearly opposite personality. Ralsei would be born with innate knowledge about the rules of the world and its Prophecy, he would be completely dedicated to its purpose: carrying out the Prophecy, or as chapter 4 puts it, “recording the fate”, acting as a control case for Gaster’s next experiments.
PART 2 : ANOTHER DELTARUNE
This theory was originally supposed to end there, but it still felt like I was missing something. Where does the Prophecy fit into this? What’s going on with the Forgotten man? Why is he so different and yet so similar to Gaster? What about the FUN events and all that Gaster stuff from Undertale? If Alphys' determination experiments are a parallel to Gaster's experiments, shouldn’t there be a point where his experience go wrong? Eventually, it clicked. If Gaster kept experimenting with Dark Fountains, and if FUN events are actually telling parts of Deltarune’s lore, then this Gaster follower dialogue takes on a whole new meaning:
What if Gaster’s experiments going wrong wasn’t something that happened in Undertale, but in Deltarune?
In this second part, I’m going to develop an explanation that will hopefully bring us closer to understanding what the deal with Gaster is.
Here’s the gist of it: I believe that the voice we hear in chapter 1’s intro and the Forgotten man are both Gaster, but unlike what most people believe I don’t think one is from Deltarune and one is from Undertale. I believe that they’re both from Deltarune, except the Forgotten man is from a “failed” timeline, one where we, the player, weren’t present.
In this timeline, the heroes failed to stop the knight, and Gaster’s experiments unwillingly caused the Roaring, dooming the world to eternal darkness. However, aside from his experiments with Darkness and similarly to Alphys, Gaster had also been studying alternate universes, and discovered the existence of the Undertale universe, his reports showed that an anomaly was messing with this universe’s timelines. Gaster thus planned to travel to this universe with the objective of bringing the anomaly to the Deltarune universe, using its powers to change the inevitable fate he had created for his universe, correcting his failing experiment into a success.
Using the blueprints he had designed, and with the help of two men he met some point after his experiments went wrong, these men being sans, who had been studying quantum physics, and his little brother, who excelled in creating complex machinery that he usually used to create puzzles, Gaster was able to complete a machine that could achieve space-time travel. During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, and while sans and his brother were able to make it to their destination, Gaster ended up in the past, long before the anomaly’s arrival. With the machine broken and its creator missing, sans and his brother had no choice but to accept Undertale as their new home. As for Gaster, seeing he ended up in a point in time too far from the anomaly, decided to leave hints about him that would arouse the anomaly’s curiosity. Thanks to his scientific background, he was hired by King Asgore as the Royal Scientist. He eventually built the CORE, and used it to create GONERs, these creatures would tell bits of information about Gaster and events from his home world in order to make sure the anomaly would look for him. Having left all these breadcrumbs, Gaster vanished as suddenly as he appeared, once again crossing time and space to return to the Deltarune universe as the Forgotten man, a being shattered across time and space. Now experiencing time in reverse, he eventually met his own, non-shattered self. The Forgotten man told Gaster what had happened to him, said events would form The Prophecy as well as the existence of the anomaly. With this knowledge, Gaster created the SURVEY_PROGRAM, before contacting the anomaly that had been looking for him. Using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect it to the Deltarune world, this Gaster’s goal is to use our power to create a new future. Not out of any desire for good, or evil. But because this would certainly be the most interesting experiment he ever conceived.
I know this all sounds completely crazy, but let me go over the evidence.
The failed Deltarune
I believe this is a good way to start this crazy part so let’s go over everything that implies the events of Deltarune have somehow already happened once before. Our first main clue comes from the Legend and Roaring cutscenes. Both of these are told through sepia-colored screens, which in both Undertale and Deltarune, they’ve only ever been used to tell flashbacks, which implies that one way or another, the roaring and the prophecy have already happened once.
Speaking of the Roaring, let’s pay attention to how it’s described. Ralsei tells us in chapter 2 that it is an event that ends with the world being plunged in a never-ending night, which will start “when the fountains fill the sky”. What Ralsei is saying is that when darkness fills the sky, the Roaring will start, leading to the eternal night. This is very similar to what Gaster says when you choose to give up upon getting a game over “THEN THE WORLD WAS COVERED IN DARKNESS” and on top of that, the theme that plays (which also happens to be 66 seconds long) is called “DARKNESS FALLS”. So, when the end of the world happens, Darkness fills the sky, before falling from it, covering up the entire world. As I’ve explained before, Darkness and water are thematically the same thing, so Darkness falling from the sky is the same thing as saying water falls from the sky, which is called raining. But if darkness is water, does that mean it can exist in the two other primary states of water: gaseous and solid? Turns out it absolutely does: the dark fountains literally make smoke, while darkness has been associated with coldness on multiple occasions: Earlier, I quoted Flowey posing as a deceased Toriel, specifying that everything was dark and cold. Furthermore, just before Gaster took over the UT/DR X account, we got this tweet.
The reason I’m establishing a link between darkness and cold/ice is because of this prophecy panel:
This panel ties back to the idea of darkness falling from the sky, except it uses snowflakes. But considering the panel doesn’t use the term “snow” but specifically “cold water” and how darkness has been established to be cold, we can safely assume that Darkness, water, cold and ice all refer to the same general idea. Therefore, if darkness falling from the sky refers to the end of the world, the fact Gaster immediately says that this is what happens as a consequence of us, the player, choosing to give up means that he already knows that without us, the Roaring will not be stopped. This further suggests the existence of a playerless timeline that ended up in failure, and gives context as to why he says that he aims to “CREATE A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU” and how we apparently need each other. Another element that supports this idea is the first sentence from the Forgotten man in chapter 3 “WELL, SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER, AND SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD.” have you ever wondered what this sentence was supposed to mean? He initially goes from spring to summer, nothing strange there, but then, not only does he skip fall, he says COLD, not winter. The choice to use the world cold feels deliberate. He’s not talking about the passing of seasons; he’s talking about what happened in his failed timeline. One of the few things we know about Deltarune’s time period is that the game’s events are set around the end of spring/the beginning of summer since Asriel is meant to come back to hometown next week for his college vacation, and Kris has the search query “summer vacation college when” inside their cyber world room. SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER thus refers to the events of the game, while SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD means that the world ended up covered in darkness. As we’re going to see in a moment, the forgotten man seems to experience time in reverse, most of the things he says are either in reverse or out of order, but this sentence is one of the only times he follows the normal flow of time. If this man has been travelling through space and time, it makes sense he would struggle to keep track of everything, but would recall the events of his original timeline in a normal order.
Finally, let’s look at this quote from the Forgotten man’s valentine letter: “AS YOU ARE WAITING PATIENTLY, THE TIME IS GOING AROUND”. The correct expression would be “time is going by” to suggest the passing of time, but here, the Forgotten man says that it’s “going around” almost like time is repeating itself. To my knowledge, he is the only character that has suggested this so far. I know that there have been theories that Deltarune is stuck in a never-ending time loop, but I don’t think that is what’s going on, I think this is rather signaling time is repeating from his perspective. After all, if the forgotten man is from a failed timeline, everything leading up to the game’s ending is just a repetition for him. Furthermore, if he’s experiencing this new timeline in reverse after reaching “the end” of his own timeline, he is quite literally going around through time.
2. Space-time travelers
Now that I’ve established the existence of a failed timeline, let me demonstrate how Gaster, with the help of sans and his brother, was able to escape the fate he brought upon his own world, and how he became the forgotten man. Small heads up before I go on though: since I’ll be referring to two different Gasters, I’ll use “Forgaster” (Forget + Gaster) for simplicity to describe the one who came from the failed timeline, went to Undertale, and returned as the Forgotten Man. I’ll keep “Gaster” for the one who appears to be speaking to us on social media and in the goner maker sequence.
Forgaster ended up creating an unavoidable fate for everyone in the Deltarune universe, with no means to stop it. So, what could he do? Like I implied earlier, I have reasons to believe Gaster was aware of the existence of Undertale and had been researching that universe, on top of his Darkness researches. Even alphys, who’s researched primarily focused on determination and MTT is confirmed to have been studying alternate universes based on this dialogue you get for answer “Nobody” to the final question of MTT’s quiz “Hey, I’ve done research about this! There are alternate universes out there!” so the idea that Gaster would also do this as a side gig isn’t out of the question. Furthermore, I established that the blueprints for the broken machine in sans’ lab were most likely in the shelter. Finally, during his fight, sans states that “our reports have shown a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting. Until suddenly, everything ends” what “reports” is he talking about? This guy sells hotdogs for a living; how would he have the means of producing a scientific report? This dialogue, is sans admitting he has a scientific background, and based on the books we find in his undertale house, or how he makes a joke reference to the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, it’s pretty clear that his field of research is quantum physics. The fact he specifies “our reports” means he didn’t do this research alone. While his colleague could be Alphys, the fact she never shows any knowledge about what is going on with the timelines in Undertale disproves the idea. I think it’s far more likely in light of everything we know today, that sans somehow met Forgaster at some point. These reports are what allowed them to learn of the existence of the anomaly (which is just how sans refers to what fans tend to call “the player”) and come up with the idea of luring it to Deltarune to change fate. After all, an anomaly that has the power to rewind time and exert complete control on timelines would’ve been seen as a godsent in their situation. Sans’ brother’s involvement in this is rather speculative, but if this brother really is Papyrus, then it throws a few wrenches in the next part of my theory which is basically me agreeing with the “sans undertale is the same as sans deltarune” but I’ll address these in due time. If Papyrus was involved, I doubt he took part in the whole time-space research. At best, I think it’s more likely that he helped build the machine, seeing how undertale implies that his knowledge of machinery is rather impressive, judging by the complex books on puzzle creation on his bookshelf.
In any case, this machine is definitely how sans and papyrus ended up in undertale, but I also think that it’s the reason for Papyrus being so lost and naïve as well as what caused Forgaster being shattered across time and space. Let’s go over the major evidence in favor of “sans is from deltarune”
The first clue implying that sans and Papyrus do not originate from Undertale (and by extension, the idea of an Undertale counterpart for Gaster being incorrect) actually comes from what the snowdin shopkeeper tells us about them “There’s two of ‘em. Brothers, I think. They just showed up one day and… asserted themselves”. The way they just suddenly appeared out of nowhere would make sense if they arrived there thanks to the machine. As for Forgaster, the riverman has one dialogue that was always believed to be about him “Beware of the man who speaks in hands” seeing how Deltarune has been bringing back this hand motif with the knight most notably, and how the Wingdings font uses multiple hand signs, this is a fair assumption. However, there is another line from the Riverman that is nowhere as iconic as the previous one, and that was always harder to connect to Gaster “Beware of the man who came from the other world”, back when we only had Undertale, there wasn’t much to suggest this had anything to do with him, aside from how both sentences used a similar structure and mentioned a man. But thanks to what we learned in Deltarune and what I’ve established so far, this sentence makes a lot more sense. The riverman is telling us that a man came from another world that he doomed because of his experiences, and is trying to lure us in order to take advantage of our power. Besides that, one of Gaster’s followers states that “one day, he vanished without a trace” which sounds like the inverse of sans and papyrus: while the two brothers suddenly appeared out of nowhere one day, Forgaster appears to have suddenly disappeared. I’m not exactly sure if him vanishing is alluding to when he returned to the Deltarune universe, or if the follower is talking about how he escaped from the failed timeline thanks to the machine.
Sans also has dialogues that sound a bit nonsensical if you only consider Undertale, especially during the hangout at MTT resort, and during his fight.
“Your journey’s almost over, huh? You must really wanna go home. Hey, I know the feeling, buddo. Though maybe sometimes it’s better to just take what’s given to you. Down here you’ve already got food, drink, friends… is what you have to do… really worth it?”
There’s the obvious fact he says he wants to “go home”, but even if we disregard that and chalk it up to sans meaning he wants to go back to the surface, he seems to be projecting a bit in this scene. Him stating that Frisk already has food and friends in the underground sound like what he’s been telling himself to cope with the fact he’s stranded in a world that’s not his own. Going off of that, the way he asks if what we have to do is really worth it could also be him implying he came here with a goal, supposedly getting the anomaly, and wonders if it’s really worth it. It’s not like he’d have a way back anyway. These doubts might also partly explain why he prioritizes the promise he made to Toriel over his desire (or his mission) to kill us, especially if the two were close in Deltarune.
As for his desire to go home, he outright confirms he’s not talking about the surface during his fight “Look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago. And getting to the surface doesn’t really appeal anymore, either” Moreover, the theme that plays during that scene is called “It’s raining somewhere else” and in Chapter 4, we got to hear a very similar track called “The place where it rained”. I’ve already showed that darkness and water are the same thing thematically, and that the world of deltarune ended with Darkness (water) falling from the sky, covering everything. Figuratively, you could say that the end of the world is represented by rain. With that in mind, the name of these two tracks can not only be interpreted differently, they also respond to each other: He knows that while he’s stuck in undertale, darkness is still falling from the sky in his home world, that’s why the track uses the present continuous, it’s raining somewhere else. And thus, the track from Deltarune not only tells us what this “somewhere else” is, it also alludes to the existence of the failed timeline, it tells us that the world of deltarune is the place where it rained. The use of past tense is significant, because it doesn’t make sense from our perspective as players, since the roaring hasn’t happened yet, but it does for someone who came from Forgaster’s failed timeline or who simply knows what happened
As for Papyrus, we have this dialogue from the Fangamer Q&A:
Considering there isn’t really any spot with green grass in the Underground, this is a huge hint because it means Papyrus may also be from Deltarune. But it poses a few problems: why does sans state his brother never saw any human? Why does he appear to be a shut-in type of person in Deltarune when his personality in Undertale is the exact opposite of that? Considering his supposed Deltarune memories seem a bit hazy, I believe what’s being implied here is that Papyrus either suffers from amnesia/cognitive issues or trauma (maybe a mix of both). The reason why I believe that lies with the fact the machine is broken. It implies it malfunctioned when it was used by Forgaster, sans and papyrus when traveling to Undertale. If the machine was built in a hurry, as the Roaring was happening, then we have a pretty good explanation for why it happened. It seems like sans was able to make it out in one piece, however Papyrus’s mind seemingly suffered from it, while Forgaster was unaccounted for. If Papyrus has trouble remembering things, then that’s something he has in common with the Forgotten man. What if this is because their memory issues have the same origin? Considering sans seems fairly depressed over his situation, I guess this would explain why he seems to purposely interrupt the Q&A: he’s preventing his brother from remembering what happened so that he won’t suffer from it. This is a solid explanation for why the Forgotten Man speaks in a way that is very similar to Gunter’s, but not quite identical: Forgaster speaks like someone who was shattered across time and space, while Gaster is just normal. This also implies that the trip from Deltarune to Undertale was the moment when Forgaster was shattered. That makes perfect sense: what machine would have the potential to shatter someone across time and space without it coming from nowhere, if not a device literally designed to travel between dimensions and timelines? Perhaps this really was what one of the Gaster followers meant when he said that “he fell in his creation”. It would have the added bonus of confirming that the idea that he fell into his own creation and the fact that he was broken refer to the same thing, which would be nice since it simplifies things for us.
Thanks to all these elements, it also becomes clear that all of the main characters from Undertale have a Deltarune counterpart, with the exception of sans, Papyrus and Gaster. In other words, Forgaster discovered a world similar to his own, but in which he didn’t exist.
“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same… Except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you… Ha, ha… the thought terrifies me”
I’m positive this is what the goner kid was talking about all along, they embody Forgaster’s feelings upon making that discovery. More generally, Goner kid seems to reflect his fear and his sadness, the more human side of a man who has otherwise been horrifyingly cold to everyone who ever crossed his path so far. This last bit is more speculative, but I wonder if their dialogue when we bring them an umbrella is meant to give us some insight into how Forgaster might have felt some fort of guilt or grief about causing the roaring “An umbrella? But it’s not raining. You know, that does make me feel a little better about this. Thank you. Please forget about me” especially since Forgaster has a strange dialogue if you answer no when he asks if you want to meet him again “WELL. I’M STARTING TO REALIZE WHY I WAS FORGOTTEN” I’m probably reaching hard here, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s implying, he was forgotten as punishment for what he did to the people in Deltarune. Food for thought, I guess.
3. I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
We’ve covered what happened to sans and papyrus, but what became of Forgaster after he was shattered? His story pretty much goes on accordingly to what the followers tell us from this point on. He ended up in the past, long before the events of Undertale. Since the anomaly had not yet arrived, the only thing left to do was setting up the baits that would allow him to lure it into Deltarune. He became the Royal scientist, most likely worked in the true Lab and eventually built the CORE. According to Alphys, it converts geothermal energy into magical electricity, and powers the entire underground. Before Forgaster built this structure, monsters seemingly had no access to electricity and used primitive light sources as revealed by one of the signs in Waterfall “Without candles or magic to guide them Home, the monsters used crystals to navigate”
The signs inside the CORE have a very similar interface to the one we see for the save file menu in chapter 1, which isn’t surprising since both were made by the same person. The way these signs are written are similar to how Gaster speaks, using vague and drawn-out expressions “Traverse the northern room, and the end will open”. Another sign reads “North, the warrior’s path, West, the sage’s path. Any path leads to The End” which is a hint on how the player can reach the last room of the CORE, you can either solve a puzzle (the sage’s path) or cross a bridge where you’ll have to fight powerful enemies in order to reach a switch (the warrior's path). The way the CORE is designed is almost an allegory for Deltarune: regardless of whether you choose to use violence or to avoid fighting, you reach the same end either way. This is further reinforced by what we see when we reach “The End” of the CORE:
A room with an effigy of the Angel on top of its entrance.
Another sign reads “I cannot fight. I cannot think. But, with patience, I will make my way through” while this initially appears like another hint for the player to help them cross the laser room, the fact this sign was made by Forgaster could also apply to his situation after being shattered. He’s the only one with battle stats but no boss fight, and the Forgotten man has cognitive issues judging from his dialogues. The second part of the quote is also interesting, because both Gaster and Forgaster keep talking about they have been waiting for a long time. I believe this sign supports the idea that Forgaster was left in a fairly bad state after his machine incident and that “making his way through” might be about making his way through Undertale specifically, setting up baits for the anomaly before returning to Deltarune. Even then, he’d still have to wait for the anomaly to arrive and find the breadcrumbs he left.
But does the CORE have anything to do with this plan? After all, it’s just a power plant, isn’t it?
This is what Alphys thinks, but let’s look at the other room where the Angel symbol appears:
See these pillars that appear all throughout the CORE? They’re called “spr_darknesstotem” in the game files. How could there be advanced darkness technology inside the CORE if the Gaster that built the CORE was from Undertale? Nothing in Undertale suggests Darkness technology was developed, the only exception being entry 17 but as I’ve established, this is from Deltarune. This might be the best evidence to back up the claim that “Undertale Gaster” was always from Deltarune, because if the man who built the CORE is the man who came from the other world, he would have the knowledge necessary to make these totems. But what could be the use for these totems? Well, have we ever seen something similar? A machine that uses Darkness to make something? If we had seen one, we could assume that the CORE might have a secret functionality that would be similar. And it turns out we have: the Goner maker device. It uses darkness as suggested by the IMAGE_DEPTHS background, when said image appears, we clearly hear the sound of a machine booting up, and this is the part where we create a goner. This is the actual reason Forgaster built the CORE, it wasn’t about helping monsterkind, it was about making goners that would relate the events of Forgaster’s failed timeline. They would be the bait that would help lure out the anomaly, as only a being that has the power of RESET could eventually find all of them. One more element in favor of the CORE having a secret “goner maker” feature lies with the fact all goners are grey and the infamous “COPIES ARE MONOCHROME” quote. Goners are grey, and happen to all be copies of existing NPCs (whether they’re copies of Deltarune NPCs or Undertale NPCs doesn’t matter as far as my theory goes, Forgaster could have used either of those) so that would mean the CORE acts as a copy machine. It just so happens that the area right after the CORE is New Home, which as you probably realized, is literally a grey copy of the ruins aka Home. The CORE having this copy feature would explain why that is. Since monsters no longer feared humans, they all moved out of Home, and Forgaster, as the Royal scientist, was probably tasked with helping with the construction of the new capital, and thus, used the core’s secret feature to make a copy of Home. You could even speculate that the creation of New Home was nothing but a test run for the CORE, and after it had successfully created New Home, Forgaster used it for his real objective, creating lures for the anomaly. And once that was done, he simply disappeared, not having any business left in Undertale. How Forgaster returned to Deltarune isn’t clear, but seeing how the Forgotten man can just vanish in an instant and isn’t bound by the limits between the Light and Dark worlds, I believe this is how Forgaster was able to make it back to Deltarune. This might be what being shattered across time and space means: he can travel from the beginning of one universe's timeline to the end of another universe's timeline.
As such, most remaining FUN events would then be just that, lures. The sound test room, Something Forgaster hastily stitched together with the sole purpose of making sure the anomaly hears his theme: after all, the sound test room only has 4 songs, and 3 of them are uninteresting loops, almost as if they were just filler meant to justify this room being called a sound test room, while Gaster’s theme (aka him.ogg) is the only one that somewhat sounds like actual music. Moreover, not only does the game not allow you to play any of the other songs once you’ve started “Gaster’s theme”, listening to it is also the only way out of the room, as if it won’t let you leave until you’ve heard that theme. The message you get afterwards is also pretty suspicious “Thanks for your feedback! Be seeing you soon!” as the phrasing is similar to what Gaster said before chapter 1 was dropped.
The wrong number song has been speculated to be many things, from Spamton trying to reach Gaster on the phone, to Kris making a phone prank, regardless, its function is the same as the other events I’ve talked about: teasing Deltarune.
This finally brings me to the Clam goner. We learn from her dialogue that she lives in New Home and that her neighbor has a daughter named Suzy. She states that she might be the reason we came to the underground, and that we should become friends with her, that fate will find a way. The clam goner event where she states that the time we will meet Suzy is “fast approaching” was part in the switch version a few weeks before Deltarune’s reveal implying that Susie is somehow related to Suzy. It's possible Suzy is the Undertale counterpart of Susie, but in any case, what really matters is that this girl is implied to be the reason we came to Undertale, and is associated with fate. This is important, because Susie is one of the characters Gaster lists as “VERY VERY WONDERFUL” and has been established as a character willing to defy fate, also having the unique ability to override the player’s choices. As such, what if this FUN event is Forgaster trying to push us to befriend Susie when we go to Deltarune in order to make sure we’ll be able to change the inevitable fate of the Deltarune world? After all, two entities, each having the power to change fate, working together would be very useful to someone trying to create a new future, wouldn’t it?
4. ANOTHER DELTARUNE
We have finally reached the last section of this massive theory. With everything set up to draw the anomaly’s attention, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, no longer being “Gaster” but the Forgotten man. Because he’s been shattered, it appears that he can navigate through time in any and all directions.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, people have pointed out that Forgaster’s dialogues imply he’s experiencing time in reverse. In case you’re not convinced by the idea, let’s look at the main pieces of evidence. First off, Forgaster’s schedule. If you pay attention, he’s actually giving you a recipe for making donuts in reverse “I GO TO SELL THE DONUTS, I TOSS THE LEFTOVERS IN THE DUMPSTER, I LET IT COOL ON THE WINDOWSILL, I HARVEST THE WHEAT”
If we read this dialogue in reverse, it suddenly makes more sense: he starts by harvesting the wheat, lets the donuts cool, throws the dough scraps into the trash, and finally goes to the bakery sale.
Towards the end of his speech in chapter 3, he also says “COUNT BACKWARDS TO 100”
This is an odd choice of words, since we would normally say "from 100." If Forgaster experiences time backwards, though, the phrasing could be intentional: he sees 100 as the point he’s moving toward rather than the point he’s are moving away from, meaning that the sequence we see as normal (1 to 100) is perceived by him as moving in reverse.
And lastly, in his valentine letter, Forgaster begins with “HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR WAS IT THE OLD YEAR?” If he were experiencing time normally, he wouldn’t be confused about this. The only situation in which it would make sense for him to doubt the order of the new year and the old year is if he were experiencing time in reverse.
So Forgaster can experience time both in reverse, as I’ve just demonstrated, but he can also follow the normal flow of time: in his schedule, the days are in order, and the events of the failed timeline he describes through the passing of seasons is also normal. The fact his Lightworld appearances and the number of coins he puts in chapter 4’s water fountain both depend on whether or not you got the eggs in the previous chapters which means he’s at least aware of how things happened in what would be his “future” from his perspective. Alternatively, this could be explained by the fact that he can not only experience time in reverse, but also appear at any point in time. This idea would explain why, besides his dialogues showing that he is in reverse, he also says things that are completely mixed up. Look at the story he tells us “WELL, THE WORLD CHANGED. SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED. THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER? DINAUSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE”.
The correct order would be THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER, DINOSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE, SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED, meaning Forgaster’s story doesn’t follow any order at all, which he points out himself “IS IT MIXED UP?”
All in all, Forgaster’s time shenanigans are perfectly summed up by his sentence in the valentine letter: “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT. NOT NECESSARLY IN THAT ORDER. OR, IN ANY ORDER AT ALL.”
He can go anywhere, anytime. This is definitive proof that the Forgotten man IS the Gaster that was shattered across time and space, while the one in the goner maker is normal.
So, what is he trying to do? Considering both Forgaster and Gaster are “waiting” for Deltarune, I believe they share the same goal: to create a NEW FUTURE with us, the anomaly.
Because there is no anomaly in the Deltarune universe, all timelines converge to the same point. This means that even if the timeline we see in the game isn’t the one Forgaster experienced, things aren’t going to be any different. In this new timeline, Gaster has made the same researches on Darkness, the shelter Incident happened all the same, the knight was still created. As such, the fate of this world has already been decided. This is where Forgaster truly factors in. Because he’s experienced it all before, he knows who to contact if he wants to change things: the Gaster from this timeline. He would have the means to do so thanks to his shattered state. Forgaster most likely informed gaster of everything that happened in the failed timeline. This is the true origin of the prophecy, it wasn’t made by Gaster, but by Forgaster which is why it was “foretold by time and space” why the Prophecy text is identical to how the Forgotten man speaks and why it is so specific, why everything it says will come to pass.
To Gaster, this is his chance to change one key parameter in his experiment. Thanks to Forgaster, Since he knows that the current model ends in failure, adding the Anomaly as a variable would be a very interesting experience. Thanks to the breadcrumbs Forgaster left in Undertale, Gaster was able to lure us into Deltarune, using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect us to this world. Forgaster is the reason Gaster knows we’ve been searching for him, and the knowledge that his experiments will go wrong is the reason he’s been looking for us. By connecting this anomaly to Deltarune, and by combining its power with Susie’s hope, Gaster has the chance to conduct the most ambitious experiment he’s ever imagined and turn his biggest failure into an absolute triumph over fate itself. In his own words “HOW LUCKY WE ARE TO NEED EACH OTHER IN THIS WAY”
This finally explains why Gaster’s theme in undertale was called “him” while the gaster theme in Deltarune is called “ANOTHER HIM”: “him” was a piece left by the Gaster who came from the failed timeline, it’s Forgaster’s theme, while ANOTHER HIM is the theme of the Gaster from the game’s timeline.
As such, I have a hard time believing Forgaster is going against Gaster, I believe he’s doing the same thing as Gaster, following the scientific method, changing specific parameters to modify the outcome of the experiment. This is why Forgaster is giving EGGs to Kris. They are the one Forgaster wants to help, and that’s why he’s asking help from us. We are the ones taking Kris to these egg rooms. He’s probably trying to help them remember the Incident and overcome their fear. Considering he’s experienced the failed timeline, it’s likely that he’s doing this because Kris never overcame their trauma in the original timeline, which might have been played a role in the heroes’ failure.
As for the shadow crystals, while their origin is hard to pinpoint, it’s clear now that the visions they show are what will happen in the future. This is why they don’t change the prophecy text; the two show the same thing.
Let’s look at all the shadow crystal visions to demonstrate this.
“You thought you saw toys strewn on the floor”: This predicted that the Card castle fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw through your hand”: This is predicting that Kris will lose their hand
“You thought you saw the computer lab”: This predicted that the computer room’s fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw Susie glaring at you, coldly...” This probably predicts what Susie’s reaction will be when she finds out that Kris has been working with the Knight and hiding many things from her. As she puts it “there’s nothing that pisses me off more than people who don’t tell you the whole deal”
“You thought you saw the television get smashed to pieces”: This is literally just an alternate version of “THE LORD OF SCREENS, CLEAVED RED BY BLADE”
“You thought you saw the lobby of the church”: This predicted that the fountains inside the church would be sealed
“You thought you saw Undyne frozen in ice”: this one is unused for now, so it should be taken with a grain of salt, still, it may predict the “police sacrifice” we heard about
Finally, we have “You thought you saw Noelle close against you, whispering” this one feel like it’s predicting something that hasn’t happened yet. As such we can only speculate for now. Some say it’s from the couch scene in the weird route, but Noelle isn’t whispering during that scene, if anything we are the ones directly whispering inside her mind. This might just imply that Kris and Noelle’s relationship will become a focal point later on. Considering their shared history with the shelter Incident, their relationship might be the single most important one moving forward.
This would also explain why the Darkners who used these crystals went crazy: the knowledge of a failed timeline, and of an entire universe marching toward an unavoidable eternal night that no one can escape, no matter what they do, seems like enough reason to go off the deep end.
CONCLUSION
We have finally reached the end of this theory. I can only apologize for how long this turned out to be, so let me recap sum up the take-home message of the entire thing.
Asriel, Kris, Noelle and Dess explored the forest seven years before the events of Deltarune, Dess and Kris entered the Shelter using Carol’s code
On the same night, Gaster created the first dark fountain in the shelter, creating a dark world, and turning the ice-e pizza box, he retrieved a few weeks before into a malevolent Darkner that would act as its servant, the tail of hell
Entry 17 is a cutscene/recording of gaster taking notes on the fountain, before being interrupted by Kris and Dess who are the two persons he’s talking to at the end of entry 17
Gaster tries to use them for his next experiments, and Kris ends up accidentally killing Dess in the confusion
Gaster tempers with Kris’ soul, and inject Dess’ with Darkness, before letting Kris escape, supposedly after the two made a Faustian deal
Toriel finds Kris holding a knife, potentially covered in blood, as Dess apparently disappeared. She decides to hide the truth from everyone and keep this a secret so that Kris will not get into serious trouble
Asgore becomes obsessed with finding Dess, eventually leading to arguments with Toriel who ends up divorcing him, while the Holiday and Dreemurr families, especially Toriel and Carol, grow distant
UNUSED are follow-up entries to entry 17, transcripts of Dess’ thoughts written down by Gaster as her mind slowly breaks because of the darkness.
Dess is reborn as a Dark Amalgamate, a powerful creatures subjugated by Gaster that helps him with his dark fountain experiments
These experiments eventually cause the Roaring, causing all of gaster’s work to go to waste
Having observed an alternate universe where an anomaly capable of changing fate resides, Gaster builds a space-time machine with sans’ help in order to travel to Undertale, capture the anomaly and use its powers to prevent the Roaring
During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, causing Gaster to shatter across space and time, while sans and papyrus get stranded in Undertale’s present with no way back, while gaster becomes Forgaster and lands in Undertale’s past
Forgaster becomes the royal scientist, uses his position and his Darkness technology to build the CORE, a power plant that doubles as a GONER MAKER. Using it, he’s able to create New Home, and set up all the FUN events that the anomaly will eventually come across when it arrives in the Underground
Having finished his work in the Undertale universe, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, in a new timeline where things are set to repeat identically to the failed timeline and contacts the gaster from this timeline
Forgaster recounts what happened in the failed timeline to Gaster, thus creating the Prophecy
In order to change fate, Gaster creates the SURVEY_PROGRAM and uses the anomaly’s curiosity to connect it to Deltarune, with the objective of creating a new future, his own story for this world: HIS Deltarune. To achieve this, he contacts specific Darkners with high-potential and gives them Shadow Crystals, in order to make them realize what is really going on, in hopes that this will help change fate. He allows the anomaly to keep trying to win against his knight, not because it has a chance of defeating it – the knight is Gaster’s perfected weapon, the anomaly cannot win, period – but because it and Susie can achieve something that might cause a butterfly effect that could change fate: retrieving the blackshard, a weapon that can take down darkness. Meanwhile Forgaster is helping Kris with overcoming their fear, in preparation for what is coming.
As a closing thought, I want to address a question you may be asking yourself after reading all this: if Gaster and Forgaster know that their experiments led to the world’s destruction, why do they continue creating yet another experiment, therefore putting another timeline at risk?
Because Gaster isn’t Sans. He isn’t about accepting what is given to him. He is driven to perform endless experiments in order to gain ever more knowledge, to reach Absolute Truth. And isn’t that, in his eyes, what True Freedom is? As such, he will never give up his experiments, no matter what.
And this is where we realize who Sans was really talking about during his Genocide fight:
“I know your type. You’re very determined, aren’t you? You’ll never give up, even if there’s absolutely NO benefit to persevering whatsoever. No matter what, you’ll just keep going. Not out of any desire for good or evil, but simply because you think you can. And because you can, you have to.”
In this moment, Sans saw Gaster in us: two beings filled with determination to satisfy their curiosity, regardless of morality, simply because they have the power to. If Undertale taught us that “to will is to be able,” then Gaster’s philosophy suggests that “to be able is to be obliged.”
SOURCES
UT/DR text dump: hushbugger dot github dot io
Most screenshots were captured in-game, or taken from the Undertale and Deltarune wiki :
Thank you so much for reading through the entire theory. It means a lot. Getting this out before Chapter 5's launch was a real pain. I'm looking forward to how Chapter 5 will impact this model. I'm expecting to learn more about Toriel, Asgore and Carol. The final egg room will most certainly be fascinating, and will probably make or break the second part of this theory if it reveals the Forgotten man. You may have noticed she was almost completely ignored, this is intended, as I feel we still lack information about her motives, so we can't do anything but speculate. The way I see it, it's ok to do this with ellusive characters like Gaster, part 2 is mostly just that to be honest. But when it comes to more mundane characters like Carol, I don't find it as appealing, it's basically the same as making predictions about the next chapters, while I wanted to provide a good basis regarding what happened before the story.
Once I’ve gone through Chapter 5 and had time to refine my ideas, I might come back with a V3 !
The Dark Amalgamate Theory : an attempt at creating a comprehensive model of Deltarune's past and its parallels with Undertale before Chapter 5
Hi, I’m SOUL Goodman. If you’re a UT/DR fan interested in the lore of Deltarune before Chapter 5, this post is for you. You might want to keep these ideas in mind before playing on June 24th.
This theory started as a small idea after Chapter 2, originally abandoned and never published. But with Chapters 3 and 4, it surprisingly became stronger and much larger than expected.
This is my first time writing and sharing a full theory, and it ended up becoming far bigger than I initially planned. With Chapter 5 fast approaching, this felt like my last chance to finally share it.
This, is the Dark Amalgamate theory !
(The theory covers more than this single concept, don't be fooled by the name, I chose it for the title because it sounds cool)
I first started developing this theory after Chapter 2, when it still felt like a simple hypothesis. But as I looked deeper into the game and community discoveries (including datamined elements), it started to feel like a real coherent model rather than just speculation.
I eventually stopped working on it, but Chapters 3 and 4 ended up reshaping and reinforcing many of its ideas. Now, with Chapter 5 approaching, I want to finally present it in full.
I might not consider every part perfect, but I believe the core ideas are meaningful and relevant.
The goal of this theory is not to predict future chapters or the ending of the game. Instead, it focuses on what happened before the events of Deltarune, and what set everything in motion.
If you enjoy Undertale / Deltarune lore, this will defintely be an interesting read while waiting for Chapter 5.
Before I start, here’s a few disclaimers:
I’ve rewritten this multiple times, but due to its length, some mistakes might remain.
You should be familiar with Undertale, the Gaster mystery, and all four released chapters of Deltarune. Some parts rely on community findings and datamined content (credit to HalfbreadChaos, linked in sources).
This theory is split into two main parts, the second being a bit more speculative and could almost stand alone, but is still deeply connected to the first.
Table of Contents
Part 1: The Shelter Incident
Quick character analysis
The Time and Place of The Incident
The First Darkner, the Devil's accomplice
The poor test subjects!
The sins of the Dreemurr family
Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
Part 2: A NEW FUTURE, born from an Eternal Night
The failed Deltarune
Space-time travelers
I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
ANOTHER DELTARUNE
Conclusion
Sources
With all that out of the way, let's begin!
PART 1: The Shelter Incident
My goal here is to explain what happened during the night where Kris, Asriel, Dess and Noelle explored the forest near hometown’s graveyard and explore the consequences for our main characters as well as what it implies for the events of the game we’ve seen so far.
My starting hypothesis is that there was an incident involving Dess, Kris and Gaster inside the shelter, leading to the creation of what I call a “Dark Amalgamate.” To support my hypothesis, I will be using information from the game itself but also some stuff that came from the sweepstakes or the newsletters (Although their canonicity is a bit dubious from what I understand, so I will try to rely on that as little as possible), linking various elements based around the same thematic as well as some texts hidden in the game’s code. For practical reasons, I’m not going to put a screenshot every time I quote an in-game dialogue, I will be highlighting those in red instead, so you can have the exact text and not me paraphrasing the game.
Quick character analysis
Before we delve into what happened in the forest, we need to take a quick look at how the four children are characterized. The idea isn’t to go on a long analysis for each of them, but simply to point out important elements of their personalities that we will have to take into account to figure out how and why they would even end up inside the shelter, when most people understandably assume whatever happened with Dess took place in the forest or near the shelter at best, not straight up inside it.
Asriel: This is the easiest one since there’s not much to talk about considering he has yet to appear in Deltarune. From what we’ve been told so far, his personality does seem relatively similar to his Undertale counterpart, a quiet and kind boy as well as a bit of a scaredy cat who’s a bit overzealous considering Father Alvin talks about how he would always confess his “sins”. We also know he was quite popular considering all the prizes in his room, how so many people in hometown always bring up Asriel and praise him when Kris talks to them. The important aspect of his character in Deltarune specifically is how close him and Dess were, which we’ll go over when we talk about Dess herself
Noelle: She’s pretty much the same as she is today in terms of personality, what is interesting about her is how easily scared she is and how she has a clear tendency to “freeze” when something scary or traumatic happens and how she seems to “forget” any memory of such events. We can actually see that on many occasions during chapter 2’s weird route: right after being forced to freeze an Addison to get the FreezeRing she goes “What… What just happened? Did I actually just… No, they… they must have given it to us. The ring”; when told to proceed during the second mice puzzle, as you push her closer and closer to the laser forcefield, she states “Th… there, looks like I… did it?” as if she had trouble remembering what had just happened. This is later reinforced when she asks herself “…what did I do when we got that ring? …when I solved that puzzle? … It… It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I can’t remember”. Similarly, right after using Snowgrave on Berdley, she once again asks “What… What happened? There was so much snow, I couldn’t see anything…” which really comes across as a form of denial considering Berdley’s frozen corpse is right in front of her at that moment. Basically, whenever she’s faced with something traumatic, her reaction is to freeze and forget it. This isn’t exclusive to the weird route either, we’ll go back to this later, but another smaller example that occurs in the normal route that I can give right now is in sans’ store in chapter two: one of the NPCs mentions that “Sometimes the hoofed girl comes here, opens the freezer door then stands in front of it, lost in thought”.
Kris: There’s obviously a lot to talk about when it comes to them, but what I want to focus on for this theory is the shift in their behavior. Not the shift caused by the presence of the SOUL/player control, but how they seemingly went from being a prankster as a child to a very weird, shut-in type of person. Whenever we have characters talking about younger Kris, it feels like they were a fairly normal mischievous kid. They were close to their brother, as well as the Holiday sisters, loved to mess with Noelle and overall, none of the weirder stuff we’ve seen from modern day teenage Kris is brought up. Like I said, that shift seems to have happened before the events of the game, considering it’s implied the Dreemurr and the Holyday have grown apart before the start of chapter 1, the last time Kris and Noelle spent time together was probably when Kris came to Noelle’s house to play the piano as mentioned in one of her blog posts. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but Kris had to have been old enough to have learned how to play piano (which they obviously couldn’t have done in a few weeks as a little kid). The important part here is that whenever the stuff Noelle talks about in that blog post took place, Kris had already started to act weird: they’d come over to Noelle’s house and after a while, she explains that “they would suddenly get very still, like they were remembering something” before going to play the piano. We learn about another event that took place before chapter 1 where Kris once again showed a strange behavior in Noelle’s blog post about Susie. This probably took place a few weeks/days before chapter 1, and is more in line with the Kris we see in-game. When Susie threatened them, they remained completely silent up until they eventually said something that seemingly made Susie back off. Noelle, who had seen all of this, hid in her locker. Yet, somehow, Kris was able to tell she was there, violently open the locker before slowly closing it without a word after seeing it was her. Unlike the previous Noelle blog post, this event hasn’t really been referenced in-game so far so I won’t talk about it too much but the main take-away here is that Kris used to be a normal kid, but started acting strange at some point before Chapter 1 which suggests this isn’t linked to the SOUL (or, more specifically, it’s not linked to what Kris does once we have control over the SOUL), which makes me wonder, what happened to Kris for them to have such a drastic change in their behavior?
Dess: Finally, we have the older Holiday sister. Like Asriel, she hasn’t appeared in-game so far, but we get a lot of info about her from other characters, or by investigating her room in chapter 4. I won’t go over every single detail about her, but the gist of it is that she seemed like an adventurous, rebellious tomboyish kind of girl who seemed to be really into exploring seeing how she was making a herbarium and owned a ton of exploration gear like binoculars, walkie-talkies, army rations, multitool knives. On top of that, it appeared she was also a musical prodigy considering we can find many different instruments in her room, from flutes and violins to that infamous red guitar. Lastly, we have to focus on her relationship with Asriel. Whether you believe these two were together or not, the fact of the matter is that they were very close, to the point where she had Asriel’s jacket in her room, as well as his retainer. Likewise, considering Dess kept a crude drawing of a dragon under her bed and that Asriel borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book, we can infer that he wanted to gift her something she’d enjoy. Her disappearance is probably the reason he never returned the book; he probably wanted to keep it as a token of rememberance or something like that. Which leads me to my main point regarding Asriel and Dess, as many have pointed out, the Ribbick battle dialogue seem to describe Asriel and Dess over the years “a poorly trimmed boy, a messy and unfocused girl”, “a rowdy and dirty girl, a quiet and smelly boy” and most importantly “a lost, and lost, and lost girl” which is an obvious reference to Dess’ disappearance, her being the “Lost girl” we’re meant to find, while “a crying and crying and crying boy” shows how hurt Asriel was by her going missing. Another detail that will be crucial later on is how she apparently had the habit of beating up Kris whenever they pranked Noelle, often using her wiffle bat to hit their head, which is alluded to when you check those items in her room with the flavor text reading “Rollerblades, wiffle bat. Looking at these things makes your head hurt”.
2. The Time and Place of the Incident
As you probably know, there is a forest south of Hometown, past the graveyard, where you can find what looks like some sort of shelter. Its doors are locked and can’t be entered by the player. If you get close to the doors you’ll hear a strange sound. If you speed up that sound by 666%, you’ll realize it’s actually smile.ogg (entry 17’s sound as well as the noise Kris’ phone will make if you try to use it in a dark world). Smile.ogg and the number 6 are directly tied to Gaster, which logically connects this place to him. Back in chapter 1, this place wasn’t mentioned by any character, but things got a bit more interesting with chapter two as a cutscene plays if you go there, as Monster kid and Snowy will be standing in front of it. Their dialogue implies there are ominous rumors about what is inside that place, with MK wondering “You think it’s true? You really think there’s…” before being cut off by snowy claiming only kids believe those rumors. Chapter 4’s church segment shows us that this isn’t the case at all, since when asked about “the shelter” even adults characters seem to fear that place to some extent, Ms.Boom tells Kris “Shelter? No, no, you know that’s not a wholesome place!” and Father Alvin seems particularly freaked out when Kris tells him they want to enter it, almost as if they had expressed the desire to do something very wrong “I do not know what you are experiencing recently, but… Kris please, look to the Angel for guidance […] Kris, stay away from the shelter” these dialogues from Alvin and Ms.Boom could imply Kris specifically has some history with that place. What is interesting is how MK proceeds to mention Kris before being once again cut off by Snowy asking if MK is going to be a weenie like Kris. After Susie scares these two off and asks Kris what is going on with this place, they remain completely silent. This cutscene strongly suggested Kris had been inside that shelter in the past and is scared of it, which was then further proven by chapter 3’s SWORD route where Kris will fight back against the player’s input and try to turn back when approaching the mini-game version of that same shelter. When asked about it, Alphys, while also being seemingly anxious about what could be inside, is a bit more informative stressing how it’s been closed ever since she moved to Hometown and how no one ever goes there aside from Undyne and the mayor, further suggesting that people in Hometown avoid the place in general. Most importantly, this place is alluded to during Noelle’s heart-to-heart with Kris in Cyber City. She doesn’t directly mention the shelter, but she explains that when they were kids, her, Kris, Asriel and Dess liked to explore areas around hometown (which was most definitely Dess’ idea considering what we’ve established about her character) and talks about one specific night where they “explored the forest behind the graveyard” which corresponds to the shelter’s rough location.
My hypothesis is that they found the shelter, Kris and Dess entered it and met Gaster and that something happened to Dess, turning her into that infamous “voice in the code”: the mysterious UNUSED dialogue people have found in the game’s data and that seems to get a new entry with each new chapter.
While as far as I can tell, this general idea has become fairly wide-spread with chapter 3 and 4, there was always a lack of evidence that whatever happened in the forest had something to do with the shelter itself and that the UNUSED voice (as well as the other strange messages in the game’s code, more on that later) had anything to do with Dess. In fact, some people actually seem to believe that Dess’ disappearance happened in the forest itself based on the fact that the forgotten man is found behind a tree and that the NPC in the roots prophecy room says “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail. The poor children”. However, I believe I’ve gathered enough evidence to prove that they did enter the shelter and that whatever happened to Dess occurred inside it and that this is the origin of the trauma Kris, Noelle and Asriel all seem to have to a different degree.
But first, let's go on a small tangent on WHEN this incident happened. We actually had a pretty big clue on that ever since chapter 2: while Noelle is talking about the night they explored the forest, you can actually see the outline of her sprite change to a smaller kid-like version as she walks past one of the panels. As you can see from the following screenshother sprite is identical to the one we see during Berdly’s flashback, which strongly suggests that it happened when Kris and Noelle were very young.
If they witnessed the Incident at such a young age, it perfectly explains why they’d be so traumatized, too. This idea is basically confirmed by Berdly’s spelling bee flashback when he explains that “When it came down to the two of us… she got nervous and couldn’t speak” and we see that the word that made her “nervous” was none other than DECEMBER, the name of her sister. Noelle having this reaction upon seeing that specific word only makes sense if it happened after her sister went missing. Furthermore, her reaction is similar to her behavior in sans’ store I mentioned earlier. It becomes obvious to me that when she opens the freezer, the cold reminds her of Dess which triggers some sort of traumatic response. So, we’ve established that Dess disappeared when Noelle and Kris were still young children, but thanks to Berdly we can figure out even more precisely when it happened. As I mentioned earlier, Asriel probably borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book from the library in order to make a nice gift for Dess. Considering Asriel was deeply hurt by her disappearance based on the “crying boy” Ribbick dialogue, and how the narrator says that “Your brother will never return this book…” upon inspecting it, it’s fair to assume Asriel kept it as a memento of Dess. Which brings me to Berdly’s dialogue in chapter 1, if you go talk to him at the library, he will reveal that the book is 2583 days overdue which is about 7 years. We can deduce that when chapter 1 takes place, this “shelter Incident” happened roughly seven years ago. We can go even further and calculate how old Kris and Noelle were when it happened: since we know Asriel is in college that means he’s around 18 years old during the events of the game, assuming he and Dess were of the same age, that would make them around 11 when the Incident happened and because they’re the older siblings, the younger pair of Kris and Noelle were obviously younger than 11. Since we know Noelle participated in a spelling bee around the same time, she must have been at an age when spelling was still a challenge that required practice (Berdly mentions he and Noelle had to study for that spelling bee), which would be around 7-9 years old. A 3–4-year-old gap between Kris/Noelle and Asriel/Dess sounds reasonable. Lastly, if we assume the game takes place in 202X based on the date written on the unused graphics for Ralsei’s manual, we can date the Incident to the early or mid 201X.
Basically, Asriel’s goon material and Berdly just allowed us to build a fairly precise timeline of events.
Now that this is out of the way, let’s delve into why I think there was an Incident inside the shelter specifically and not just in the forest. While Noelle never talks about the shelter in chapter 2, even mentioning that they “never found anything interesting” when exploring the forest, it’s important to remember that when she’s scared or dealing with something traumatic, Noelle has a tendency to forget stuff. Actually, right after saying this, she implies she doesn’t remember much from that night: “I mostly remember… crying, because I was scared”. Since Noelle can’t help us figure out more about what went down, let’s focus on Kris: as we saw earlier, they seem to be scared of the shelter specifically which wouldn’t make sense if nothing happened there. One may argue that the NPC from chapter 4 talks about the forest and says nothing about the shelter, but let’s look at the exact quote “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail”. The first thing to note is that the NPC uses the plural noun “children” implying that more than one child was present: it was not just Dess, but at least one other person. Second, he specifies that the children were “lost where the forest would grow”, not “lost in the forest” which seems like an important detail. Furthermore, the NPC says this right in front of this strange prophecy panel depicting a house between two trees with the word “ROOTS”.
Considering that trees grow from their roots, and given how much the panel emphasizes that word, I think the expression “where the forest would grow” might actually refer to an underground location, since roots are by definition underground. This would also explain why the two OSTs containing the term “roots” in their titles — “Digital Roots” and “Bit Roots” — only play while exploring underground areas. Also, if you didn’t know, the game files contain an unused song called “spamton_house,” which likely would have played outside Spamton’s shop and sounds nearly identical to “Digital Roots.” The reason Toby may have chosen not to use it could simply be because it would have conflicted with the idea of a musical theme specifically associated with underground locations. Which brings me back to the shelter: it is an underground location, and while there is a dark fountain inside it right now, when we enter the game version during the sword route, we end up in some sort of dark cave where the slowed entry 17 sound plays once again. If the NPC is talking about the shelter, it explains the image of the panel itself: the two trees represent the forest, and the house represents the shelter which would be Gaster’s underground “home”, located where the roots of the trees are, or should I say “located where the forest would grow”. The idea so far is that as part of their exploration, Dess, Kris, Noelle and Asriel went to the forest, entered the shelter and got lost inside before encountering Gaster. But how could they have entered the shelter if the place is closed? The segment in Noelle’s house gives us a pretty simple answer: Dess had managed to get the code from her mother and kept it inside her red guitar, unbeknownst to everyone else. It couldn’t have been Carol who kept it there because not only does it make no sense for her to keep something as important in her rebellious daughter’s belonging, she and Kris both did not expect it to be there : Kris clearly wants to prevent the SOUL from getting the code, if they knew the code was inside the guitar they would’ve removed the SOUL before it could inspect it and read most of the code, which strongly suggests they did not know about it and barely reacted on time. This would also explain why they even made a phone call right after that: they informed whoever they’re working with that the code is inside the guitar and that Susie is looking for it. It would explain why the voice insists on stopping Susie from getting the guitar.
3. The first Darkner, The Devil's accomplice
Now that we have established where and when the Incident happened, it’s time to try and figure out what happened inside the shelter. First off, even if it ultimately doesn’t matter much, I don’t think Asriel and Noelle entered the shelter. Based on how they’ve been portrayed so far, they seem like scaredy cats while Dess and Kris feel like more daredevil type of kids. Again, Noelle states that she was crying because she was scared and that Dess comforted her. It is true that Noelle is easily scared, but I don’t think it makes much sense for her to be scared of simply exploring the forest at night because exploring seems like something they would do every so often. The thought of entering a creepy structure like the shelter however, definitely sounds like something that would terrorize young Noelle. It’s more likely that Asriel stayed outside the shelter to watch over Noelle and that Kris and Dess were the only ones who actually entered the shelter, which would still make sense with the sentence “the children followed the pointed tail”. If only these two entered the shelter, it would also explain why Noelle and Asriel are physically ok during the events of the game, while Dess is missing and Kris is struggling with their soul which has seemingly been happening for a while, even before chapter 1. Regardless of whether or not Asriel and Noelle were there, we know thanks to the Harmonik NPC that they lost themselves inside the shelter and this is when they followed a “pointed tail”.
Many people seem to obsess over that tail and assume it’s the tail of this smiling figure with pink and yellow eye:
This sprite is called IMAGE_FRIEND and its first appearance was in Queen’s basement, while retrieving the EmptyDisk. Since then, it has appeared on many other instances, the most notable ones being during the SWORD route boss fight, during one of the dark sections of chapter 4’s dark world and in the battat mini game. Because the name of the sprite follows the same naming scheme as what is used in chapter one’s intro where Gaster helps you create a vessel, and that it appears in the battat minigame which is centered around cats and seems to be based on the CatPetterz game which Noelle used to play as a kid as revealed in one of her blog posts in the Spamton sweepstakes, it is a common belief that FRIEND is tied to Gaster and is a cat. This led people to assume the tail of hell is FRIEND’s cat tail and that it was therefore that entity that the children followed. While there is merit to the general idea, I feel like this interpretation is too literal which denotes from how the prophecy refers to other characters in a figurative manner: Kris is “The cage with human soul and parts”, Asgore is “The flower man” but that doesn’t mean Kris is literally a cage or that Asgore is made of flowers. As such, I believe we shouldn’t take these “pointed tail” and “tail of hell” expressions at face value. In my opinion, it’s more important to understand what the role of that “tail” is, and what it did specifically than to figure out its identity. As such, I’d like to focus on how the harmonic specifically says “the pointed tail”. Cats don’t have pointed tails so even if you are convinced that the tail really is FRIEND, even if FRIEND really is a cat, that phrasing in itself shows how these descriptions are figurative and symbolic first and foremost. With that in mind, that tail is seemingly mentioned in two other instances, first during the Harmonik battle “the tail, which must not be followed” which is a clear reference to the sentence we get in front of the ROOTS prophecy. Second, in this prophecy panel
“They’ll see the tail of hell take crawl”
So, we have a “tail” that must not be followed, implying it is malevolent and/or dangerous, it is “pointed”, seemingly comes from “hell”, and it apparently crawls. When taking all these elements into account, it hardly sounds like a cat tail anymore, it becomes pretty clear that Toby is trying to invoke satanic imagery: the expression “pointed tail” evokes the tail demons and the Devil are often depicted with, there is even an unused prophecy panel that shows exactly that
But since this panel went unused, it looks like Toby Fox changed his mind about how he wanted to relate that tail to the Devil (and thus Gaster) since the panel that is in the final game uses a different satanic symbol. The final panel talks about a “tail of hell” that will “take crawl”. The fact that the it crawls, coupled with the panel image actually makes it similar to another type of animal, a snake. The idea that dark creatures are thematically linked to, snake-like imagery is actually further reinforced during the Titan fight
Comparing the tail of hell to a snake is another way of connecting it to the Devil, as this is clearly a reference to Christianity: The Devil, taking the form of a snake, lured Adam and Eve to the apple tree and convinced them to eat the forbidden apple. Whether that tail is figuratively a devil’s tail or a snake, the fact of the matter is that it ties it to the Devil, and in both Undertale and Deltarune, the one character that has been repeatedly compared to the Devil is none other than Doctor W.D. Gaster. Which means that in a way, the tail is some sort of Gaster follower. To be clear, I’m NOT saying “the tail” is literally a snake or that it is one of those 3 grey NPCs from UT, when I say it’s a Gaster follower I mean that “the tail” serves Gaster, that it’s not an unrelated entity/character with completely different motives and affiliations, and that it led Kris and Dess to Gaster. This might be why the prophecy even calls it a tail in the first place: wherever the Devil goes, his tail follows. Keep that in mind, because the idea of a demonic entity vowing to serve some master might have been teased since Undertale, but I’m saving this for when we’ll go over who/what that tail really is. In any case, this tail being associated with snakes is probably why Kris is specifically linked to apples and why they can meet a man behind a tree: they were lured to the apple tree by the Devil’s tail.
Thus, we have two kids who entered a dark place and were supposedly led to Gaster. This is a big assumption and while I’ve established that they did enter the shelter, I’ve mostly used symbolism to defend the idea that they actually met Gaster, so let’s go over something more concrete that will back up this idea and give us an idea on what really happened to Dess: Entry number seventeen.
This entry has been a huge mystery for years now, but I believe we now have enough context to understand what it’s really about. Before looking into what’s written in the entry itself, I want to point out something that’s rarely mentionned: unlike all of Alphys’ entries which are just written entries, entry 17 is actually an audio entry as you can hear Gaster’s voice beep. This is huge, because it means that this is actually a recording made by Gaster. With that in mind let’s go over what he says. Entry 17 can be separated into three parts; the first part is Gaster taking notes of a phenomenon he’s observing:
“DARK, DARKER YET DARKER.
THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING.
SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER.
PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE”
Now that we have Ralsei’s explanations about dark worlds and dark fountains in chapter 3, it’s clear that whenever and wherever Gaster recorded this, he was doing exactly what ralsei talks about at the start of chapter 3 “And when the light runs out, you see nothing. Of course, your mind can’t make anything of nothing. But what if it became even darker? Darker than dark. What if we could take away the light that wasn’t there until we reached another side? You could start to see things again, and hear them, and feel them. That is the dark world”.
Gaster had created a dark fountain and was observing its effects. Entry seventeen is just a less intelligible way of explaining what happens when a dark world is made. And if Gaster made a fountain, it can only be the one inside the shelter, or the Grand Fountain since all the other fountains already have a confirmed creator. I’m of the mind that he created both of these fountains and because of timeline reasons which I will go over in a bit, the one being made in entry 17 is the shelter one, while the one inside the closet was made much more recently.
On to the second part of entry 17:
“THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS
VERY
VERY
INTERESTING”
Whatever this next experiment may be, it can’t be the creation of a dark fountain because it’s literally what the first part of entry 17 is about. The only additional clue we have is that this exact sentence appeared on the Deltarune website back in 2015 before eventually being changed to another message in wingdings, meaning whatever this next experiment is, it is tied to Deltarune and never had anything to do with Undertale. It’s pretty wild to think entry 17 was basically a Deltarune cutscene hidden in Undertale.
Now, let’s look at the last part:
“…
WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?”
Have you noticed how Gaster marks a clear pause in his speech with those ellipsis points, as if he was done talking? Not only does it further reinforce the idea that this is a recording, it also means he was going to end the recording with “VERY VERY INTERESTING”. It’s almost as if he noticed two individuals that overheard what he said, which prompted him to ask them about what they thought about all of this which comes off more as a snarky, slightly ominous remark than anything else. You probably see where I’m going with this: entry 17 is some sort of audio/cutscene (or maybe even a video recording obscured by the fountain's darkness) of Kris and Dess inside the shelter, finding Gaster in the middle of his experiment. You could object that the two people Gaster is talking to could be sans, papyrus, alphys… but keep in mind that this is a recording that takes place in the Deltarune universe, and if I’m right about it taking place during the shelter fountain’s creation and during the night of Dess’ disappearance, this is happening roughly seven years before the events of the game, whereas sans and his brother only moved to hometown shortly before chapter 1. Similarly, some of Alphys’ dialogues imply she hasn’t been living in hometown for that long, so none of these characters could have been present inside the shelter at this point in time.
Now that I’ve established that the shelter contains both a dark fountain and the tail of hell when Kris and Dess entered it, we can focus on its identity. As you might’ve guessed I don’t think that the tail is FRIEND and I don't even think FRIEND is an actual character.
If the tail serves Gaster and was located inside the shelter where we know a Dark world exists, then there is a high chance that it is a Darkner (which would also explain why it serves Gaster in the first place, as Ralsei explains in chapter 1, the purpose of a Darkner is to serve their Lightner). For now, we only had the chance to enter the 8-bit version of the shelter, so let’s look at what we have there: when 8-bit kris enters, they find themselves in a dark cave, and are eventually confronted by an entity that seemingly knows Kris. This entity is one of the most fascinating characters we’ve seen so far and I believe that it is what the prophecy refers to as “the tail of hell”. It has no canon name; its sprites simply refer to it as “shadow mantle” and its battle theme is called nightmare_boss_heavy.ogg in the game files. Despite the name of its sprites however, we know for sure that it is not literally the shadow mantle, considering this dialogue “that’s why you’re searching for them, aren’t you? The SHADOW CRYSTALs… and the SHADOW MANTLE that I’m holding!”, and the fact that you can make out a stand-up collar, which is probably part of the mantle, as well as its horns.
It is clearly some sort of obscured horned creature wearing the mantle. As such I will be calling that thing the shadow mantle holder (or just the holder for short) from now on. I believe that the holder is a darkner and the actual “tail of hell”. Speaking of, have you ever noticed the shape of the dungeon where we fight that thing?
It is literally the shape of a snake.
But if the holder is the tail, then where does FRIEND fit into all of this? Like I said earlier, I am convinced FRIEND is not an actual character and everything people pin on it is actually the holder’s doing. My reasoning for that is based on what we see during the fight: the holder literally creates not just one, but multiple FRIENDs during the battle, which to me is hard evidence that FRIEND isn’t its own character but merely an extension of the shadow mantle holder, acting as drones. The reason we’ve been seeing FRIENDS since chapter 2 is that the holder was keeping an eye on Kris this whole time and that “eye” takes the shape of the FRIENDs it’s been creating. You could think of FRIEND as the holder’s equivalent of Spamton’s pipis. Most likely, the holder is also the one who took the mantle from Seam : regardless of where the mantle came from (if you believe king’s cape is the shadow mantle, that cape flies off after the battle which means seam had the opportunity to collect it anyways), Seam is unable to find it in chapter 2 after you give them Spamton’s shadow crystal stating “did someone take it ?”, the holder would have a very good reason to steal the mantle, it knows Kris is looking for the crystals and seemingly wants to bring out Kris’ violent behavior. Since the mantle greatly increases their chance of getting it, it’s the perfect bait to lure them out which is exactly what happens in the sword route. However, you might see a problem with this. If the holder is a darkner that was created by the shelter’s fountain, how can it and its FRIENDS show up in other dark worlds, wouldn’t they have to be brought to these dark worlds ? And wouldn’t that mean the holder should have turned to stone in chapter 3? The answer I propose to these questions brings us closer to figuring out the holder’s real identity: It isn’t just any Darkner, it is the same type of Darkner as Ralsei. To back up this claim, let’s look at Ralsei’s unique properties.
Ralsei can somehow travel from his dark world to any dark world, and more importantly, seems to be compatible with any of them. His immunity to turning into stone isn’t outright explained so far, but I think we can make a good guess as to why that is based on what he says in chapter 2 “Each Dark fountain creates a different “world”, a “world” whose Darkners reflect the will of its fountain. But tough those Darkners can exist in their own worlds, they might not “belong” if they go to another one. [...] Castle Town’s Grand Fountain is made of pure darkness, as long as it stays flowing, any Darkner can live there.” If a world made of pure darkness allows any Darkner to live there (with the sole exception of Gerson Boom of course), and since we know that Grand Fountain is the one that gives form to Ralsei’s body, it stands to reason that a Darkner created by a Fountain of pure darkness would belong in any darkworld. He’s also one of the only characters that is aware of when you are on a weird route save and has different/additional dialogues showing that. Since the holder is the only other dark world entity we’ve seen so far that possesses all these traits, we can deduce that it also comes from a fountain of pure darkness. And if the holder was born from the shelter fountain, that means it has to be a pure dark fountain. All of this circles back to Gaster and why I said that I believe he created the shelter fountain and the grand fountain: All the fountains we’ve seen so far were “tainted” by their creator’s will and exposed non-native darkners to becoming statues. Who else would be able to create pure darkness fountains if not the one character that happens to be most associated with darkness, has an entire entry dedicated to it and who probably was the one who theorized and discovered the existence of dark fountains, thus being the one behind the only two fountains we don’t know the creator of?
But the similarities between Ralsei and the holder don’t even stop there
- While Ralsei initially wears the riverman hood to hide his identity, the holder wears the shadow mantle to do so.
-Both are horned creatures, both have fangs
-Both can use fire magic
-Both try to isolate themselves with Kris, Ralsei makes us close our eyes and think of Susie to talk to Kris without us hearing, while the holder stole the mantle from seam and elaborated the sword route in order to get to Kris
- Finally, both have ties to Gaster and consider that they have to fulfill their purposes: If you attempt to fight the knight without the mantle, Gaster specifically goes out of his way to inform you that “YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING IMPORTANT”, which shows that he wants you to do the sword route and interact with the Holder, who happens to give you a piece of armor that reduces damage from Dark and star attacks by precisely 66% (for the record, the SkyMantle, a similar armor that exists within the game but hasn’t been used yet, offers a 50% damage reduction against holy/electric attacks, which suggests that the specific 66% reduction was definitely intended). Additionally, the holder is the most likely candidate for being the “tail of hell” thus associating it with devil imagery, some of its dialogues put emphasis on fun (such as the hidden “having fun?” dialogue in the first sword route minigame, as well as how it asks “Is it fun, Kris? Playing around like this…”) and it also happens to always be smiling and laughing. These 3 elements have been well established as recurring motifs related to Gaster: The devil imagery, the FUN value and the entry 17 sound being named “smile.ogg” as well as the smile from the mystery man who, while not confirmed to be Gaster straight up, is still an entity that ties back to him. With that in mind, there is one more piece of evidence I’d like to mention and that ties back to what I was saying earlier about the idea of a demonic entity being someone’s servant: the S-room vending machine. This machine is often disregarded yet it has a pretty interesting detail, aside from the TV slop item, it also sells a SMILE (written in all caps). While getting it doesn’t do much aside from taking away one dollar despite the machine claiming it is free, it will become sold out once you defeat the 8-bit version of the holder, suggesting the real deal was hiding there and left, and most importantly the description you get before buying a SMILE reads “Always at your humble service.” which pretty much sold me on the idea that the holder is serving someone once I realized the SMILE was linked to the Holder, because the phrasing is eerily reminiscent of the “demon message” in Undertale’s strings : in case you didn’t know, when Undertale was released, Toby Fox had left a message for dataminers in the game’s strings, basically asking them to not post about whatever secret they may find by looking through the game’s files. This message was eventually changed in later versions of the game to this :
These dialogues read like someone receiving orders and vowing fidelity to someone. Additionally, in version 1.05A, there was additional text near a “demonx” that read “HE IS” which might be yet another ominous reference to Gaster that would further confirm that he’s the person being addressed by this “humble servant”.
These “demon messages” have been speculated to be from Chara, but now that we have a demonic, horned character who is tied to this strange vending machine that has very similar dialogues, I believe it makes much more sense for them to be pronounced by the Holder, a Darkner born from the shelter fountain, pledging allegiance to Gaster upon being created. While the idea of plot-relevant dialogue being first teased within the previous game’s code may sound silly at first, you have to consider that this isn’t the first time an in-game dialogue quotes something that was initially in undertale or deltarune’s code, for instance Spamton NEO’s description in the weird route “Time to wake up and taste the PAIN” is a quote from undertale’s unused/debug room 271 “La, La. Time to wake up and smell the pain”. With all of these elements, I think it is safe to say that the Holder is undeniably Gaster’s servant.
As for Ralsei, his ties to Gaster are much more indirect and speculative. I am not claiming that Ralsei knows who Gaster is or that he’s been working for him the whole time, I simply believe that because he is also a Darkner born from a pure darkness fountain and that the Lightner that made his fountain is Gaster, it would be a decent explanation as to why he felt like he had to always be smiling, or why he has innate knowledge about the rules of the world, the prophecy and the fact it was “foretold by time and space”. Basically, while the Holder seems to be directly taking orders from Gaster, I feel like Ralsei was born with his orders imprinted in his mind.
There are two more questions regarding these two that I’d like to tackle before moving on to the specifics of what Gaster did to Dess and Kris: if they were both born from one of Gaster’s fountain, why are they so radically different, why is Ralsei a goody-two-shoes whose almost too kind for his own sake while the Holder is such a violent and vicious being? And if they’re Darkners, what objects are they in the Lightworld? While it’s perfectly possible that the Holder and Ralsei are just pure darkness with no light world counterpart and that these questions isn’t vital for my theory, I do have an answer to propose. Thanks to Swatch, we know that when a Lightner pours strong emotions into an object, it becomes something powerful in the Darkworld, and we can also deduce that more generally, the Darkner an object becomes is shaped by how its owner felt about it as well as the stories they imagined for it (which explains why all the darkners we saw in chapter 1 to 3 match the identities Kris and Noelle made up for the objects they used when they were playing make believe). So, if the emotions associated with an object is part of what determines a Darkner’s personality, it means that whatever emotions/memories are tied to the object that turned into Ralsei have to be positive, while those tied to the object Gaster used to create the Holder are negative. Thanks to that, we can narrow down the possibilities.
For Ralsei, the best candidates I found are the green crayon that is missing in Kris’ house and of course, the red horned headband. The former doesn’t have much going for it aside from the fact it’s green and is supposedly important enough to the narrator’s eyes that it being missing is worth mentioning, while the latter fits all the criterions : We know from Toriel that Kris wore it for months when they were little, as such, it would be filled with positive feelings as it is both a token of a time Kris’ life was much happier, and also an object that allowed them to feel like they belonged in the Dreemurr family, which would explain why Ralsei looks like a Dreemurr, can use fire magic and why he’s so kind. We also know that it is missing since Toriel wonders “whatever happened to it?” and considering we cannot find it anywhere in the Lightworld for now, I believe that if Ralsei has a Lightworld counterpart, then this headband is the best candidate. I know that Kris’ knife is also a popular idea but as I will demonstrate when we talk about Toriel’s role in all this, I doubt Kris has positive feelings about it and they seem to carry it all the time, so how would Ralsei be able to be present in Kris’ pockets as a knife while also making changes to CastleTown between each chapter at the same time?
The holder is even more tricky, some people argue that since the door that leads into the Ice palace has red horns, it’s possible that the Holder is actually the headband. While it is a fair assumption, you would have to explain why Kris would pour negative emotions onto it. I personally have a second possibility with strong evidence to back it up: during the Spamton Sweepstakes we got secret pages that were each meant to tease something about future chapters. Now that chapter 3 and 4 have been released, we have an explanation for almost all of them. One of the only exceptions being the ice-e sighting page.
Based on Noelle's spelling and the fact that Dess was still present in Hometown, we can place the events being told here before the night of the Incident, maybe a few weeks or a few months earlier. Noelle talks about an Ice-e pizza box and says that she saw the Ice-e mascot printed on the box wink at her, which made her scared of the box, to the point where Dess tried to “kill” it, most likely as a way to reassure her sister. To do so, she apparently burned the box, specifically burning out the eyes of ice-e making it look evil. When Kris, Noelle, Dess and Asriel went to the graveyard to bury it, Kris scared Noelle using the box, prompting Dess to be violent with them, before throwing the box away. So, we have an ice-e pizza box that Noelle feared, believing it to be violent and evil, and these feelings were amplified with Kris scaring Noelle and Dess using violence on Kris. Besides all of these negative feelings being tied to that box, it was also never buried but thrown away instead. All of this happened in the graveyard, with the shelter being nearby, meaning there is a high chance that Gaster got his hands on that box, and given its history, it would be a great object to make a Darkner with. Considering the emotions associated with it were mostly fear and violence, and that its Lightner saw it as evil, it would explain nearly all the characteristics of the shadow mantle holder: it has horns to symbolize its wickedness and that it acts as Gaster’s servant, it can use fire because its Lightworld form was literally burned, the reason the Shadow mantle holder boss battle theme is called “BURNING EYES” could very well be because ice-e’s eyes were burned. But the connection between the Holder and ice-e don’t stop there : as people have pointed out, one of the sound effects that plays right before the battle is called ERAM which is MARE in reverse and thus a synonym for nightmare, and as I mentioned earlier, the BURNING EYES theme is called “nightmare_boss_heavy” in the files ; it being compared to a nightmare makes perfect sense if the object it was made from was feared but it also ties back to “Nightmare mode”. In case you don't know what nightmare, mode is, it’s a fun event that adds another character on the ice-e word jumble sans gives you in undertale
As you can see, this FUN event adds a snowman character called nightmare. This FUN event never really made much sense within the context of undertale, but now that we have Deltarune and this ice-e blog post, it seems like it was actually teasing the story of this pizza box. Moreover, if you pay attention to the words you’re meant to find in this word jumble, there are 3 sets of words: the words are arranged in three columns. In the first column, the four seasons represent the climate of the four regions featured in Undertale in the order they are visited. In the second column, the four words each describe one of the main bosses. The order is the same in both columns, so each season matches the boss from the same region. Meanwhile, the third one doesn’t make any sense at first glance, until you take Deltarune in consideration : in chapter two, one of the puzzles required to get one of the hacker’s blue checkmarks tasks you with spelling “giasfclfebrehber” Ralsei and Susie have some dialogue about that word revealing it’s just ICE-E’s catchphrase “Perhaps this isn’t a real word, Kris…” ; “Yes it is, it’s ICE-E’s catchphrase.” as for cig and cigars, Noelle mentions that when Dess burned the box, it smelled like “charcle pizza” (charcoal pizza) which can be compared to the smell of cigarettes or cigarette ash, while hot simply refers to the fact that the box was burned. With all of these elements, I believe we can make a fairly strong case in favor of the pizza box being the object that made the Holder. It also fits nicely into our timeline : at this point Kris and Noelle are small children, Dess isn’t missing, Gaster is doing research on darkness inside the shelter but hasn’t opened a fountain yet, he gets his hands on an object filled with strong, negative emotions which is perfect for the creation of the first ever Darkner; the night Kris and Dess enter the shelter, Gaster has finally managed to create the first fountain and the box turns into the first Darkner, a malevolent, demonic entity that vows to obey its creator. Meanwhile, Kris and Dess, get lost in the shelter’s newly created dark world, the Darkner lures them to Gaster who is already thinking about his next experiment.
4. The poor test subjects!
At this point, we know that during one night, seven years before the events of Deltarune, the first dark fountain was created inside the shelter by Gaster, the darkness spawned a malicious darkner that swore to serve him. On the same night, Kris and Dess entered the shelter and got lost inside. The darkner that had been created led them to Gaster, as he was recording his observations on the effects of the darkness and expressing his excitement regarding the next experiment. The way Gaster, a scientist, asks mere children with zero scientific background what they think of his next experiment imply they are going to be a part of it, almost as guinea pigs. So, what do I think this experiment was? I believe that just like Alphys; while doing research on a substance she called “Determination” ended up injecting it into people, Gaster used Darkness on Dess. Look at it from Gaster’s perspective: you have been studying darkness for a while, created a fountain and realized that it created a dark world, turning inanimate objects into darkners. Disregarding any form of morality, if using darkness on an object gives it life, what would happen if it was used on a living being? Moreover, considering that Toby Fox refers to Deltarune as “Undertale’s parallel story” it would make perfect sense to look for something similar to the true lab experiments: Gaster “injecting” Dess with Darkness, would be a direct parallel to Alphys’ experiments with determination only in reverse: Alphys initially injected monster people with determination, and then tried it on flowers, while Gaster initially used darkness on objects before using it on a child.
And if we follow that logic, since Alphys ended up creating Amalgamates, Gaster eventually created the Knight which I believe is a Dark Amalgamate. To prove my point, let’s first address the issue you may have with the idea of using Darkness on Dess: when is it established that what the game calls “darkness” can take the form of a physical substance? And the answer to that lies with the fact that Darkness is constantly being compared with water. I’m not going to go over every single instance to prove it, as there are A LOT of examples, I’ll simply give a few exemples : the background image used for the goner maker sequence and the dark fountains is a stock image of the ocean, and is called IMAGE_DEPTHS in the files, the dark fountains are literally fountains, the game even calls them geysers at some point, the shadow crystals’ darkworld description reads “a sharp shadow moves like water in the hand”. If shadows are like water, then they can take a liquid form which could be injected. But then, why am I saying this resulted in the creation of something similar to an amalgamate? First off, let’s focus on what the knight looks like: it has antlers that look similar to the holiday antlers, but most importantly it can shapeshift into a quadruped cervine form :
But while it has features associated with the holiday family, it also possesses some traits that are very similar to the mystery man such as these “holes” in its hands as well as an eerie smile, just like the Shadow mantle holder, and is directly tied to darkness itself. All of these things are thematically associated with Gaster. On top of that, the knight’ design is a nearly identical to the Titans that can be seen during the roaring cutscene in chapter 2. The Knight’s design is thus an amalgam of Titan-like features, Gaster imagery, and cervine elements unique to the Holiday family, similar to how the amalgamates in Undertale were amalgams of key features of different types of monsters.
The process that created the amalgamates and the effects of darkness on its surroundings are also nearly the same : Amalgamates came to be because the determination Alphys injected into her patients made them melt, in other words the outlines of their bodies blurred, and it formed these abominations, while in chapter 3 Ralsei explains that “when it gets dark, things become more indistinct” : Amalgamates are indistinct just like what happens when it gets dark, and I believe this is the point the game tries to make when it shows how the FRIEND we see in that cutscene is similar to endogeny
If you focus on the white part of endogeny, you see a dog-like creature, but if you focus on the black parts between its legs, you can see cat outlines. Meanwhile, FRIEND has the shape of a cat, but the outlines between its legs look more like dogs, which hammers how both creatures are indistinct. Shapeshifting is also a property that is shared between amalgamates and entities created with pure darkness: the knight can change into a ball and their quadruped cervine form while the holder takes on a bat-like form when it spews bombs, amalgamates can change into the battle warning indicator, pellets and even save points.
The main take away is that using pure darkness on something, or someone, will form a creature that is very similar to an amalgamate, the knight being what you get when you do that with a monster, and that this is what Gaster did to Dess. You may believe that the Knight is someone else, like Carol for example, but the rest of the theory will provide more concrete evidence to back up the idea that the Knight is its own entity, one that Dess was “reborn” as.
5. The sins of the Dreemurr family
Before we continue on Dess, we need to talk about what Gaster did to Kris. I actually don’t have strong evidence regarding this, as such I don’t want to waste much time speculating: Since Kris is the only human in hometown, meaning this is the only human soul Gaster would have easy access to, I believe he did something to their soul directly and that it was after this incident that Kris started doing things like ripping it off and putting it inside the bird cage. This would explain why the cage is already quite damaged in chapter 1 and why there is no particular sign of Kris doing anything like that in their early life (the heart-shaped pillow prank they did on Noelle was clearly just that, I see it more as ironic foreshadowing)
While I don’t have any solid lead on what Gaster did to Kris, there are interesting hints on what Kris did inside the shelter which actually gives us a general idea of where Toriel and Asgore fit into all of this. Then, I will demonstrate how their actions that night, coupled with what they saw Gaster do to Dess is the root of their trauma, which I will then use to further prove that Kris has been inside the shelter and that Dess has been used to create the knight (in case the entry 17 part wasn’t enough evidence for you).
The staring point actually lies within the last board of the sword route: As you explore this manhole dungeon thing, you eventually end up in this room, where a black monster is present and as you may already know, dataminers have found something interesting about this ennemy. I’m know almost nothing about coding, so I’ll just keep it simple. Basically, when the game loads in the sprite for that enemy, it doesn’t use the sprite you see when you enter the room, that sprite actually “replaces” this one :
This black deer is clearly meant to represent a member of the holiday family, and it can’t be Noelle since she’s already represented by the white cloak character. Which means this black deer can only be Carol, Rudy or Dess. This enemy also happens to be the only ennemy 8-bit Kris will kill themselves. On one hand, we have a deer associated with the color black, that Kris kills on their own and on the other hand, we have a deer family composed of four members, 3 of them are still present during the events of the game and none of them are associated with black, while the fourth one is missing and has never been seen in-game meaning we can’t rule out the possibility that it is associated with this color in some way, and we also have a black creature that happens to look like a deer. By process of elimination, I think the most likely candidate for who that black deer is meant to represent is Dess. But if Kris killed Dess as the sword route suggest, how can she also be the knight? I propose two interpretations, with interpretation B being the one that I feel is the most likely.
Interpretation A: the sword route is symbolic, and thus 8-bit kris killing the black deer with its sword is simply meant to represent the fact that Kris was able to run away from the shelter and leaving Dess to her fate. Considering she seemingly went missing after the fact, they would thus feel like they “killed” her, when in reality she was used as a test subject for Gaster’s experiments Interpretation B: the sword route is literal, meaning 8-bit Kris killing a black deer with their sword is meant to reveal that Kris used their knife to kill Dess when they were inside the shelter. This brings context as to why the shadow mantle holder tells Kris “Without play, the knife grows dull” : since it was present when it happened, it’s tormenting Kris over that (and since we had to do something similar to the 8-bit versions of Susie and Ralsei, the Holder’s sentence could also imply that Kris will be forced to do the same thing to their two closest friends that they did to Dess). This idea is reinforced by one of the chapter 4 egg room NPCs stating “Are you here for Art Club? Right, this is where we draw pictures and don’t kill each other”. Since there are many details that imply the egg plotline in general seem to be directly correlated with Kris’ trauma regarding the shelter incident, such as how the ticket to nowhere you need to get the chapter’s egg can be obtained from the gumball machine after you access the strange 1225 room that is obviously related to Dess, the fact we know from the PlayStation achievements that the eggs represent Kris’ “issues” and the chapter 4 egg room most likely being a reminiscence of Kris going to therapy in Hometown’s hospital to deal with the traumatic experience of that night in the forest, with Noelle and Asriel most definitely being the ones occupying the two other inaccessible hospital rooms. Them trying to draw what they saw that night but being so terrified that their drawing is just a monochrome smear, upon which they draw a tree is also another proof that the Man is the one who traumatized them, which only reinforced the popular idea that him and Gaster are one and the same. It would also explain why the motif of hands keeps showing up: when Kris washes their hands, the narration reads “You ran the water over your hands and dried them. Between your fingers, a faint grey crease glittered stubbornly. You can never wash it all away”. If interpretation B is correct, then that text is telling us that Kris killed someone with their own hands, and that they will never be able to wash off that sin. This is why they’re obsessed with bathrooms, and why they’ve been locking themselves inside them to repeatedly wash their hands. They feel immense guilt over what they did, it seems like they’d do anything to get rid of that “crease”… and if washing it doesn’t work then it explains why the game seems to be foreshadowing Kris losing one of their hands, mostly through chapter 1 shadow crystal’s vision that reads “For some strange reason, for just a brief moment, you thought you saw through your hand” as well as the narration you get in the 1225 room stating “It was a small, dark triangle. You tried to take it… but it slipped through your hand. And you couldn’t find it anymore. You couldn’t find you hand”
If the game is implying self-harm, then it’s also a possible explanation for that blood stain in Kris’ room. Maybe they thought that a cut on their hand could make the “crease” disappear. Of course, all of that symbolism would technically still work under interpretation A, it’s just not as strong as it is if Kris literally killed someone.
This is all well and good, but if interpretation B is correct, then Dess can’t be the Knight. At best, she would be another Darkner, similar to Gerson, one created from an object with monster dust sprinkled on it, meaning that the knight is someone else as it is able to open fountains and thus can only be a Lightner, right? But what if Dess and the holiday family are Boss Monsters? To my knowledge nothing in the game confirms or denies the idea thus far, and if Dess is a Boss Monster, then everything falls into place. Kris killed her, but her soul persisted, which is what Gaster used the Darkness on. Not only is this a nice parallel to what Alphys was initially trying to do with determination in the first place, allowing monster souls to persist after death as she explains in entry 3 and 6 : “And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans... The SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...”; “ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had fallen down. Their bodies came in today. They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject "determination" into them? If their SOULS persist after they perish, then... Freedom might be closer than we all thought”, this would give credit to what I suggested earlier, that what Gaster did to Kris had something to do with their SOUL specifically, meaning he tempered with the souls of both children. If I’m right about this, then it would be logical that next experiment he talks about would be about using darkness on souls, which is something Darkners don’t have. This might also be why the bird NPC one of the Gaster followers is based on and who’s behavior has become more and more bizarre as the game progressed seem so obsessed with the books, specifically those on the library’s second floor (and is also, ironically, the one preventing us from reading): Aside from “how to care for humans” all the books upstairs so far are about SOULS. Could it be that Gaster is somehow using that NPC to bring our attention to these books? Or to prevent us from realizing something about his true motives considering that NPC is also the one that has been limiting our access to these very same books?
There is one more crucial detail about the black deer in the sword route: the variable that causes this sprite to be replaced with the more standard monster sprite is actually called “Toriel”
So, in a way, “Toriel” is covering up the truth of “Kris” using its “sword” to kill a “black deer” by replacing it with something benign. If you replace all the elements by what they represent in reality: Toriel is covering up Kris killing Dess with their knife. And this realization is what allowed me to finally understand what the hell was going on in chapter two’s intro which everyone seems to gloss over. Chapter two opens with a scene where we only get to hear Toriel say the following “Kris ? Kris, honey… Are you awake ? …w… wait ! Is that a… a knife ?!! NOOOOO---”
I believe this scene is a flashback that takes place during the same night where the kids explored the forest, specifically, I think this is Kris coming back home after escaping from the shelter. Not only is the scene very similar to the one from Undertale, where after falling down in Waterfall, Frisk we get a flashback of Asriel meeting Chara, Toriel’s words imply it’s the first time she sees Kris with a knife, while she seems pretty casual about it in chapter 2. Her dialogue also confirms this took place during the night so as far as the chronology of events goes, it would fit nicely with my idea. With the added context of this “Toriel” variable, I think we can make a good case for the idea that she caught Kris holding their knife, maybe covered in blood, as they returned from the shelter, and chose to hide the truth to protect her child from the consequences. A questionable thing to do, but it definitely fits with her character. This event is probably what kickstarted her falling out with Asgore : as the chief’s police, he was most likely tasked with finding out what happened to Dess, and because she’s the daughter of his best friend, it’s no surprise he would obsess over solving the case even to this day. But Toriel knows that Asgore figuring out the truth would mean that both Kris and her would face severe consequences, and that Asgore is a man of Honor, driven by his unyielding sense of duty and that as much as it will pain him, he won’t do what Toriel did. I’m particularly confident with this idea since it is yet another parallel to their falling out in Undertale, that also involved the murder of children and a strong disagreement over a major moral dilemma. Furthermore, if Carol is supporting Asgore’s investigation, it also explains why she seems to have grown distant from Carol aswell, to the point where she won’t even say her name when talking with Rudy in chapter 4.
6. Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
What the theory states so far is that Kris has a severe trauma that relates to the night where they went inside the shelter with Dess, ended up in a dark world that had just been made by Gaster, where a vile Darkner, acting as Gaster’s servant, lured them to him. Gaster did something to Kris, supposedly to their SOUL, and they ended up killing Dess. As a Boss Monster, her soul persisted just long enough for him to use Darkness on it, as Kris was able to escape (or maybe they were allowed to, in exchange of something. Gaster IS the Devil after all; would he pass up the opportunity to force Kris to make a promise?). This was probably the moment they lost their horned headband, which would be another object gaster would be interested with for his experiments. When they returned home, Toriel realized they had seemingly killed someone and that Dess was missing, she decided to cover up the truth. Asriel, Noelle and Kris were all left deeply affected by this experience, and would attend Hometown’s hospital for therapy.
The results for Kris are… less than optimal, and their fear is what I’m going to use to provide more evidence for the fact they’ve been inside the shelter as well as figuring out what Gaster’s experiments led to, how he wasn’t just studying Darkness but also the space-time continuum itself and how that infamous “voice in the code” is undeniably Dess. I’m aware Dess being the one talking in the UNUSED text is a very common idea, but I feel like there is a lack of arguments being provided for this, we’ve all just kind of agreed to assume it to be the case. I will do my best to achieve this!
In case you didn’t know, there are a lot of ominous messages hidden in the game’s data, similar to the demon text from undertale. If you want more details about the stuff I’m going to be mentioning from now on, I have linked some of HalfbreadChaos’ videos on the matter at the end.
Let’s start with the “voice in the code”, this refers to a bunch of scripts found in the game’s files, there is one UNUSED script for each chapter and they seem to tell the story of an unknown character that seems to be stuck in a dark space:
As many people have pointed out, this UNUSED text seems to be quoted by Spamton in one of his shop dialogues “…can anyone hear me? Help…” which is another instance of in-game dialogue referencing something from the game’s code. What is often disregarded however, is the context in which Spamton suddenly starts quoting this text, which will actually be pivotal to understanding why he says that, who’s this voice in the code and how it even helps making sense of the other messages in the code besides UNUSED. You actually get this Spamton dialogue by choosing the “FEAR” dialogue option, and his full dialogue reads “WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF??? ACCORDING TO [[Encyclopedia of]] [[Being Afraid]] THERE'S NOTHING TO FEAR EXCEPT ... can anyone hear me? Help... HUH??? WHAT?? NO, I DIDN'T HEAR ANYTHING JUST NOW!!! ... BUT IT SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE TALKING TO YOU.” This added context sheds a new light on this strange piece of dialogue, Spamton is telling Kris what they are afraid of, which prompts him to quote the UNUSED text, before specifying that the voice was talking to Kris. This strongly suggests that the story being told in the UNUSED text and the character speaking are directly tied to Kris’ fear, meaning this somehow relates to their Shelter trauma, which fits nicely with what we’ve established so far. Let’s focus on the UNUSED text itself now and let’s look for details that could hint at who this person is and what happened to them. The first part is very similar to what Asriel, posing as Toriel, describes of his experience before being reborn as Flowey “Where am I…? It’s so cold here… And so dark… Someone help me… Anyone… please… Help me…” while the fourth part tells us that they don’t eat or drink. This strongly implies that whatever is going on, they aren’t just a normal person trapped somewhere, it seems they are in a strange in-between state between life and death. In the fourth part, they also mention late night-TV and breakfast. While this detail is sometimes used to rule out Dess since it sounds more like a typical morning for a Dreemurr, considering how close the two families were, it’s just as likely that she’s talking about sleepovers at their house. Another detail that sets their case apart from Flowey, is the scratching noise they hear, meaning that they are still conscious and to some extent, aware of their surroundings. So, we are dealing with someone experiencing something similar to what Flowey went through before being reborn, who’s also aware of the sounds around them. Earlier, I suggested that Dess could’ve been reduced to a soul, and injected with Darkness to allow it to persist. This UNSUED text would be a good description of how this process would look like to Dess, after all we know from Undertale that even when their bodies have been destroyed, the SOULs are still aware and retain their memories, this is why they answer our call for help against omega Flowey and eventually rebel against him when he starts torturing Frisk, why we are able to save the Monster souls by making them remember everything during the true pacifist final boss battle.
But what are the scratching sounds? And if Dess is the voice in the code, how can she also be the Knight? Considering Dess is being used by Gaster as a test subject, I think it’s highly likely that the scratching noise is Gaster taking notes, silently observing the effects of Darkness on Dess. I believe that’s what this UNUSED text is, Gaster’s notes. This would explain why unused is written in all caps, but also why Dess is both the knight and the UNUSED voice. The stuff described in UNSUED isn’t happening in parallel of the game’s event, these are written records of Gaster’s next experiment. You could almost say they are the follow-up entries to entry 17. This would also explain why the person behind the scratching isn’t answering Dess’s call for help: to Gaster, this would be an experiment, a way to find out what effects Darkness can have on the soul. Eventually, the voice’s mental state starts to deteriorate because of the dark, they lose track of time, implying it could very well have been years since they’ve been in there (which once again fits nicely with our timeline, Dess has been missing for seven years, and her transformation into the Knight wasn’t instantaneous which would explain why it only started acting shortly before the game started) and start to be irrationally grateful to the one behind the scratching “This sounds crazy, but even though no one can hear me, when I hear that noise, I feel like someone's listening. Anyone, if you're there... thank you”.
Someone’s mind slowly being broken by an unseen entity that is listening to them, and who says “thank you” to that entity… This is clearly meant to draw a parallel between what Gaster supposedly did to Dess and what we do to Noelle in the weird route: we both are unseen entities that are always listening “It’s rude to talk about someone who’s listening”; “Who…? Who’s going to hear?” We slowly break their mind until eventually, we turn them into obedient weapons. This is evidenced by how Noelle says the same thing as the UNUSED voice when we choose to think of her in chapter four: “Thank you.” This would make a nice parallel between Gaster/Dess and Us/Noelle and it also explains why Gaster’s dialogue at the end of chapter 4 doesn’t change in the weird route. He’s done the same thing we did; these are acceptable methods to him. The idea that being lost in darkness will eventually break your mind is visually alluded to in the Roaring cutscene and carries on to the Knight. Look at the human’s stance and notice how the knight’s position before they roar is nearly identical with the way they are both clutching their head with their hands, as if their minds were suffering:
Thus, I believe the Knight is a “Dark amalgamate”, a creature born from Dess (more specifically her soul) merging with Darkness. A couple questions remain regarding the Knight: Is it acting on instinct or is it intelligent, and what are its motives? I believe it’s pretty obvious that the Knight has some form of intelligence, they laugh at Susie’s words in chapter 4 and they nod when Kris coughs, meaning they understand words and cues. It also has the intelligence to hide or stay out of view whenever necessary, if we assume that it was hiding in the church’s closet and that it is the hand that pushes back Kris in the last prophecy room (which would be another clue in favor of Dess Knight, since a guitar sound is meant to be playing during this interaction). Furthermore, unlike Gaster’s, the fountains it creates aren’t pure darkness, and its dark worlds are filled with elements from Dess’ past or Kris and Noelle’s childhood: seam who’s apparently based on some sort of cat character Kris and Asriel made on their laptop, the baseball moon, the smiling plugs, the puppet scarf that feels like guitar strings, or the ribbons that look familiar according to Noelle. There’s also the fact that the knight’s fountain was able to make specific enough darkness to bring back Gerson as a Darkner, which would be possible for Dess as she probably had him as a teacher when she was younger. As for her motives and why she hasn’t caused the Roaring, thanks to the parallel with the weird route it becomes clear that the Knight has no motives aside from serving Gaster, as such, it’s most likely assisting him with his Dark Fountain experiments. After all, unlike the tail of hell, the knight is technically still a Lightner, it can thus make its own fountains. This would provide a fairly solid explanation as to why it tried to abduct Toriel, why it took Undyne to the shelter, and why it opened a fountain inside the church. All of these things would help satiate the questions a man experimenting with Dark Fountains would ask himself: What happens if we use Darkness on an object covered with monster dust? What would happen if we used it on another type of Boss Monster? What would happen if the one monster that managed to achieve a formidable transformation using Determination was injected with Darkness instead?
Now that we’re done with UNUSED, let’s look at the other strange texts that can be found in Deltarune’s files, the error handler text. There are quite of lot of them, so i've divided them into diffent categories for clarity’s sake.
The “Repressed narration category”:
This category includes the following sentences
Based on my interpretation of the demon text and UNUSED, it looks like we have a pattern of text related to the Shelter Incident being hidden in the game’s code. This, coupled with the fact Kris’ trauma was caused by this Incident, leads me to believe that these messages are hidden in the game's code as a way to symbolize how Kris is repressing their memories of what they saw inside the shelter. As such, these bits of text would be narrative flavor text of what Kris saw/felt when they explored the place. This would imply that the blueprints for the broken machine from sans lab, are inside the shelter considering the error handler text is nearly identical to the narration we get when we check the blueprints in Undertale. This would further support the popular idea that these blueprints were made by Gaster. The other messages could almost be put in their own sub category because of they seem to describe a fight-or-flight response “It could not be” “Your eyesight became blurry” “Your heartbeat quickened” “Suddenly, you body seizes up. What are you looking at ?” which makes sense if these are what Kris remembers of their encounter with Gaster. These messages can even be used to tie the Knight into all of this because some of the flavor text during their fight is almost identical
Here are the flavor texts similar to “Your heartbeat quickened” :
"Kris held their breath. their heartbeat quickened"
"Your chest feels tight"
"Your heartbeat becomes twisted"
As for “Your eyesight became blurry” one of the flavor texts during the fight reads "Your vision narrows"
These details could imply that the Knight’s presence is making Kris’ repressed memories resurface, linking it even more closely to Kris’ trauma.
The “Gaster Poems” category
These are 3 error handler messages that rhyme when put together, forming some kind of poem. As many have pointed out, it seems to describe the Mystery man's face "Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye?"; "The gash weaves down as if you cry"; "The pain itself is reason why"
As such, this text seems to be specifically about motifs related to Gaster: Pain, the Mystery Man, and rhyming. Indeed, the two other major instances where we find rhymes are in parts of the Prophecy itself (which was likely written by Gaster) and in the speech of one of Gaster’s followers
Now that we’re done with the error handler text, we can focus on the flavor text you get when fighting Echidna aka G BODY. This is something pretty obscure, so in case you don't know what I’m talking about, I once again recommend checking HalfbreadChaos' video on the matter, they explain what this enemy is way better than I could.
In any case, if you somehow start a battle with this enemy, you will get the following flavor text "You've come again to this wonderful place. Now tear off the mask beneath your face!"
This is yet another text that rhymes and this one also uses the adjective “wonderful” which is one of Gaster’s favorite words (it keeps coming back in his tweets, and is also used multiple times in the Goner maker sequence). The text also states that whoever is being addressed has already been in a the “wonderful place” it mentions. Considering all these elements, I believe it is directed to Kris, and that we will most likely see it in-game when we enter the shelter, either from Gaster himself or from the shadow mantle holder, this message seems to be particularly in-character for the latter. The forgotten man also seems to vaguely allude to this place and the strange “Now, tear off the mask beneath your face!” thing in his chapter 3 dialogue “IF YOU WILL IT, WE SHALL MEET AGAIN AT THAT PLACE”; “SO TAKE YOUR TIME, WASH YOUR FACE, AND GET DRESSED!” as well as his Valentine letter “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT”. Overall, this text is another piece connecting Kris, their trauma, Gaster, and the Shelter.
Now that we’re done with the first part of this theory, let’s sum everything up
One night, Asriel, Kris, Noëlle and Dess explored the forest past the graveyard. Using the code she stole from her mother, Dess opened the Shelter, wanting to go inside. But because Noëlle was scared, only Dess and Kris, the two more adventurous kids of the bunch, went inside while Asriel stayed outside watching over Noëlle. At the same time, Doctor W.D. Gaster, a scientist that had been doing researches on Souls and Darkness, managed to open the first ever Dark Fountain, creating a Dark world inside the shelter. The Darkness had also created the first ever Darkner from a burnt pizza box Gaster had retrieved nearby a few weeks before. Because of the negative emotions and memories poured into that box however, the Darkner was particularly malicious. It became Gaster’s humble servant, promising to follow him to the utmost, figuratively making it the “tail of hell”. Kris and Dess, who were lost inside the shelter's dark world, were then brought to Gaster by the tail. As he was recording his observations, he came up with a new experiment: He would use Darkness on living beings. Amidst the chaos of this terrifying encounter, Kris, perhaps after Gaster tempered with their soul, making them able to be controlled by someone else, stabbed (or was forced to stab) Dess. Gaster used this opportunity to use Darkness on her boss monster soul, saving it from destruction. (It’s possible that this is the point where Kris made that infamous promise. A deal with the Devil, in exchange for Dess’s salvation. They would agree to let their soul be controlled, and follow instructions, in exchange for Gaster’s help. Using Darkness, he would save Dess. This might be what “the promise in our hearts” refers to assuming don’t forget is sung by Dess). Either way, Kris make it out of the shelter, losing their headband in the process. When they returned home, Toriel caught them with the Knife they used to stab Dess, and decided to hide the truth to protect her child. Asgore on the other hand, would become obsessed with finding Dess, which would cause a falling out between him and Toriel, leasing to their divorce. Kris would remain deeply traumatized by that night, and they would go on to struggle with their own soul, as well as with an immense feeling of guilt over what happened. They would resort to self-harm, and would try to repress any memory of what they saw. Meanwhile, in the shelter, Dess merged with Darkness itself, would slowly break because of the dark. After many years, she would end up completely subjugated to the one behind the scratching noises, Dr. Gaster. She would be reborn, not as Dess, but as a amalgamation of Darkness, of traits inherited from her newfound master, and remaining features of the rowdy girl she once was. With the previous experiment being conclusive, Gaster created another pure Dark Fountain, this time inside the school's closet. Using the headband he took from Kris, another special Darkner was created, Ralsei. This one would have the same unique properties as the tail of hell, but because the object that was used to make him was filled with positive memories and feelings, he would have a nearly opposite personality. Ralsei would be born with innate knowledge about the rules of the world and its Prophecy, he would be completely dedicated to its purpose: carrying out the Prophecy, or as chapter 4 puts it, “recording the fate”, acting as a control case for Gaster’s next experiments.
PART 2 : ANOTHER DELTARUNE
This theory was originally supposed to end there, but it still felt like I was missing something. Where does the Prophecy fit into this? What’s going on with the Forgotten man? Why is he so different and yet so similar to Gaster? What about the FUN events and all that Gaster stuff from Undertale? If Alphys' determination experiments are a parallel to Gaster's experiments, shouldn’t there be a point where his experience go wrong? Eventually, it clicked. If Gaster kept experimenting with Dark Fountains, and if FUN events are actually telling parts of Deltarune’s lore, then this Gaster follower dialogue takes on a whole new meaning:
What if Gaster’s experiments going wrong wasn’t something that happened in Undertale, but in Deltarune?
In this second part, I’m going to develop an explanation that will hopefully bring us closer to understanding what the deal with Gaster is.
Here’s the gist of it: I believe that the voice we hear in chapter 1’s intro and the Forgotten man are both Gaster, but unlike what most people believe I don’t think one is from Deltarune and one is from Undertale. I believe that they’re both from Deltarune, except the Forgotten man is from a “failed” timeline, one where we, the player, weren’t present.
In this timeline, the heroes failed to stop the knight, and Gaster’s experiments unwillingly caused the Roaring, dooming the world to eternal darkness. However, aside from his experiments with Darkness and similarly to Alphys, Gaster had also been studying alternate universes, and discovered the existence of the Undertale universe, his reports showed that an anomaly was messing with this universe’s timelines. Gaster thus planned to travel to this universe with the objective of bringing the anomaly to the Deltarune universe, using its powers to change the inevitable fate he had created for his universe, correcting his failing experiment into a success.
Using the blueprints he had designed, and with the help of two men he met some point after his experiments went wrong, these men being sans, who had been studying quantum physics, and his little brother, who excelled in creating complex machinery that he usually used to create puzzles, Gaster was able to complete a machine that could achieve space-time travel. During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, and while sans and his brother were able to make it to their destination, Gaster ended up in the past, long before the anomaly’s arrival. With the machine broken and its creator missing, sans and his brother had no choice but to accept Undertale as their new home. As for Gaster, seeing he ended up in a point in time too far from the anomaly, decided to leave hints about him that would arouse the anomaly’s curiosity. Thanks to his scientific background, he was hired by King Asgore as the Royal Scientist. He eventually built the CORE, and used it to create GONERs, these creatures would tell bits of information about Gaster and events from his home world in order to make sure the anomaly would look for him. Having left all these breadcrumbs, Gaster vanished as suddenly as he appeared, once again crossing time and space to return to the Deltarune universe as the Forgotten man, a being shattered across time and space. Now experiencing time in reverse, he eventually met his own, non-shattered self. The Forgotten man told Gaster what had happened to him, said events would form The Prophecy as well as the existence of the anomaly. With this knowledge, Gaster created the SURVEY_PROGRAM, before contacting the anomaly that had been looking for him. Using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect it to the Deltarune world, this Gaster’s goal is to use our power to create a new future. Not out of any desire for good, or evil. But because this would certainly be the most interesting experiment he ever conceived.
I know this all sounds completely crazy, but let me go over the evidence.
The failed Deltarune
I believe this is a good way to start this crazy part so let’s go over everything that implies the events of Deltarune have somehow already happened once before. Our first main clue comes from the Legend and Roaring cutscenes. Both of these are told through sepia-colored screens, which in both Undertale and Deltarune, they’ve only ever been used to tell flashbacks, which implies that one way or another, the roaring and the prophecy have already happened once.
Speaking of the Roaring, let’s pay attention to how it’s described. Ralsei tells us in chapter 2 that it is an event that ends with the world being plunged in a never-ending night, which will start “when the fountains fill the sky”. What Ralsei is saying is that when darkness fills the sky, the Roaring will start, leading to the eternal night. This is very similar to what Gaster says when you choose to give up upon getting a game over “THEN THE WORLD WAS COVERED IN DARKNESS” and on top of that, the theme that plays (which also happens to be 66 seconds long) is called “DARKNESS FALLS”. So, when the end of the world happens, Darkness fills the sky, before falling from it, covering up the entire world. As I’ve explained before, Darkness and water are thematically the same thing, so Darkness falling from the sky is the same thing as saying water falls from the sky, which is called raining. But if darkness is water, does that mean it can exist in the two other primary states of water: gaseous and solid? Turns out it absolutely does: the dark fountains literally make smoke, while darkness has been associated with coldness on multiple occasions: Earlier, I quoted Flowey posing as a deceased Toriel, specifying that everything was dark and cold. Furthermore, just before Gaster took over the UT/DR X account, we got this tweet.
The reason I’m establishing a link between darkness and cold/ice is because of this prophecy panel:
This panel ties back to the idea of darkness falling from the sky, except it uses snowflakes. But considering the panel doesn’t use the term “snow” but specifically “cold water” and how darkness has been established to be cold, we can safely assume that Darkness, water, cold and ice all refer to the same general idea. Therefore, if darkness falling from the sky refers to the end of the world, the fact Gaster immediately says that this is what happens as a consequence of us, the player, choosing to give up means that he already knows that without us, the Roaring will not be stopped. This further suggests the existence of a playerless timeline that ended up in failure, and gives context as to why he says that he aims to “CREATE A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU” and how we apparently need each other. Another element that supports this idea is the first sentence from the Forgotten man in chapter 3 “WELL, SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER, AND SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD.” have you ever wondered what this sentence was supposed to mean? He initially goes from spring to summer, nothing strange there, but then, not only does he skip fall, he says COLD, not winter. The choice to use the world cold feels deliberate. He’s not talking about the passing of seasons; he’s talking about what happened in his failed timeline. One of the few things we know about Deltarune’s time period is that the game’s events are set around the end of spring/the beginning of summer since Asriel is meant to come back to hometown next week for his college vacation, and Kris has the search query “summer vacation college when” inside their cyber world room. SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER thus refers to the events of the game, while SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD means that the world ended up covered in darkness. As we’re going to see in a moment, the forgotten man seems to experience time in reverse, most of the things he says are either in reverse or out of order, but this sentence is one of the only times he follows the normal flow of time. If this man has been travelling through space and time, it makes sense he would struggle to keep track of everything, but would recall the events of his original timeline in a normal order.
Finally, let’s look at this quote from the Forgotten man’s valentine letter: “AS YOU ARE WAITING PATIENTLY, THE TIME IS GOING AROUND”. The correct expression would be “time is going by” to suggest the passing of time, but here, the Forgotten man says that it’s “going around” almost like time is repeating itself. To my knowledge, he is the only character that has suggested this so far. I know that there have been theories that Deltarune is stuck in a never-ending time loop, but I don’t think that is what’s going on, I think this is rather signaling time is repeating from his perspective. After all, if the forgotten man is from a failed timeline, everything leading up to the game’s ending is just a repetition for him. Furthermore, if he’s experiencing this new timeline in reverse after reaching “the end” of his own timeline, he is quite literally going around through time.
2. Space-time travelers
Now that I’ve established the existence of a failed timeline, let me demonstrate how Gaster, with the help of sans and his brother, was able to escape the fate he brought upon his own world, and how he became the forgotten man. Small heads up before I go on though: since I’ll be referring to two different Gasters, I’ll use “Forgaster” (Forget + Gaster) for simplicity to describe the one who came from the failed timeline, went to Undertale, and returned as the Forgotten Man. I’ll keep “Gaster” for the one who appears to be speaking to us on social media and in the goner maker sequence.
Forgaster ended up creating an unavoidable fate for everyone in the Deltarune universe, with no means to stop it. So, what could he do? Like I implied earlier, I have reasons to believe Gaster was aware of the existence of Undertale and had been researching that universe, on top of his Darkness researches. Even alphys, who’s researched primarily focused on determination and MTT is confirmed to have been studying alternate universes based on this dialogue you get for answer “Nobody” to the final question of MTT’s quiz “Hey, I’ve done research about this! There are alternate universes out there!” so the idea that Gaster would also do this as a side gig isn’t out of the question. Furthermore, I established that the blueprints for the broken machine in sans’ lab were most likely in the shelter. Finally, during his fight, sans states that “our reports have shown a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting. Until suddenly, everything ends” what “reports” is he talking about? This guy sells hotdogs for a living; how would he have the means of producing a scientific report? This dialogue, is sans admitting he has a scientific background, and based on the books we find in his undertale house, or how he makes a joke reference to the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, it’s pretty clear that his field of research is quantum physics. The fact he specifies “our reports” means he didn’t do this research alone. While his colleague could be Alphys, the fact she never shows any knowledge about what is going on with the timelines in Undertale disproves the idea. I think it’s far more likely in light of everything we know today, that sans somehow met Forgaster at some point. These reports are what allowed them to learn of the existence of the anomaly (which is just how sans refers to what fans tend to call “the player”) and come up with the idea of luring it to Deltarune to change fate. After all, an anomaly that has the power to rewind time and exert complete control on timelines would’ve been seen as a godsent in their situation. Sans’ brother’s involvement in this is rather speculative, but if this brother really is Papyrus, then it throws a few wrenches in the next part of my theory which is basically me agreeing with the “sans undertale is the same as sans deltarune” but I’ll address these in due time. If Papyrus was involved, I doubt he took part in the whole time-space research. At best, I think it’s more likely that he helped build the machine, seeing how undertale implies that his knowledge of machinery is rather impressive, judging by the complex books on puzzle creation on his bookshelf.
In any case, this machine is definitely how sans and papyrus ended up in undertale, but I also think that it’s the reason for Papyrus being so lost and naïve as well as what caused Forgaster being shattered across time and space. Let’s go over the major evidence in favor of “sans is from deltarune”
The first clue implying that sans and Papyrus do not originate from Undertale (and by extension, the idea of an Undertale counterpart for Gaster being incorrect) actually comes from what the snowdin shopkeeper tells us about them “There’s two of ‘em. Brothers, I think. They just showed up one day and… asserted themselves”. The way they just suddenly appeared out of nowhere would make sense if they arrived there thanks to the machine. As for Forgaster, the riverman has one dialogue that was always believed to be about him “Beware of the man who speaks in hands” seeing how Deltarune has been bringing back this hand motif with the knight most notably, and how the Wingdings font uses multiple hand signs, this is a fair assumption. However, there is another line from the Riverman that is nowhere as iconic as the previous one, and that was always harder to connect to Gaster “Beware of the man who came from the other world”, back when we only had Undertale, there wasn’t much to suggest this had anything to do with him, aside from how both sentences used a similar structure and mentioned a man. But thanks to what we learned in Deltarune and what I’ve established so far, this sentence makes a lot more sense. The riverman is telling us that a man came from another world that he doomed because of his experiences, and is trying to lure us in order to take advantage of our power. Besides that, one of Gaster’s followers states that “one day, he vanished without a trace” which sounds like the inverse of sans and papyrus: while the two brothers suddenly appeared out of nowhere one day, Forgaster appears to have suddenly disappeared. I’m not exactly sure if him vanishing is alluding to when he returned to the Deltarune universe, or if the follower is talking about how he escaped from the failed timeline thanks to the machine.
Sans also has dialogues that sound a bit nonsensical if you only consider Undertale, especially during the hangout at MTT resort, and during his fight.
“Your journey’s almost over, huh? You must really wanna go home. Hey, I know the feeling, buddo. Though maybe sometimes it’s better to just take what’s given to you. Down here you’ve already got food, drink, friends… is what you have to do… really worth it?”
There’s the obvious fact he says he wants to “go home”, but even if we disregard that and chalk it up to sans meaning he wants to go back to the surface, he seems to be projecting a bit in this scene. Him stating that Frisk already has food and friends in the underground sound like what he’s been telling himself to cope with the fact he’s stranded in a world that’s not his own. Going off of that, the way he asks if what we have to do is really worth it could also be him implying he came here with a goal, supposedly getting the anomaly, and wonders if it’s really worth it. It’s not like he’d have a way back anyway. These doubts might also partly explain why he prioritizes the promise he made to Toriel over his desire (or his mission) to kill us, especially if the two were close in Deltarune.
As for his desire to go home, he outright confirms he’s not talking about the surface during his fight “Look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago. And getting to the surface doesn’t really appeal anymore, either” Moreover, the theme that plays during that scene is called “It’s raining somewhere else” and in Chapter 4, we got to hear a very similar track called “The place where it rained”. I’ve already showed that darkness and water are the same thing thematically, and that the world of deltarune ended with Darkness (water) falling from the sky, covering everything. Figuratively, you could say that the end of the world is represented by rain. With that in mind, the name of these two tracks can not only be interpreted differently, they also respond to each other: He knows that while he’s stuck in undertale, darkness is still falling from the sky in his home world, that’s why the track uses the present continuous, it’s raining somewhere else. And thus, the track from Deltarune not only tells us what this “somewhere else” is, it also alludes to the existence of the failed timeline, it tells us that the world of deltarune is the place where it rained. The use of past tense is significant, because it doesn’t make sense from our perspective as players, since the roaring hasn’t happened yet, but it does for someone who came from Forgaster’s failed timeline or who simply knows what happened
As for Papyrus, we have this dialogue from the Fangamer Q&A:
Considering there isn’t really any spot with green grass in the Underground, this is a huge hint because it means Papyrus may also be from Deltarune. But it poses a few problems: why does sans state his brother never saw any human? Why does he appear to be a shut-in type of person in Deltarune when his personality in Undertale is the exact opposite of that? Considering his supposed Deltarune memories seem a bit hazy, I believe what’s being implied here is that Papyrus either suffers from amnesia/cognitive issues or trauma (maybe a mix of both). The reason why I believe that lies with the fact the machine is broken. It implies it malfunctioned when it was used by Forgaster, sans and papyrus when traveling to Undertale. If the machine was built in a hurry, as the Roaring was happening, then we have a pretty good explanation for why it happened. It seems like sans was able to make it out in one piece, however Papyrus’s mind seemingly suffered from it, while Forgaster was unaccounted for. If Papyrus has trouble remembering things, then that’s something he has in common with the Forgotten man. What if this is because their memory issues have the same origin? Considering sans seems fairly depressed over his situation, I guess this would explain why he seems to purposely interrupt the Q&A: he’s preventing his brother from remembering what happened so that he won’t suffer from it. This is a solid explanation for why the Forgotten Man speaks in a way that is very similar to Gunter’s, but not quite identical: Forgaster speaks like someone who was shattered across time and space, while Gaster is just normal. This also implies that the trip from Deltarune to Undertale was the moment when Forgaster was shattered. That makes perfect sense: what machine would have the potential to shatter someone across time and space without it coming from nowhere, if not a device literally designed to travel between dimensions and timelines? Perhaps this really was what one of the Gaster followers meant when he said that “he fell in his creation”. It would have the added bonus of confirming that the idea that he fell into his own creation and the fact that he was broken refer to the same thing, which would be nice since it simplifies things for us.
Thanks to all these elements, it also becomes clear that all of the main characters from Undertale have a Deltarune counterpart, with the exception of sans, Papyrus and Gaster. In other words, Forgaster discovered a world similar to his own, but in which he didn’t exist.
“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same… Except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you… Ha, ha… the thought terrifies me”
I’m positive this is what the goner kid was talking about all along, they embody Forgaster’s feelings upon making that discovery. More generally, Goner kid seems to reflect his fear and his sadness, the more human side of a man who has otherwise been horrifyingly cold to everyone who ever crossed his path so far. This last bit is more speculative, but I wonder if their dialogue when we bring them an umbrella is meant to give us some insight into how Forgaster might have felt some fort of guilt or grief about causing the roaring “An umbrella? But it’s not raining. You know, that does make me feel a little better about this. Thank you. Please forget about me” especially since Forgaster has a strange dialogue if you answer no when he asks if you want to meet him again “WELL. I’M STARTING TO REALIZE WHY I WAS FORGOTTEN” I’m probably reaching hard here, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s implying, he was forgotten as punishment for what he did to the people in Deltarune. Food for thought, I guess.
3. I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
We’ve covered what happened to sans and papyrus, but what became of Forgaster after he was shattered? His story pretty much goes on accordingly to what the followers tell us from this point on. He ended up in the past, long before the events of Undertale. Since the anomaly had not yet arrived, the only thing left to do was setting up the baits that would allow him to lure it into Deltarune. He became the Royal scientist, most likely worked in the true Lab and eventually built the CORE. According to Alphys, it converts geothermal energy into magical electricity, and powers the entire underground. Before Forgaster built this structure, monsters seemingly had no access to electricity and used primitive light sources as revealed by one of the signs in Waterfall “Without candles or magic to guide them Home, the monsters used crystals to navigate”
The signs inside the CORE have a very similar interface to the one we see for the save file menu in chapter 1, which isn’t surprising since both were made by the same person. The way these signs are written are similar to how Gaster speaks, using vague and drawn-out expressions “Traverse the northern room, and the end will open”. Another sign reads “North, the warrior’s path, West, the sage’s path. Any path leads to The End” which is a hint on how the player can reach the last room of the CORE, you can either solve a puzzle (the sage’s path) or cross a bridge where you’ll have to fight powerful enemies in order to reach a switch (the warrior's path). The way the CORE is designed is almost an allegory for Deltarune: regardless of whether you choose to use violence or to avoid fighting, you reach the same end either way. This is further reinforced by what we see when we reach “The End” of the CORE:
A room with an effigy of the Angel on top of its entrance.
Another sign reads “I cannot fight. I cannot think. But, with patience, I will make my way through” while this initially appears like another hint for the player to help them cross the laser room, the fact this sign was made by Forgaster could also apply to his situation after being shattered. He’s the only one with battle stats but no boss fight, and the Forgotten man has cognitive issues judging from his dialogues. The second part of the quote is also interesting, because both Gaster and Forgaster keep talking about they have been waiting for a long time. I believe this sign supports the idea that Forgaster was left in a fairly bad state after his machine incident and that “making his way through” might be about making his way through Undertale specifically, setting up baits for the anomaly before returning to Deltarune. Even then, he’d still have to wait for the anomaly to arrive and find the breadcrumbs he left.
But does the CORE have anything to do with this plan? After all, it’s just a power plant, isn’t it?
This is what Alphys thinks, but let’s look at the other room where the Angel symbol appears:
See these pillars that appear all throughout the CORE? They’re called “spr_darknesstotem” in the game files. How could there be advanced darkness technology inside the CORE if the Gaster that built the CORE was from Undertale? Nothing in Undertale suggests Darkness technology was developed, the only exception being entry 17 but as I’ve established, this is from Deltarune. This might be the best evidence to back up the claim that “Undertale Gaster” was always from Deltarune, because if the man who built the CORE is the man who came from the other world, he would have the knowledge necessary to make these totems. But what could be the use for these totems? Well, have we ever seen something similar? A machine that uses Darkness to make something? If we had seen one, we could assume that the CORE might have a secret functionality that would be similar. And it turns out we have: the Goner maker device. It uses darkness as suggested by the IMAGE_DEPTHS background, when said image appears, we clearly hear the sound of a machine booting up, and this is the part where we create a goner. This is the actual reason Forgaster built the CORE, it wasn’t about helping monsterkind, it was about making goners that would relate the events of Forgaster’s failed timeline. They would be the bait that would help lure out the anomaly, as only a being that has the power of RESET could eventually find all of them. One more element in favor of the CORE having a secret “goner maker” feature lies with the fact all goners are grey and the infamous “COPIES ARE MONOCHROME” quote. Goners are grey, and happen to all be copies of existing NPCs (whether they’re copies of Deltarune NPCs or Undertale NPCs doesn’t matter as far as my theory goes, Forgaster could have used either of those) so that would mean the CORE acts as a copy machine. It just so happens that the area right after the CORE is New Home, which as you probably realized, is literally a grey copy of the ruins aka Home. The CORE having this copy feature would explain why that is. Since monsters no longer feared humans, they all moved out of Home, and Forgaster, as the Royal scientist, was probably tasked with helping with the construction of the new capital, and thus, used the core’s secret feature to make a copy of Home. You could even speculate that the creation of New Home was nothing but a test run for the CORE, and after it had successfully created New Home, Forgaster used it for his real objective, creating lures for the anomaly. And once that was done, he simply disappeared, not having any business left in Undertale. How Forgaster returned to Deltarune isn’t clear, but seeing how the Forgotten man can just vanish in an instant and isn’t bound by the limits between the Light and Dark worlds, I believe this is how Forgaster was able to make it back to Deltarune. This might be what being shattered across time and space means: he can travel from the beginning of one universe's timeline to the end of another universe's timeline.
As such, most remaining FUN events would then be just that, lures. The sound test room, Something Forgaster hastily stitched together with the sole purpose of making sure the anomaly hears his theme: after all, the sound test room only has 4 songs, and 3 of them are uninteresting loops, almost as if they were just filler meant to justify this room being called a sound test room, while Gaster’s theme (aka him.ogg) is the only one that somewhat sounds like actual music. Moreover, not only does the game not allow you to play any of the other songs once you’ve started “Gaster’s theme”, listening to it is also the only way out of the room, as if it won’t let you leave until you’ve heard that theme. The message you get afterwards is also pretty suspicious “Thanks for your feedback! Be seeing you soon!” as the phrasing is similar to what Gaster said before chapter 1 was dropped.
The wrong number song has been speculated to be many things, from Spamton trying to reach Gaster on the phone, to Kris making a phone prank, regardless, its function is the same as the other events I’ve talked about: teasing Deltarune.
This finally brings me to the Clam goner. We learn from her dialogue that she lives in New Home and that her neighbor has a daughter named Suzy. She states that she might be the reason we came to the underground, and that we should become friends with her, that fate will find a way. The clam goner event where she states that the time we will meet Suzy is “fast approaching” was part in the switch version a few weeks before Deltarune’s reveal implying that Susie is somehow related to Suzy. It's possible Suzy is the Undertale counterpart of Susie, but in any case, what really matters is that this girl is implied to be the reason we came to Undertale, and is associated with fate. This is important, because Susie is one of the characters Gaster lists as “VERY VERY WONDERFUL” and has been established as a character willing to defy fate, also having the unique ability to override the player’s choices. As such, what if this FUN event is Forgaster trying to push us to befriend Susie when we go to Deltarune in order to make sure we’ll be able to change the inevitable fate of the Deltarune world? After all, two entities, each having the power to change fate, working together would be very useful to someone trying to create a new future, wouldn’t it?
4. ANOTHER DELTARUNE
We have finally reached the last section of this massive theory. With everything set up to draw the anomaly’s attention, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, no longer being “Gaster” but the Forgotten man. Because he’s been shattered, it appears that he can navigate through time in any and all directions.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, people have pointed out that Forgaster’s dialogues imply he’s experiencing time in reverse. In case you’re not convinced by the idea, let’s look at the main pieces of evidence. First off, Forgaster’s schedule. If you pay attention, he’s actually giving you a recipe for making donuts in reverse “I GO TO SELL THE DONUTS, I TOSS THE LEFTOVERS IN THE DUMPSTER, I LET IT COOL ON THE WINDOWSILL, I HARVEST THE WHEAT”
If we read this dialogue in reverse, it suddenly makes more sense: he starts by harvesting the wheat, lets the donuts cool, throws the dough scraps into the trash, and finally goes to the bakery sale.
Towards the end of his speech in chapter 3, he also says “COUNT BACKWARDS TO 100”
This is an odd choice of words, since we would normally say "from 100." If Forgaster experiences time backwards, though, the phrasing could be intentional: he sees 100 as the point he’s moving toward rather than the point he’s are moving away from, meaning that the sequence we see as normal (1 to 100) is perceived by him as moving in reverse.
And lastly, in his valentine letter, Forgaster begins with “HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR WAS IT THE OLD YEAR?” If he were experiencing time normally, he wouldn’t be confused about this. The only situation in which it would make sense for him to doubt the order of the new year and the old year is if he were experiencing time in reverse.
So Forgaster can experience time both in reverse, as I’ve just demonstrated, but he can also follow the normal flow of time: in his schedule, the days are in order, and the events of the failed timeline he describes through the passing of seasons is also normal. The fact his Lightworld appearances and the number of coins he puts in chapter 4’s water fountain both depend on whether or not you got the eggs in the previous chapters which means he’s at least aware of how things happened in what would be his “future” from his perspective. Alternatively, this could be explained by the fact that he can not only experience time in reverse, but also appear at any point in time. This idea would explain why, besides his dialogues showing that he is in reverse, he also says things that are completely mixed up. Look at the story he tells us “WELL, THE WORLD CHANGED. SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED. THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER? DINAUSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE”.
The correct order would be THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER, DINOSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE, SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED, meaning Forgaster’s story doesn’t follow any order at all, which he points out himself “IS IT MIXED UP?”
All in all, Forgaster’s time shenanigans are perfectly summed up by his sentence in the valentine letter: “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT. NOT NECESSARLY IN THAT ORDER. OR, IN ANY ORDER AT ALL.”
He can go anywhere, anytime. This is definitive proof that the Forgotten man IS the Gaster that was shattered across time and space, while the one in the goner maker is normal.
So, what is he trying to do? Considering both Forgaster and Gaster are “waiting” for Deltarune, I believe they share the same goal: to create a NEW FUTURE with us, the anomaly.
Because there is no anomaly in the Deltarune universe, all timelines converge to the same point. This means that even if the timeline we see in the game isn’t the one Forgaster experienced, things aren’t going to be any different. In this new timeline, Gaster has made the same researches on Darkness, the shelter Incident happened all the same, the knight was still created. As such, the fate of this world has already been decided. This is where Forgaster truly factors in. Because he’s experienced it all before, he knows who to contact if he wants to change things: the Gaster from this timeline. He would have the means to do so thanks to his shattered state. Forgaster most likely informed gaster of everything that happened in the failed timeline. This is the true origin of the prophecy, it wasn’t made by Gaster, but by Forgaster which is why it was “foretold by time and space” why the Prophecy text is identical to how the Forgotten man speaks and why it is so specific, why everything it says will come to pass.
To Gaster, this is his chance to change one key parameter in his experiment. Thanks to Forgaster, Since he knows that the current model ends in failure, adding the Anomaly as a variable would be a very interesting experience. Thanks to the breadcrumbs Forgaster left in Undertale, Gaster was able to lure us into Deltarune, using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect us to this world. Forgaster is the reason Gaster knows we’ve been searching for him, and the knowledge that his experiments will go wrong is the reason he’s been looking for us. By connecting this anomaly to Deltarune, and by combining its power with Susie’s hope, Gaster has the chance to conduct the most ambitious experiment he’s ever imagined and turn his biggest failure into an absolute triumph over fate itself. In his own words “HOW LUCKY WE ARE TO NEED EACH OTHER IN THIS WAY”
This finally explains why Gaster’s theme in undertale was called “him” while the gaster theme in Deltarune is called “ANOTHER HIM”: “him” was a piece left by the Gaster who came from the failed timeline, it’s Forgaster’s theme, while ANOTHER HIM is the theme of the Gaster from the game’s timeline.
As such, I have a hard time believing Forgaster is going against Gaster, I believe he’s doing the same thing as Gaster, following the scientific method, changing specific parameters to modify the outcome of the experiment. This is why Forgaster is giving EGGs to Kris. They are the one Forgaster wants to help, and that’s why he’s asking help from us. We are the ones taking Kris to these egg rooms. He’s probably trying to help them remember the Incident and overcome their fear. Considering he’s experienced the failed timeline, it’s likely that he’s doing this because Kris never overcame their trauma in the original timeline, which might have been played a role in the heroes’ failure.
As for the shadow crystals, while their origin is hard to pinpoint, it’s clear now that the visions they show are what will happen in the future. This is why they don’t change the prophecy text; the two show the same thing.
Let’s look at all the shadow crystal visions to demonstrate this.
“You thought you saw toys strewn on the floor”: This predicted that the Card castle fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw through your hand”: This is predicting that Kris will lose their hand
“You thought you saw the computer lab”: This predicted that the computer room’s fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw Susie glaring at you, coldly...” This probably predicts what Susie’s reaction will be when she finds out that Kris has been working with the Knight and hiding many things from her. As she puts it “there’s nothing that pisses me off more than people who don’t tell you the whole deal”
“You thought you saw the television get smashed to pieces”: This is literally just an alternate version of “THE LORD OF SCREENS, CLEAVED RED BY BLADE”
“You thought you saw the lobby of the church”: This predicted that the fountains inside the church would be sealed
“You thought you saw Undyne frozen in ice”: this one is unused for now, so it should be taken with a grain of salt, still, it may predict the “police sacrifice” we heard about
Finally, we have “You thought you saw Noelle close against you, whispering” this one feel like it’s predicting something that hasn’t happened yet. As such we can only speculate for now. Some say it’s from the couch scene in the weird route, but Noelle isn’t whispering during that scene, if anything we are the ones directly whispering inside her mind. This might just imply that Kris and Noelle’s relationship will become a focal point later on. Considering their shared history with the shelter Incident, their relationship might be the single most important one moving forward.
This would also explain why the Darkners who used these crystals went crazy: the knowledge of a failed timeline, and of an entire universe marching toward an unavoidable eternal night that no one can escape, no matter what they do, seems like enough reason to go off the deep end.
CONCLUSION
We have finally reached the end of this theory. I can only apologize for how long this turned out to be, so let me recap sum up the take-home message of the entire thing.
Asriel, Kris, Noelle and Dess explored the forest seven years before the events of Deltarune, Dess and Kris entered the Shelter using Carol’s code
On the same night, Gaster created the first dark fountain in the shelter, creating a dark world, and turning the ice-e pizza box, he retrieved a few weeks before into a malevolent Darkner that would act as its servant, the tail of hell
Entry 17 is a cutscene/recording of gaster taking notes on the fountain, before being interrupted by Kris and Dess who are the two persons he’s talking to at the end of entry 17
Gaster tries to use them for his next experiments, and Kris ends up accidentally killing Dess in the confusion
Gaster tempers with Kris’ soul, and inject Dess’ with Darkness, before letting Kris escape, supposedly after the two made a Faustian deal
Toriel finds Kris holding a knife, potentially covered in blood, as Dess apparently disappeared. She decides to hide the truth from everyone and keep this a secret so that Kris will not get into serious trouble
Asgore becomes obsessed with finding Dess, eventually leading to arguments with Toriel who ends up divorcing him, while the Holiday and Dreemurr families, especially Toriel and Carol, grow distant
UNUSED are follow-up entries to entry 17, transcripts of Dess’ thoughts written down by Gaster as her mind slowly breaks because of the darkness.
Dess is reborn as a Dark Amalgamate, a powerful creatures subjugated by Gaster that helps him with his dark fountain experiments
These experiments eventually cause the Roaring, causing all of gaster’s work to go to waste
Having observed an alternate universe where an anomaly capable of changing fate resides, Gaster builds a space-time machine with sans’ help in order to travel to Undertale, capture the anomaly and use its powers to prevent the Roaring
During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, causing Gaster to shatter across space and time, while sans and papyrus get stranded in Undertale’s present with no way back, while gaster becomes Forgaster and lands in Undertale’s past
Forgaster becomes the royal scientist, uses his position and his Darkness technology to build the CORE, a power plant that doubles as a GONER MAKER. Using it, he’s able to create New Home, and set up all the FUN events that the anomaly will eventually come across when it arrives in the Underground
Having finished his work in the Undertale universe, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, in a new timeline where things are set to repeat identically to the failed timeline and contacts the gaster from this timeline
Forgaster recounts what happened in the failed timeline to Gaster, thus creating the Prophecy
In order to change fate, Gaster creates the SURVEY_PROGRAM and uses the anomaly’s curiosity to connect it to Deltarune, with the objective of creating a new future, his own story for this world: HIS Deltarune. To achieve this, he contacts specific Darkners with high-potential and gives them Shadow Crystals, in order to make them realize what is really going on, in hopes that this will help change fate. He allows the anomaly to keep trying to win against his knight, not because it has a chance of defeating it – the knight is Gaster’s perfected weapon, the anomaly cannot win, period – but because it and Susie can achieve something that might cause a butterfly effect that could change fate: retrieving the blackshard, a weapon that can take down darkness. Meanwhile Forgaster is helping Kris with overcoming their fear, in preparation for what is coming.
As a closing thought, I want to address a question you may be asking yourself after reading all this: if Gaster and Forgaster know that their experiments led to the world’s destruction, why do they continue creating yet another experiment, therefore putting another timeline at risk?
Because Gaster isn’t Sans. He isn’t about accepting what is given to him. He is driven to perform endless experiments in order to gain ever more knowledge, to reach Absolute Truth. And isn’t that, in his eyes, what True Freedom is? As such, he will never give up his experiments, no matter what.
And this is where we realize who Sans was really talking about during his Genocide fight:
“I know your type. You’re very determined, aren’t you? You’ll never give up, even if there’s absolutely NO benefit to persevering whatsoever. No matter what, you’ll just keep going. Not out of any desire for good or evil, but simply because you think you can. And because you can, you have to.”
In this moment, Sans saw Gaster in us: two beings filled with determination to satisfy their curiosity, regardless of morality, simply because they have the power to. If Undertale taught us that “to will is to be able,” then Gaster’s philosophy suggests that “to be able is to be obliged.”
SOURCES
UT/DR text dump: hushbugger dot github dot io
Most screenshots were captured in-game, or taken from the Undertale and Deltarune wiki :
Thank you so much for reading through the entire theory. It means a lot. Getting this out before Chapter 5's launch was a real pain. I'm looking forward to how Chapter 5 will impact this model. I'm expecting to learn more about Toriel, Asgore and Carol. The final egg room will most certainly be fascinating, and will probably make or break the second part of this theory if it reveals the Forgotten man. You may have noticed she was almost completely ignored, this is intended, as I feel we still lack information about her motives, so we can't do anything but speculate. The way I see it, it's ok to do this with ellusive characters like Gaster, part 2 is mostly just that to be honest. But when it comes to more mundane characters like Carol, I don't find it as appealing, it's basically the same as making predictions about the next chapters, while I wanted to provide a good basis regarding what happened before the story.
Once I’ve gone through Chapter 5 and had time to refine my ideas, I might come back with a V3 !
The Dark Amalgamate Theory : an attempt at creating a comprehensive model of Deltarune's past and its parallels with Undertale before Chapter 5
Hi, I’m SOUL Goodman. If you’re a UT/DR fan interested in the lore of Deltarune before Chapter 5, this post is for you. You might want to keep these ideas in mind before playing on June 24th.
This theory started as a small idea after Chapter 2, originally abandoned and never published. But with Chapters 3 and 4, it surprisingly became stronger and much larger than expected.
This is my first time writing and sharing a full theory, and it ended up becoming far bigger than I initially planned. With Chapter 5 fast approaching, this felt like my last chance to finally share it.
This, is the Dark Amalgamate theory !
(The theory covers more than this single concept, don't be fooled by the name, I chose it for the title because it sounds cool)
I first started developing this theory after Chapter 2, when it still felt like a simple hypothesis. But as I looked deeper into the game and community discoveries (including datamined elements), it started to feel like a real coherent model rather than just speculation.
I eventually stopped working on it, but Chapters 3 and 4 ended up reshaping and reinforcing many of its ideas. Now, with Chapter 5 approaching, I want to finally present it in full.
I might not consider every part perfect, but I believe the core ideas are meaningful and relevant.
The goal of this theory is not to predict future chapters or the ending of the game. Instead, it focuses on what happened before the events of Deltarune, and what set everything in motion.
If you enjoy Undertale / Deltarune lore, this will defintely be an interesting read while waiting for Chapter 5.
Before I start, here’s a few disclaimers:
I’ve rewritten this multiple times, but due to its length, some mistakes might remain.
You should be familiar with Undertale, the Gaster mystery, and all four released chapters of Deltarune. Some parts rely on community findings and datamined content (credit to HalfbreadChaos, linked in sources).
This theory is split into two main parts, the second being a bit more speculative and could almost stand alone, but is still deeply connected to the first.
Table of Contents
Part 1: The Shelter Incident
Quick character analysis
The Time and Place of The Incident
The First Darkner, the Devil's accomplice
The poor test subjects!
The sins of the Dreemurr family
Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
Part 2: A NEW FUTURE, born from an Eternal Night
The failed Deltarune
Space-time travelers
I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
ANOTHER DELTARUNE
Conclusion
Sources
With all that out of the way, let's begin!
PART 1: The Shelter Incident
My goal here is to explain what happened during the night where Kris, Asriel, Dess and Noelle explored the forest near hometown’s graveyard and explore the consequences for our main characters as well as what it implies for the events of the game we’ve seen so far.
My starting hypothesis is that there was an incident involving Dess, Kris and Gaster inside the shelter, leading to the creation of what I call a “Dark Amalgamate.” To support my hypothesis, I will be using information from the game itself but also some stuff that came from the sweepstakes or the newsletters (Although their canonicity is a bit dubious from what I understand, so I will try to rely on that as little as possible), linking various elements based around the same thematic as well as some texts hidden in the game’s code. For practical reasons, I’m not going to put a screenshot every time I quote an in-game dialogue, I will be highlighting those in red instead, so you can have the exact text and not me paraphrasing the game.
Quick character analysis
Before we delve into what happened in the forest, we need to take a quick look at how the four children are characterized. The idea isn’t to go on a long analysis for each of them, but simply to point out important elements of their personalities that we will have to take into account to figure out how and why they would even end up inside the shelter, when most people understandably assume whatever happened with Dess took place in the forest or near the shelter at best, not straight up inside it.
Asriel: This is the easiest one since there’s not much to talk about considering he has yet to appear in Deltarune. From what we’ve been told so far, his personality does seem relatively similar to his Undertale counterpart, a quiet and kind boy as well as a bit of a scaredy cat who’s a bit overzealous considering Father Alvin talks about how he would always confess his “sins”. We also know he was quite popular considering all the prizes in his room, how so many people in hometown always bring up Asriel and praise him when Kris talks to them. The important aspect of his character in Deltarune specifically is how close him and Dess were, which we’ll go over when we talk about Dess herself
Noelle: She’s pretty much the same as she is today in terms of personality, what is interesting about her is how easily scared she is and how she has a clear tendency to “freeze” when something scary or traumatic happens and how she seems to “forget” any memory of such events. We can actually see that on many occasions during chapter 2’s weird route: right after being forced to freeze an Addison to get the FreezeRing she goes “What… What just happened? Did I actually just… No, they… they must have given it to us. The ring”; when told to proceed during the second mice puzzle, as you push her closer and closer to the laser forcefield, she states “Th… there, looks like I… did it?” as if she had trouble remembering what had just happened. This is later reinforced when she asks herself “…what did I do when we got that ring? …when I solved that puzzle? … It… It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I can’t remember”. Similarly, right after using Snowgrave on Berdley, she once again asks “What… What happened? There was so much snow, I couldn’t see anything…” which really comes across as a form of denial considering Berdley’s frozen corpse is right in front of her at that moment. Basically, whenever she’s faced with something traumatic, her reaction is to freeze and forget it. This isn’t exclusive to the weird route either, we’ll go back to this later, but another smaller example that occurs in the normal route that I can give right now is in sans’ store in chapter two: one of the NPCs mentions that “Sometimes the hoofed girl comes here, opens the freezer door then stands in front of it, lost in thought”.
Kris: There’s obviously a lot to talk about when it comes to them, but what I want to focus on for this theory is the shift in their behavior. Not the shift caused by the presence of the SOUL/player control, but how they seemingly went from being a prankster as a child to a very weird, shut-in type of person. Whenever we have characters talking about younger Kris, it feels like they were a fairly normal mischievous kid. They were close to their brother, as well as the Holiday sisters, loved to mess with Noelle and overall, none of the weirder stuff we’ve seen from modern day teenage Kris is brought up. Like I said, that shift seems to have happened before the events of the game, considering it’s implied the Dreemurr and the Holyday have grown apart before the start of chapter 1, the last time Kris and Noelle spent time together was probably when Kris came to Noelle’s house to play the piano as mentioned in one of her blog posts. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but Kris had to have been old enough to have learned how to play piano (which they obviously couldn’t have done in a few weeks as a little kid). The important part here is that whenever the stuff Noelle talks about in that blog post took place, Kris had already started to act weird: they’d come over to Noelle’s house and after a while, she explains that “they would suddenly get very still, like they were remembering something” before going to play the piano. We learn about another event that took place before chapter 1 where Kris once again showed a strange behavior in Noelle’s blog post about Susie. This probably took place a few weeks/days before chapter 1, and is more in line with the Kris we see in-game. When Susie threatened them, they remained completely silent up until they eventually said something that seemingly made Susie back off. Noelle, who had seen all of this, hid in her locker. Yet, somehow, Kris was able to tell she was there, violently open the locker before slowly closing it without a word after seeing it was her. Unlike the previous Noelle blog post, this event hasn’t really been referenced in-game so far so I won’t talk about it too much but the main take-away here is that Kris used to be a normal kid, but started acting strange at some point before Chapter 1 which suggests this isn’t linked to the SOUL (or, more specifically, it’s not linked to what Kris does once we have control over the SOUL), which makes me wonder, what happened to Kris for them to have such a drastic change in their behavior?
Dess: Finally, we have the older Holiday sister. Like Asriel, she hasn’t appeared in-game so far, but we get a lot of info about her from other characters, or by investigating her room in chapter 4. I won’t go over every single detail about her, but the gist of it is that she seemed like an adventurous, rebellious tomboyish kind of girl who seemed to be really into exploring seeing how she was making a herbarium and owned a ton of exploration gear like binoculars, walkie-talkies, army rations, multitool knives. On top of that, it appeared she was also a musical prodigy considering we can find many different instruments in her room, from flutes and violins to that infamous red guitar. Lastly, we have to focus on her relationship with Asriel. Whether you believe these two were together or not, the fact of the matter is that they were very close, to the point where she had Asriel’s jacket in her room, as well as his retainer. Likewise, considering Dess kept a crude drawing of a dragon under her bed and that Asriel borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book, we can infer that he wanted to gift her something she’d enjoy. Her disappearance is probably the reason he never returned the book; he probably wanted to keep it as a token of rememberance or something like that. Which leads me to my main point regarding Asriel and Dess, as many have pointed out, the Ribbick battle dialogue seem to describe Asriel and Dess over the years “a poorly trimmed boy, a messy and unfocused girl”, “a rowdy and dirty girl, a quiet and smelly boy” and most importantly “a lost, and lost, and lost girl” which is an obvious reference to Dess’ disappearance, her being the “Lost girl” we’re meant to find, while “a crying and crying and crying boy” shows how hurt Asriel was by her going missing. Another detail that will be crucial later on is how she apparently had the habit of beating up Kris whenever they pranked Noelle, often using her wiffle bat to hit their head, which is alluded to when you check those items in her room with the flavor text reading “Rollerblades, wiffle bat. Looking at these things makes your head hurt”.
2. The Time and Place of the Incident
As you probably know, there is a forest south of Hometown, past the graveyard, where you can find what looks like some sort of shelter. Its doors are locked and can’t be entered by the player. If you get close to the doors you’ll hear a strange sound. If you speed up that sound by 666%, you’ll realize it’s actually smile.ogg (entry 17’s sound as well as the noise Kris’ phone will make if you try to use it in a dark world). Smile.ogg and the number 6 are directly tied to Gaster, which logically connects this place to him. Back in chapter 1, this place wasn’t mentioned by any character, but things got a bit more interesting with chapter two as a cutscene plays if you go there, as Monster kid and Snowy will be standing in front of it. Their dialogue implies there are ominous rumors about what is inside that place, with MK wondering “You think it’s true? You really think there’s…” before being cut off by snowy claiming only kids believe those rumors. Chapter 4’s church segment shows us that this isn’t the case at all, since when asked about “the shelter” even adults characters seem to fear that place to some extent, Ms.Boom tells Kris “Shelter? No, no, you know that’s not a wholesome place!” and Father Alvin seems particularly freaked out when Kris tells him they want to enter it, almost as if they had expressed the desire to do something very wrong “I do not know what you are experiencing recently, but… Kris please, look to the Angel for guidance […] Kris, stay away from the shelter” these dialogues from Alvin and Ms.Boom could imply Kris specifically has some history with that place. What is interesting is how MK proceeds to mention Kris before being once again cut off by Snowy asking if MK is going to be a weenie like Kris. After Susie scares these two off and asks Kris what is going on with this place, they remain completely silent. This cutscene strongly suggested Kris had been inside that shelter in the past and is scared of it, which was then further proven by chapter 3’s SWORD route where Kris will fight back against the player’s input and try to turn back when approaching the mini-game version of that same shelter. When asked about it, Alphys, while also being seemingly anxious about what could be inside, is a bit more informative stressing how it’s been closed ever since she moved to Hometown and how no one ever goes there aside from Undyne and the mayor, further suggesting that people in Hometown avoid the place in general. Most importantly, this place is alluded to during Noelle’s heart-to-heart with Kris in Cyber City. She doesn’t directly mention the shelter, but she explains that when they were kids, her, Kris, Asriel and Dess liked to explore areas around hometown (which was most definitely Dess’ idea considering what we’ve established about her character) and talks about one specific night where they “explored the forest behind the graveyard” which corresponds to the shelter’s rough location.
My hypothesis is that they found the shelter, Kris and Dess entered it and met Gaster and that something happened to Dess, turning her into that infamous “voice in the code”: the mysterious UNUSED dialogue people have found in the game’s data and that seems to get a new entry with each new chapter.
While as far as I can tell, this general idea has become fairly wide-spread with chapter 3 and 4, there was always a lack of evidence that whatever happened in the forest had something to do with the shelter itself and that the UNUSED voice (as well as the other strange messages in the game’s code, more on that later) had anything to do with Dess. In fact, some people actually seem to believe that Dess’ disappearance happened in the forest itself based on the fact that the forgotten man is found behind a tree and that the NPC in the roots prophecy room says “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail. The poor children”. However, I believe I’ve gathered enough evidence to prove that they did enter the shelter and that whatever happened to Dess occurred inside it and that this is the origin of the trauma Kris, Noelle and Asriel all seem to have to a different degree.
But first, let's go on a small tangent on WHEN this incident happened. We actually had a pretty big clue on that ever since chapter 2: while Noelle is talking about the night they explored the forest, you can actually see the outline of her sprite change to a smaller kid-like version as she walks past one of the panels. As you can see from the following screenshother sprite is identical to the one we see during Berdly’s flashback, which strongly suggests that it happened when Kris and Noelle were very young.
If they witnessed the Incident at such a young age, it perfectly explains why they’d be so traumatized, too. This idea is basically confirmed by Berdly’s spelling bee flashback when he explains that “When it came down to the two of us… she got nervous and couldn’t speak” and we see that the word that made her “nervous” was none other than DECEMBER, the name of her sister. Noelle having this reaction upon seeing that specific word only makes sense if it happened after her sister went missing. Furthermore, her reaction is similar to her behavior in sans’ store I mentioned earlier. It becomes obvious to me that when she opens the freezer, the cold reminds her of Dess which triggers some sort of traumatic response. So, we’ve established that Dess disappeared when Noelle and Kris were still young children, but thanks to Berdly we can figure out even more precisely when it happened. As I mentioned earlier, Asriel probably borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book from the library in order to make a nice gift for Dess. Considering Asriel was deeply hurt by her disappearance based on the “crying boy” Ribbick dialogue, and how the narrator says that “Your brother will never return this book…” upon inspecting it, it’s fair to assume Asriel kept it as a memento of Dess. Which brings me to Berdly’s dialogue in chapter 1, if you go talk to him at the library, he will reveal that the book is 2583 days overdue which is about 7 years. We can deduce that when chapter 1 takes place, this “shelter Incident” happened roughly seven years ago. We can go even further and calculate how old Kris and Noelle were when it happened: since we know Asriel is in college that means he’s around 18 years old during the events of the game, assuming he and Dess were of the same age, that would make them around 11 when the Incident happened and because they’re the older siblings, the younger pair of Kris and Noelle were obviously younger than 11. Since we know Noelle participated in a spelling bee around the same time, she must have been at an age when spelling was still a challenge that required practice (Berdly mentions he and Noelle had to study for that spelling bee), which would be around 7-9 years old. A 3–4-year-old gap between Kris/Noelle and Asriel/Dess sounds reasonable. Lastly, if we assume the game takes place in 202X based on the date written on the unused graphics for Ralsei’s manual, we can date the Incident to the early or mid 201X.
Basically, Asriel’s goon material and Berdly just allowed us to build a fairly precise timeline of events.
Now that this is out of the way, let’s delve into why I think there was an Incident inside the shelter specifically and not just in the forest. While Noelle never talks about the shelter in chapter 2, even mentioning that they “never found anything interesting” when exploring the forest, it’s important to remember that when she’s scared or dealing with something traumatic, Noelle has a tendency to forget stuff. Actually, right after saying this, she implies she doesn’t remember much from that night: “I mostly remember… crying, because I was scared”. Since Noelle can’t help us figure out more about what went down, let’s focus on Kris: as we saw earlier, they seem to be scared of the shelter specifically which wouldn’t make sense if nothing happened there. One may argue that the NPC from chapter 4 talks about the forest and says nothing about the shelter, but let’s look at the exact quote “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail”. The first thing to note is that the NPC uses the plural noun “children” implying that more than one child was present: it was not just Dess, but at least one other person. Second, he specifies that the children were “lost where the forest would grow”, not “lost in the forest” which seems like an important detail. Furthermore, the NPC says this right in front of this strange prophecy panel depicting a house between two trees with the word “ROOTS”.
Considering that trees grow from their roots, and given how much the panel emphasizes that word, I think the expression “where the forest would grow” might actually refer to an underground location, since roots are by definition underground. This would also explain why the two OSTs containing the term “roots” in their titles — “Digital Roots” and “Bit Roots” — only play while exploring underground areas. Also, if you didn’t know, the game files contain an unused song called “spamton_house,” which likely would have played outside Spamton’s shop and sounds nearly identical to “Digital Roots.” The reason Toby may have chosen not to use it could simply be because it would have conflicted with the idea of a musical theme specifically associated with underground locations. Which brings me back to the shelter: it is an underground location, and while there is a dark fountain inside it right now, when we enter the game version during the sword route, we end up in some sort of dark cave where the slowed entry 17 sound plays once again. If the NPC is talking about the shelter, it explains the image of the panel itself: the two trees represent the forest, and the house represents the shelter which would be Gaster’s underground “home”, located where the roots of the trees are, or should I say “located where the forest would grow”. The idea so far is that as part of their exploration, Dess, Kris, Noelle and Asriel went to the forest, entered the shelter and got lost inside before encountering Gaster. But how could they have entered the shelter if the place is closed? The segment in Noelle’s house gives us a pretty simple answer: Dess had managed to get the code from her mother and kept it inside her red guitar, unbeknownst to everyone else. It couldn’t have been Carol who kept it there because not only does it make no sense for her to keep something as important in her rebellious daughter’s belonging, she and Kris both did not expect it to be there : Kris clearly wants to prevent the SOUL from getting the code, if they knew the code was inside the guitar they would’ve removed the SOUL before it could inspect it and read most of the code, which strongly suggests they did not know about it and barely reacted on time. This would also explain why they even made a phone call right after that: they informed whoever they’re working with that the code is inside the guitar and that Susie is looking for it. It would explain why the voice insists on stopping Susie from getting the guitar.
3. The first Darkner, The Devil's accomplice
Now that we have established where and when the Incident happened, it’s time to try and figure out what happened inside the shelter. First off, even if it ultimately doesn’t matter much, I don’t think Asriel and Noelle entered the shelter. Based on how they’ve been portrayed so far, they seem like scaredy cats while Dess and Kris feel like more daredevil type of kids. Again, Noelle states that she was crying because she was scared and that Dess comforted her. It is true that Noelle is easily scared, but I don’t think it makes much sense for her to be scared of simply exploring the forest at night because exploring seems like something they would do every so often. The thought of entering a creepy structure like the shelter however, definitely sounds like something that would terrorize young Noelle. It’s more likely that Asriel stayed outside the shelter to watch over Noelle and that Kris and Dess were the only ones who actually entered the shelter, which would still make sense with the sentence “the children followed the pointed tail”. If only these two entered the shelter, it would also explain why Noelle and Asriel are physically ok during the events of the game, while Dess is missing and Kris is struggling with their soul which has seemingly been happening for a while, even before chapter 1. Regardless of whether or not Asriel and Noelle were there, we know thanks to the Harmonik NPC that they lost themselves inside the shelter and this is when they followed a “pointed tail”.
Many people seem to obsess over that tail and assume it’s the tail of this smiling figure with pink and yellow eye:
This sprite is called IMAGE_FRIEND and its first appearance was in Queen’s basement, while retrieving the EmptyDisk. Since then, it has appeared on many other instances, the most notable ones being during the SWORD route boss fight, during one of the dark sections of chapter 4’s dark world and in the battat mini game. Because the name of the sprite follows the same naming scheme as what is used in chapter one’s intro where Gaster helps you create a vessel, and that it appears in the battat minigame which is centered around cats and seems to be based on the CatPetterz game which Noelle used to play as a kid as revealed in one of her blog posts in the Spamton sweepstakes, it is a common belief that FRIEND is tied to Gaster and is a cat. This led people to assume the tail of hell is FRIEND’s cat tail and that it was therefore that entity that the children followed. While there is merit to the general idea, I feel like this interpretation is too literal which denotes from how the prophecy refers to other characters in a figurative manner: Kris is “The cage with human soul and parts”, Asgore is “The flower man” but that doesn’t mean Kris is literally a cage or that Asgore is made of flowers. As such, I believe we shouldn’t take these “pointed tail” and “tail of hell” expressions at face value. In my opinion, it’s more important to understand what the role of that “tail” is, and what it did specifically than to figure out its identity. As such, I’d like to focus on how the harmonic specifically says “the pointed tail”. Cats don’t have pointed tails so even if you are convinced that the tail really is FRIEND, even if FRIEND really is a cat, that phrasing in itself shows how these descriptions are figurative and symbolic first and foremost. With that in mind, that tail is seemingly mentioned in two other instances, first during the Harmonik battle “the tail, which must not be followed” which is a clear reference to the sentence we get in front of the ROOTS prophecy. Second, in this prophecy panel
“They’ll see the tail of hell take crawl”
So, we have a “tail” that must not be followed, implying it is malevolent and/or dangerous, it is “pointed”, seemingly comes from “hell”, and it apparently crawls. When taking all these elements into account, it hardly sounds like a cat tail anymore, it becomes pretty clear that Toby is trying to invoke satanic imagery: the expression “pointed tail” evokes the tail demons and the Devil are often depicted with, there is even an unused prophecy panel that shows exactly that
But since this panel went unused, it looks like Toby Fox changed his mind about how he wanted to relate that tail to the Devil (and thus Gaster) since the panel that is in the final game uses a different satanic symbol. The final panel talks about a “tail of hell” that will “take crawl”. The fact that the it crawls, coupled with the panel image actually makes it similar to another type of animal, a snake. The idea that dark creatures are thematically linked to, snake-like imagery is actually further reinforced during the Titan fight
Comparing the tail of hell to a snake is another way of connecting it to the Devil, as this is clearly a reference to Christianity: The Devil, taking the form of a snake, lured Adam and Eve to the apple tree and convinced them to eat the forbidden apple. Whether that tail is figuratively a devil’s tail or a snake, the fact of the matter is that it ties it to the Devil, and in both Undertale and Deltarune, the one character that has been repeatedly compared to the Devil is none other than Doctor W.D. Gaster. Which means that in a way, the tail is some sort of Gaster follower. To be clear, I’m NOT saying “the tail” is literally a snake or that it is one of those 3 grey NPCs from UT, when I say it’s a Gaster follower I mean that “the tail” serves Gaster, that it’s not an unrelated entity/character with completely different motives and affiliations, and that it led Kris and Dess to Gaster. This might be why the prophecy even calls it a tail in the first place: wherever the Devil goes, his tail follows. Keep that in mind, because the idea of a demonic entity vowing to serve some master might have been teased since Undertale, but I’m saving this for when we’ll go over who/what that tail really is. In any case, this tail being associated with snakes is probably why Kris is specifically linked to apples and why they can meet a man behind a tree: they were lured to the apple tree by the Devil’s tail.
Thus, we have two kids who entered a dark place and were supposedly led to Gaster. This is a big assumption and while I’ve established that they did enter the shelter, I’ve mostly used symbolism to defend the idea that they actually met Gaster, so let’s go over something more concrete that will back up this idea and give us an idea on what really happened to Dess: Entry number seventeen.
This entry has been a huge mystery for years now, but I believe we now have enough context to understand what it’s really about. Before looking into what’s written in the entry itself, I want to point out something that’s rarely mentionned: unlike all of Alphys’ entries which are just written entries, entry 17 is actually an audio entry as you can hear Gaster’s voice beep. This is huge, because it means that this is actually a recording made by Gaster. With that in mind let’s go over what he says. Entry 17 can be separated into three parts; the first part is Gaster taking notes of a phenomenon he’s observing:
“DARK, DARKER YET DARKER.
THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING.
SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER.
PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE”
Now that we have Ralsei’s explanations about dark worlds and dark fountains in chapter 3, it’s clear that whenever and wherever Gaster recorded this, he was doing exactly what ralsei talks about at the start of chapter 3 “And when the light runs out, you see nothing. Of course, your mind can’t make anything of nothing. But what if it became even darker? Darker than dark. What if we could take away the light that wasn’t there until we reached another side? You could start to see things again, and hear them, and feel them. That is the dark world”.
Gaster had created a dark fountain and was observing its effects. Entry seventeen is just a less intelligible way of explaining what happens when a dark world is made. And if Gaster made a fountain, it can only be the one inside the shelter, or the Grand Fountain since all the other fountains already have a confirmed creator. I’m of the mind that he created both of these fountains and because of timeline reasons which I will go over in a bit, the one being made in entry 17 is the shelter one, while the one inside the closet was made much more recently.
On to the second part of entry 17:
“THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS
VERY
VERY
INTERESTING”
Whatever this next experiment may be, it can’t be the creation of a dark fountain because it’s literally what the first part of entry 17 is about. The only additional clue we have is that this exact sentence appeared on the Deltarune website back in 2015 before eventually being changed to another message in wingdings, meaning whatever this next experiment is, it is tied to Deltarune and never had anything to do with Undertale. It’s pretty wild to think entry 17 was basically a Deltarune cutscene hidden in Undertale.
Now, let’s look at the last part:
“…
WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?”
Have you noticed how Gaster marks a clear pause in his speech with those ellipsis points, as if he was done talking? Not only does it further reinforce the idea that this is a recording, it also means he was going to end the recording with “VERY VERY INTERESTING”. It’s almost as if he noticed two individuals that overheard what he said, which prompted him to ask them about what they thought about all of this which comes off more as a snarky, slightly ominous remark than anything else. You probably see where I’m going with this: entry 17 is some sort of audio/cutscene (or maybe even a video recording obscured by the fountain's darkness) of Kris and Dess inside the shelter, finding Gaster in the middle of his experiment. You could object that the two people Gaster is talking to could be sans, papyrus, alphys… but keep in mind that this is a recording that takes place in the Deltarune universe, and if I’m right about it taking place during the shelter fountain’s creation and during the night of Dess’ disappearance, this is happening roughly seven years before the events of the game, whereas sans and his brother only moved to hometown shortly before chapter 1. Similarly, some of Alphys’ dialogues imply she hasn’t been living in hometown for that long, so none of these characters could have been present inside the shelter at this point in time.
Now that I’ve established that the shelter contains both a dark fountain and the tail of hell when Kris and Dess entered it, we can focus on its identity. As you might’ve guessed I don’t think that the tail is FRIEND and I don't even think FRIEND is an actual character.
If the tail serves Gaster and was located inside the shelter where we know a Dark world exists, then there is a high chance that it is a Darkner (which would also explain why it serves Gaster in the first place, as Ralsei explains in chapter 1, the purpose of a Darkner is to serve their Lightner). For now, we only had the chance to enter the 8-bit version of the shelter, so let’s look at what we have there: when 8-bit kris enters, they find themselves in a dark cave, and are eventually confronted by an entity that seemingly knows Kris. This entity is one of the most fascinating characters we’ve seen so far and I believe that it is what the prophecy refers to as “the tail of hell”. It has no canon name; its sprites simply refer to it as “shadow mantle” and its battle theme is called nightmare_boss_heavy.ogg in the game files. Despite the name of its sprites however, we know for sure that it is not literally the shadow mantle, considering this dialogue “that’s why you’re searching for them, aren’t you? The SHADOW CRYSTALs… and the SHADOW MANTLE that I’m holding!”, and the fact that you can make out a stand-up collar, which is probably part of the mantle, as well as its horns.
It is clearly some sort of obscured horned creature wearing the mantle. As such I will be calling that thing the shadow mantle holder (or just the holder for short) from now on. I believe that the holder is a darkner and the actual “tail of hell”. Speaking of, have you ever noticed the shape of the dungeon where we fight that thing?
It is literally the shape of a snake.
But if the holder is the tail, then where does FRIEND fit into all of this? Like I said earlier, I am convinced FRIEND is not an actual character and everything people pin on it is actually the holder’s doing. My reasoning for that is based on what we see during the fight: the holder literally creates not just one, but multiple FRIENDs during the battle, which to me is hard evidence that FRIEND isn’t its own character but merely an extension of the shadow mantle holder, acting as drones. The reason we’ve been seeing FRIENDS since chapter 2 is that the holder was keeping an eye on Kris this whole time and that “eye” takes the shape of the FRIENDs it’s been creating. You could think of FRIEND as the holder’s equivalent of Spamton’s pipis. Most likely, the holder is also the one who took the mantle from Seam : regardless of where the mantle came from (if you believe king’s cape is the shadow mantle, that cape flies off after the battle which means seam had the opportunity to collect it anyways), Seam is unable to find it in chapter 2 after you give them Spamton’s shadow crystal stating “did someone take it ?”, the holder would have a very good reason to steal the mantle, it knows Kris is looking for the crystals and seemingly wants to bring out Kris’ violent behavior. Since the mantle greatly increases their chance of getting it, it’s the perfect bait to lure them out which is exactly what happens in the sword route. However, you might see a problem with this. If the holder is a darkner that was created by the shelter’s fountain, how can it and its FRIENDS show up in other dark worlds, wouldn’t they have to be brought to these dark worlds ? And wouldn’t that mean the holder should have turned to stone in chapter 3? The answer I propose to these questions brings us closer to figuring out the holder’s real identity: It isn’t just any Darkner, it is the same type of Darkner as Ralsei. To back up this claim, let’s look at Ralsei’s unique properties.
Ralsei can somehow travel from his dark world to any dark world, and more importantly, seems to be compatible with any of them. His immunity to turning into stone isn’t outright explained so far, but I think we can make a good guess as to why that is based on what he says in chapter 2 “Each Dark fountain creates a different “world”, a “world” whose Darkners reflect the will of its fountain. But tough those Darkners can exist in their own worlds, they might not “belong” if they go to another one. [...] Castle Town’s Grand Fountain is made of pure darkness, as long as it stays flowing, any Darkner can live there.” If a world made of pure darkness allows any Darkner to live there (with the sole exception of Gerson Boom of course), and since we know that Grand Fountain is the one that gives form to Ralsei’s body, it stands to reason that a Darkner created by a Fountain of pure darkness would belong in any darkworld. He’s also one of the only characters that is aware of when you are on a weird route save and has different/additional dialogues showing that. Since the holder is the only other dark world entity we’ve seen so far that possesses all these traits, we can deduce that it also comes from a fountain of pure darkness. And if the holder was born from the shelter fountain, that means it has to be a pure dark fountain. All of this circles back to Gaster and why I said that I believe he created the shelter fountain and the grand fountain: All the fountains we’ve seen so far were “tainted” by their creator’s will and exposed non-native darkners to becoming statues. Who else would be able to create pure darkness fountains if not the one character that happens to be most associated with darkness, has an entire entry dedicated to it and who probably was the one who theorized and discovered the existence of dark fountains, thus being the one behind the only two fountains we don’t know the creator of?
But the similarities between Ralsei and the holder don’t even stop there
- While Ralsei initially wears the riverman hood to hide his identity, the holder wears the shadow mantle to do so.
-Both are horned creatures, both have fangs
-Both can use fire magic
-Both try to isolate themselves with Kris, Ralsei makes us close our eyes and think of Susie to talk to Kris without us hearing, while the holder stole the mantle from seam and elaborated the sword route in order to get to Kris
- Finally, both have ties to Gaster and consider that they have to fulfill their purposes: If you attempt to fight the knight without the mantle, Gaster specifically goes out of his way to inform you that “YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING IMPORTANT”, which shows that he wants you to do the sword route and interact with the Holder, who happens to give you a piece of armor that reduces damage from Dark and star attacks by precisely 66% (for the record, the SkyMantle, a similar armor that exists within the game but hasn’t been used yet, offers a 50% damage reduction against holy/electric attacks, which suggests that the specific 66% reduction was definitely intended). Additionally, the holder is the most likely candidate for being the “tail of hell” thus associating it with devil imagery, some of its dialogues put emphasis on fun (such as the hidden “having fun?” dialogue in the first sword route minigame, as well as how it asks “Is it fun, Kris? Playing around like this…”) and it also happens to always be smiling and laughing. These 3 elements have been well established as recurring motifs related to Gaster: The devil imagery, the FUN value and the entry 17 sound being named “smile.ogg” as well as the smile from the mystery man who, while not confirmed to be Gaster straight up, is still an entity that ties back to him. With that in mind, there is one more piece of evidence I’d like to mention and that ties back to what I was saying earlier about the idea of a demonic entity being someone’s servant: the S-room vending machine. This machine is often disregarded yet it has a pretty interesting detail, aside from the TV slop item, it also sells a SMILE (written in all caps). While getting it doesn’t do much aside from taking away one dollar despite the machine claiming it is free, it will become sold out once you defeat the 8-bit version of the holder, suggesting the real deal was hiding there and left, and most importantly the description you get before buying a SMILE reads “Always at your humble service.” which pretty much sold me on the idea that the holder is serving someone once I realized the SMILE was linked to the Holder, because the phrasing is eerily reminiscent of the “demon message” in Undertale’s strings : in case you didn’t know, when Undertale was released, Toby Fox had left a message for dataminers in the game’s strings, basically asking them to not post about whatever secret they may find by looking through the game’s files. This message was eventually changed in later versions of the game to this :
These dialogues read like someone receiving orders and vowing fidelity to someone. Additionally, in version 1.05A, there was additional text near a “demonx” that read “HE IS” which might be yet another ominous reference to Gaster that would further confirm that he’s the person being addressed by this “humble servant”.
These “demon messages” have been speculated to be from Chara, but now that we have a demonic, horned character who is tied to this strange vending machine that has very similar dialogues, I believe it makes much more sense for them to be pronounced by the Holder, a Darkner born from the shelter fountain, pledging allegiance to Gaster upon being created. While the idea of plot-relevant dialogue being first teased within the previous game’s code may sound silly at first, you have to consider that this isn’t the first time an in-game dialogue quotes something that was initially in undertale or deltarune’s code, for instance Spamton NEO’s description in the weird route “Time to wake up and taste the PAIN” is a quote from undertale’s unused/debug room 271 “La, La. Time to wake up and smell the pain”. With all of these elements, I think it is safe to say that the Holder is undeniably Gaster’s servant.
As for Ralsei, his ties to Gaster are much more indirect and speculative. I am not claiming that Ralsei knows who Gaster is or that he’s been working for him the whole time, I simply believe that because he is also a Darkner born from a pure darkness fountain and that the Lightner that made his fountain is Gaster, it would be a decent explanation as to why he felt like he had to always be smiling, or why he has innate knowledge about the rules of the world, the prophecy and the fact it was “foretold by time and space”. Basically, while the Holder seems to be directly taking orders from Gaster, I feel like Ralsei was born with his orders imprinted in his mind.
There are two more questions regarding these two that I’d like to tackle before moving on to the specifics of what Gaster did to Dess and Kris: if they were both born from one of Gaster’s fountain, why are they so radically different, why is Ralsei a goody-two-shoes whose almost too kind for his own sake while the Holder is such a violent and vicious being? And if they’re Darkners, what objects are they in the Lightworld? While it’s perfectly possible that the Holder and Ralsei are just pure darkness with no light world counterpart and that these questions isn’t vital for my theory, I do have an answer to propose. Thanks to Swatch, we know that when a Lightner pours strong emotions into an object, it becomes something powerful in the Darkworld, and we can also deduce that more generally, the Darkner an object becomes is shaped by how its owner felt about it as well as the stories they imagined for it (which explains why all the darkners we saw in chapter 1 to 3 match the identities Kris and Noelle made up for the objects they used when they were playing make believe). So, if the emotions associated with an object is part of what determines a Darkner’s personality, it means that whatever emotions/memories are tied to the object that turned into Ralsei have to be positive, while those tied to the object Gaster used to create the Holder are negative. Thanks to that, we can narrow down the possibilities.
For Ralsei, the best candidates I found are the green crayon that is missing in Kris’ house and of course, the red horned headband. The former doesn’t have much going for it aside from the fact it’s green and is supposedly important enough to the narrator’s eyes that it being missing is worth mentioning, while the latter fits all the criterions : We know from Toriel that Kris wore it for months when they were little, as such, it would be filled with positive feelings as it is both a token of a time Kris’ life was much happier, and also an object that allowed them to feel like they belonged in the Dreemurr family, which would explain why Ralsei looks like a Dreemurr, can use fire magic and why he’s so kind. We also know that it is missing since Toriel wonders “whatever happened to it?” and considering we cannot find it anywhere in the Lightworld for now, I believe that if Ralsei has a Lightworld counterpart, then this headband is the best candidate. I know that Kris’ knife is also a popular idea but as I will demonstrate when we talk about Toriel’s role in all this, I doubt Kris has positive feelings about it and they seem to carry it all the time, so how would Ralsei be able to be present in Kris’ pockets as a knife while also making changes to CastleTown between each chapter at the same time?
The holder is even more tricky, some people argue that since the door that leads into the Ice palace has red horns, it’s possible that the Holder is actually the headband. While it is a fair assumption, you would have to explain why Kris would pour negative emotions onto it. I personally have a second possibility with strong evidence to back it up: during the Spamton Sweepstakes we got secret pages that were each meant to tease something about future chapters. Now that chapter 3 and 4 have been released, we have an explanation for almost all of them. One of the only exceptions being the ice-e sighting page.
Based on Noelle's spelling and the fact that Dess was still present in Hometown, we can place the events being told here before the night of the Incident, maybe a few weeks or a few months earlier. Noelle talks about an Ice-e pizza box and says that she saw the Ice-e mascot printed on the box wink at her, which made her scared of the box, to the point where Dess tried to “kill” it, most likely as a way to reassure her sister. To do so, she apparently burned the box, specifically burning out the eyes of ice-e making it look evil. When Kris, Noelle, Dess and Asriel went to the graveyard to bury it, Kris scared Noelle using the box, prompting Dess to be violent with them, before throwing the box away. So, we have an ice-e pizza box that Noelle feared, believing it to be violent and evil, and these feelings were amplified with Kris scaring Noelle and Dess using violence on Kris. Besides all of these negative feelings being tied to that box, it was also never buried but thrown away instead. All of this happened in the graveyard, with the shelter being nearby, meaning there is a high chance that Gaster got his hands on that box, and given its history, it would be a great object to make a Darkner with. Considering the emotions associated with it were mostly fear and violence, and that its Lightner saw it as evil, it would explain nearly all the characteristics of the shadow mantle holder: it has horns to symbolize its wickedness and that it acts as Gaster’s servant, it can use fire because its Lightworld form was literally burned, the reason the Shadow mantle holder boss battle theme is called “BURNING EYES” could very well be because ice-e’s eyes were burned. But the connection between the Holder and ice-e don’t stop there : as people have pointed out, one of the sound effects that plays right before the battle is called ERAM which is MARE in reverse and thus a synonym for nightmare, and as I mentioned earlier, the BURNING EYES theme is called “nightmare_boss_heavy” in the files ; it being compared to a nightmare makes perfect sense if the object it was made from was feared but it also ties back to “Nightmare mode”. In case you don't know what nightmare, mode is, it’s a fun event that adds another character on the ice-e word jumble sans gives you in undertale
As you can see, this FUN event adds a snowman character called nightmare. This FUN event never really made much sense within the context of undertale, but now that we have Deltarune and this ice-e blog post, it seems like it was actually teasing the story of this pizza box. Moreover, if you pay attention to the words you’re meant to find in this word jumble, there are 3 sets of words: the words are arranged in three columns. In the first column, the four seasons represent the climate of the four regions featured in Undertale in the order they are visited. In the second column, the four words each describe one of the main bosses. The order is the same in both columns, so each season matches the boss from the same region. Meanwhile, the third one doesn’t make any sense at first glance, until you take Deltarune in consideration : in chapter two, one of the puzzles required to get one of the hacker’s blue checkmarks tasks you with spelling “giasfclfebrehber” Ralsei and Susie have some dialogue about that word revealing it’s just ICE-E’s catchphrase “Perhaps this isn’t a real word, Kris…” ; “Yes it is, it’s ICE-E’s catchphrase.” as for cig and cigars, Noelle mentions that when Dess burned the box, it smelled like “charcle pizza” (charcoal pizza) which can be compared to the smell of cigarettes or cigarette ash, while hot simply refers to the fact that the box was burned. With all of these elements, I believe we can make a fairly strong case in favor of the pizza box being the object that made the Holder. It also fits nicely into our timeline : at this point Kris and Noelle are small children, Dess isn’t missing, Gaster is doing research on darkness inside the shelter but hasn’t opened a fountain yet, he gets his hands on an object filled with strong, negative emotions which is perfect for the creation of the first ever Darkner; the night Kris and Dess enter the shelter, Gaster has finally managed to create the first fountain and the box turns into the first Darkner, a malevolent, demonic entity that vows to obey its creator. Meanwhile, Kris and Dess, get lost in the shelter’s newly created dark world, the Darkner lures them to Gaster who is already thinking about his next experiment.
4. The poor test subjects!
At this point, we know that during one night, seven years before the events of Deltarune, the first dark fountain was created inside the shelter by Gaster, the darkness spawned a malicious darkner that swore to serve him. On the same night, Kris and Dess entered the shelter and got lost inside. The darkner that had been created led them to Gaster, as he was recording his observations on the effects of the darkness and expressing his excitement regarding the next experiment. The way Gaster, a scientist, asks mere children with zero scientific background what they think of his next experiment imply they are going to be a part of it, almost as guinea pigs. So, what do I think this experiment was? I believe that just like Alphys; while doing research on a substance she called “Determination” ended up injecting it into people, Gaster used Darkness on Dess. Look at it from Gaster’s perspective: you have been studying darkness for a while, created a fountain and realized that it created a dark world, turning inanimate objects into darkners. Disregarding any form of morality, if using darkness on an object gives it life, what would happen if it was used on a living being? Moreover, considering that Toby Fox refers to Deltarune as “Undertale’s parallel story” it would make perfect sense to look for something similar to the true lab experiments: Gaster “injecting” Dess with Darkness, would be a direct parallel to Alphys’ experiments with determination only in reverse: Alphys initially injected monster people with determination, and then tried it on flowers, while Gaster initially used darkness on objects before using it on a child.
And if we follow that logic, since Alphys ended up creating Amalgamates, Gaster eventually created the Knight which I believe is a Dark Amalgamate. To prove my point, let’s first address the issue you may have with the idea of using Darkness on Dess: when is it established that what the game calls “darkness” can take the form of a physical substance? And the answer to that lies with the fact that Darkness is constantly being compared with water. I’m not going to go over every single instance to prove it, as there are A LOT of examples, I’ll simply give a few exemples : the background image used for the goner maker sequence and the dark fountains is a stock image of the ocean, and is called IMAGE_DEPTHS in the files, the dark fountains are literally fountains, the game even calls them geysers at some point, the shadow crystals’ darkworld description reads “a sharp shadow moves like water in the hand”. If shadows are like water, then they can take a liquid form which could be injected. But then, why am I saying this resulted in the creation of something similar to an amalgamate? First off, let’s focus on what the knight looks like: it has antlers that look similar to the holiday antlers, but most importantly it can shapeshift into a quadruped cervine form :
But while it has features associated with the holiday family, it also possesses some traits that are very similar to the mystery man such as these “holes” in its hands as well as an eerie smile, just like the Shadow mantle holder, and is directly tied to darkness itself. All of these things are thematically associated with Gaster. On top of that, the knight’ design is a nearly identical to the Titans that can be seen during the roaring cutscene in chapter 2. The Knight’s design is thus an amalgam of Titan-like features, Gaster imagery, and cervine elements unique to the Holiday family, similar to how the amalgamates in Undertale were amalgams of key features of different types of monsters.
The process that created the amalgamates and the effects of darkness on its surroundings are also nearly the same : Amalgamates came to be because the determination Alphys injected into her patients made them melt, in other words the outlines of their bodies blurred, and it formed these abominations, while in chapter 3 Ralsei explains that “when it gets dark, things become more indistinct” : Amalgamates are indistinct just like what happens when it gets dark, and I believe this is the point the game tries to make when it shows how the FRIEND we see in that cutscene is similar to endogeny
If you focus on the white part of endogeny, you see a dog-like creature, but if you focus on the black parts between its legs, you can see cat outlines. Meanwhile, FRIEND has the shape of a cat, but the outlines between its legs look more like dogs, which hammers how both creatures are indistinct. Shapeshifting is also a property that is shared between amalgamates and entities created with pure darkness: the knight can change into a ball and their quadruped cervine form while the holder takes on a bat-like form when it spews bombs, amalgamates can change into the battle warning indicator, pellets and even save points.
The main take away is that using pure darkness on something, or someone, will form a creature that is very similar to an amalgamate, the knight being what you get when you do that with a monster, and that this is what Gaster did to Dess. You may believe that the Knight is someone else, like Carol for example, but the rest of the theory will provide more concrete evidence to back up the idea that the Knight is its own entity, one that Dess was “reborn” as.
5. The sins of the Dreemurr family
Before we continue on Dess, we need to talk about what Gaster did to Kris. I actually don’t have strong evidence regarding this, as such I don’t want to waste much time speculating: Since Kris is the only human in hometown, meaning this is the only human soul Gaster would have easy access to, I believe he did something to their soul directly and that it was after this incident that Kris started doing things like ripping it off and putting it inside the bird cage. This would explain why the cage is already quite damaged in chapter 1 and why there is no particular sign of Kris doing anything like that in their early life (the heart-shaped pillow prank they did on Noelle was clearly just that, I see it more as ironic foreshadowing)
While I don’t have any solid lead on what Gaster did to Kris, there are interesting hints on what Kris did inside the shelter which actually gives us a general idea of where Toriel and Asgore fit into all of this. Then, I will demonstrate how their actions that night, coupled with what they saw Gaster do to Dess is the root of their trauma, which I will then use to further prove that Kris has been inside the shelter and that Dess has been used to create the knight (in case the entry 17 part wasn’t enough evidence for you).
The staring point actually lies within the last board of the sword route: As you explore this manhole dungeon thing, you eventually end up in this room, where a black monster is present and as you may already know, dataminers have found something interesting about this ennemy. I’m know almost nothing about coding, so I’ll just keep it simple. Basically, when the game loads in the sprite for that enemy, it doesn’t use the sprite you see when you enter the room, that sprite actually “replaces” this one :
This black deer is clearly meant to represent a member of the holiday family, and it can’t be Noelle since she’s already represented by the white cloak character. Which means this black deer can only be Carol, Rudy or Dess. This enemy also happens to be the only ennemy 8-bit Kris will kill themselves. On one hand, we have a deer associated with the color black, that Kris kills on their own and on the other hand, we have a deer family composed of four members, 3 of them are still present during the events of the game and none of them are associated with black, while the fourth one is missing and has never been seen in-game meaning we can’t rule out the possibility that it is associated with this color in some way, and we also have a black creature that happens to look like a deer. By process of elimination, I think the most likely candidate for who that black deer is meant to represent is Dess. But if Kris killed Dess as the sword route suggest, how can she also be the knight? I propose two interpretations, with interpretation B being the one that I feel is the most likely.
Interpretation A: the sword route is symbolic, and thus 8-bit kris killing the black deer with its sword is simply meant to represent the fact that Kris was able to run away from the shelter and leaving Dess to her fate. Considering she seemingly went missing after the fact, they would thus feel like they “killed” her, when in reality she was used as a test subject for Gaster’s experiments Interpretation B: the sword route is literal, meaning 8-bit Kris killing a black deer with their sword is meant to reveal that Kris used their knife to kill Dess when they were inside the shelter. This brings context as to why the shadow mantle holder tells Kris “Without play, the knife grows dull” : since it was present when it happened, it’s tormenting Kris over that (and since we had to do something similar to the 8-bit versions of Susie and Ralsei, the Holder’s sentence could also imply that Kris will be forced to do the same thing to their two closest friends that they did to Dess). This idea is reinforced by one of the chapter 4 egg room NPCs stating “Are you here for Art Club? Right, this is where we draw pictures and don’t kill each other”. Since there are many details that imply the egg plotline in general seem to be directly correlated with Kris’ trauma regarding the shelter incident, such as how the ticket to nowhere you need to get the chapter’s egg can be obtained from the gumball machine after you access the strange 1225 room that is obviously related to Dess, the fact we know from the PlayStation achievements that the eggs represent Kris’ “issues” and the chapter 4 egg room most likely being a reminiscence of Kris going to therapy in Hometown’s hospital to deal with the traumatic experience of that night in the forest, with Noelle and Asriel most definitely being the ones occupying the two other inaccessible hospital rooms. Them trying to draw what they saw that night but being so terrified that their drawing is just a monochrome smear, upon which they draw a tree is also another proof that the Man is the one who traumatized them, which only reinforced the popular idea that him and Gaster are one and the same. It would also explain why the motif of hands keeps showing up: when Kris washes their hands, the narration reads “You ran the water over your hands and dried them. Between your fingers, a faint grey crease glittered stubbornly. You can never wash it all away”. If interpretation B is correct, then that text is telling us that Kris killed someone with their own hands, and that they will never be able to wash off that sin. This is why they’re obsessed with bathrooms, and why they’ve been locking themselves inside them to repeatedly wash their hands. They feel immense guilt over what they did, it seems like they’d do anything to get rid of that “crease”… and if washing it doesn’t work then it explains why the game seems to be foreshadowing Kris losing one of their hands, mostly through chapter 1 shadow crystal’s vision that reads “For some strange reason, for just a brief moment, you thought you saw through your hand” as well as the narration you get in the 1225 room stating “It was a small, dark triangle. You tried to take it… but it slipped through your hand. And you couldn’t find it anymore. You couldn’t find you hand”
If the game is implying self-harm, then it’s also a possible explanation for that blood stain in Kris’ room. Maybe they thought that a cut on their hand could make the “crease” disappear. Of course, all of that symbolism would technically still work under interpretation A, it’s just not as strong as it is if Kris literally killed someone.
This is all well and good, but if interpretation B is correct, then Dess can’t be the Knight. At best, she would be another Darkner, similar to Gerson, one created from an object with monster dust sprinkled on it, meaning that the knight is someone else as it is able to open fountains and thus can only be a Lightner, right? But what if Dess and the holiday family are Boss Monsters? To my knowledge nothing in the game confirms or denies the idea thus far, and if Dess is a Boss Monster, then everything falls into place. Kris killed her, but her soul persisted, which is what Gaster used the Darkness on. Not only is this a nice parallel to what Alphys was initially trying to do with determination in the first place, allowing monster souls to persist after death as she explains in entry 3 and 6 : “And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans... The SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...”; “ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had fallen down. Their bodies came in today. They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject "determination" into them? If their SOULS persist after they perish, then... Freedom might be closer than we all thought”, this would give credit to what I suggested earlier, that what Gaster did to Kris had something to do with their SOUL specifically, meaning he tempered with the souls of both children. If I’m right about this, then it would be logical that next experiment he talks about would be about using darkness on souls, which is something Darkners don’t have. This might also be why the bird NPC one of the Gaster followers is based on and who’s behavior has become more and more bizarre as the game progressed seem so obsessed with the books, specifically those on the library’s second floor (and is also, ironically, the one preventing us from reading): Aside from “how to care for humans” all the books upstairs so far are about SOULS. Could it be that Gaster is somehow using that NPC to bring our attention to these books? Or to prevent us from realizing something about his true motives considering that NPC is also the one that has been limiting our access to these very same books?
There is one more crucial detail about the black deer in the sword route: the variable that causes this sprite to be replaced with the more standard monster sprite is actually called “Toriel”
So, in a way, “Toriel” is covering up the truth of “Kris” using its “sword” to kill a “black deer” by replacing it with something benign. If you replace all the elements by what they represent in reality: Toriel is covering up Kris killing Dess with their knife. And this realization is what allowed me to finally understand what the hell was going on in chapter two’s intro which everyone seems to gloss over. Chapter two opens with a scene where we only get to hear Toriel say the following “Kris ? Kris, honey… Are you awake ? …w… wait ! Is that a… a knife ?!! NOOOOO---”
I believe this scene is a flashback that takes place during the same night where the kids explored the forest, specifically, I think this is Kris coming back home after escaping from the shelter. Not only is the scene very similar to the one from Undertale, where after falling down in Waterfall, Frisk we get a flashback of Asriel meeting Chara, Toriel’s words imply it’s the first time she sees Kris with a knife, while she seems pretty casual about it in chapter 2. Her dialogue also confirms this took place during the night so as far as the chronology of events goes, it would fit nicely with my idea. With the added context of this “Toriel” variable, I think we can make a good case for the idea that she caught Kris holding their knife, maybe covered in blood, as they returned from the shelter, and chose to hide the truth to protect her child from the consequences. A questionable thing to do, but it definitely fits with her character. This event is probably what kickstarted her falling out with Asgore : as the chief’s police, he was most likely tasked with finding out what happened to Dess, and because she’s the daughter of his best friend, it’s no surprise he would obsess over solving the case even to this day. But Toriel knows that Asgore figuring out the truth would mean that both Kris and her would face severe consequences, and that Asgore is a man of Honor, driven by his unyielding sense of duty and that as much as it will pain him, he won’t do what Toriel did. I’m particularly confident with this idea since it is yet another parallel to their falling out in Undertale, that also involved the murder of children and a strong disagreement over a major moral dilemma. Furthermore, if Carol is supporting Asgore’s investigation, it also explains why she seems to have grown distant from Carol aswell, to the point where she won’t even say her name when talking with Rudy in chapter 4.
6. Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
What the theory states so far is that Kris has a severe trauma that relates to the night where they went inside the shelter with Dess, ended up in a dark world that had just been made by Gaster, where a vile Darkner, acting as Gaster’s servant, lured them to him. Gaster did something to Kris, supposedly to their SOUL, and they ended up killing Dess. As a Boss Monster, her soul persisted just long enough for him to use Darkness on it, as Kris was able to escape (or maybe they were allowed to, in exchange of something. Gaster IS the Devil after all; would he pass up the opportunity to force Kris to make a promise?). This was probably the moment they lost their horned headband, which would be another object gaster would be interested with for his experiments. When they returned home, Toriel realized they had seemingly killed someone and that Dess was missing, she decided to cover up the truth. Asriel, Noelle and Kris were all left deeply affected by this experience, and would attend Hometown’s hospital for therapy.
The results for Kris are… less than optimal, and their fear is what I’m going to use to provide more evidence for the fact they’ve been inside the shelter as well as figuring out what Gaster’s experiments led to, how he wasn’t just studying Darkness but also the space-time continuum itself and how that infamous “voice in the code” is undeniably Dess. I’m aware Dess being the one talking in the UNUSED text is a very common idea, but I feel like there is a lack of arguments being provided for this, we’ve all just kind of agreed to assume it to be the case. I will do my best to achieve this!
In case you didn’t know, there are a lot of ominous messages hidden in the game’s data, similar to the demon text from undertale. If you want more details about the stuff I’m going to be mentioning from now on, I have linked some of HalfbreadChaos’ videos on the matter at the end.
Let’s start with the “voice in the code”, this refers to a bunch of scripts found in the game’s files, there is one UNUSED script for each chapter and they seem to tell the story of an unknown character that seems to be stuck in a dark space:
As many people have pointed out, this UNUSED text seems to be quoted by Spamton in one of his shop dialogues “…can anyone hear me? Help…” which is another instance of in-game dialogue referencing something from the game’s code. What is often disregarded however, is the context in which Spamton suddenly starts quoting this text, which will actually be pivotal to understanding why he says that, who’s this voice in the code and how it even helps making sense of the other messages in the code besides UNUSED. You actually get this Spamton dialogue by choosing the “FEAR” dialogue option, and his full dialogue reads “WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF??? ACCORDING TO [[Encyclopedia of]] [[Being Afraid]] THERE'S NOTHING TO FEAR EXCEPT ... can anyone hear me? Help... HUH??? WHAT?? NO, I DIDN'T HEAR ANYTHING JUST NOW!!! ... BUT IT SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE TALKING TO YOU.” This added context sheds a new light on this strange piece of dialogue, Spamton is telling Kris what they are afraid of, which prompts him to quote the UNUSED text, before specifying that the voice was talking to Kris. This strongly suggests that the story being told in the UNUSED text and the character speaking are directly tied to Kris’ fear, meaning this somehow relates to their Shelter trauma, which fits nicely with what we’ve established so far. Let’s focus on the UNUSED text itself now and let’s look for details that could hint at who this person is and what happened to them. The first part is very similar to what Asriel, posing as Toriel, describes of his experience before being reborn as Flowey “Where am I…? It’s so cold here… And so dark… Someone help me… Anyone… please… Help me…” while the fourth part tells us that they don’t eat or drink. This strongly implies that whatever is going on, they aren’t just a normal person trapped somewhere, it seems they are in a strange in-between state between life and death. In the fourth part, they also mention late night-TV and breakfast. While this detail is sometimes used to rule out Dess since it sounds more like a typical morning for a Dreemurr, considering how close the two families were, it’s just as likely that she’s talking about sleepovers at their house. Another detail that sets their case apart from Flowey, is the scratching noise they hear, meaning that they are still conscious and to some extent, aware of their surroundings. So, we are dealing with someone experiencing something similar to what Flowey went through before being reborn, who’s also aware of the sounds around them. Earlier, I suggested that Dess could’ve been reduced to a soul, and injected with Darkness to allow it to persist. This UNSUED text would be a good description of how this process would look like to Dess, after all we know from Undertale that even when their bodies have been destroyed, the SOULs are still aware and retain their memories, this is why they answer our call for help against omega Flowey and eventually rebel against him when he starts torturing Frisk, why we are able to save the Monster souls by making them remember everything during the true pacifist final boss battle.
But what are the scratching sounds? And if Dess is the voice in the code, how can she also be the Knight? Considering Dess is being used by Gaster as a test subject, I think it’s highly likely that the scratching noise is Gaster taking notes, silently observing the effects of Darkness on Dess. I believe that’s what this UNUSED text is, Gaster’s notes. This would explain why unused is written in all caps, but also why Dess is both the knight and the UNUSED voice. The stuff described in UNSUED isn’t happening in parallel of the game’s event, these are written records of Gaster’s next experiment. You could almost say they are the follow-up entries to entry 17. This would also explain why the person behind the scratching isn’t answering Dess’s call for help: to Gaster, this would be an experiment, a way to find out what effects Darkness can have on the soul. Eventually, the voice’s mental state starts to deteriorate because of the dark, they lose track of time, implying it could very well have been years since they’ve been in there (which once again fits nicely with our timeline, Dess has been missing for seven years, and her transformation into the Knight wasn’t instantaneous which would explain why it only started acting shortly before the game started) and start to be irrationally grateful to the one behind the scratching “This sounds crazy, but even though no one can hear me, when I hear that noise, I feel like someone's listening. Anyone, if you're there... thank you”.
Someone’s mind slowly being broken by an unseen entity that is listening to them, and who says “thank you” to that entity… This is clearly meant to draw a parallel between what Gaster supposedly did to Dess and what we do to Noelle in the weird route: we both are unseen entities that are always listening “It’s rude to talk about someone who’s listening”; “Who…? Who’s going to hear?” We slowly break their mind until eventually, we turn them into obedient weapons. This is evidenced by how Noelle says the same thing as the UNUSED voice when we choose to think of her in chapter four: “Thank you.” This would make a nice parallel between Gaster/Dess and Us/Noelle and it also explains why Gaster’s dialogue at the end of chapter 4 doesn’t change in the weird route. He’s done the same thing we did; these are acceptable methods to him. The idea that being lost in darkness will eventually break your mind is visually alluded to in the Roaring cutscene and carries on to the Knight. Look at the human’s stance and notice how the knight’s position before they roar is nearly identical with the way they are both clutching their head with their hands, as if their minds were suffering:
Thus, I believe the Knight is a “Dark amalgamate”, a creature born from Dess (more specifically her soul) merging with Darkness. A couple questions remain regarding the Knight: Is it acting on instinct or is it intelligent, and what are its motives? I believe it’s pretty obvious that the Knight has some form of intelligence, they laugh at Susie’s words in chapter 4 and they nod when Kris coughs, meaning they understand words and cues. It also has the intelligence to hide or stay out of view whenever necessary, if we assume that it was hiding in the church’s closet and that it is the hand that pushes back Kris in the last prophecy room (which would be another clue in favor of Dess Knight, since a guitar sound is meant to be playing during this interaction). Furthermore, unlike Gaster’s, the fountains it creates aren’t pure darkness, and its dark worlds are filled with elements from Dess’ past or Kris and Noelle’s childhood: seam who’s apparently based on some sort of cat character Kris and Asriel made on their laptop, the baseball moon, the smiling plugs, the puppet scarf that feels like guitar strings, or the ribbons that look familiar according to Noelle. There’s also the fact that the knight’s fountain was able to make specific enough darkness to bring back Gerson as a Darkner, which would be possible for Dess as she probably had him as a teacher when she was younger. As for her motives and why she hasn’t caused the Roaring, thanks to the parallel with the weird route it becomes clear that the Knight has no motives aside from serving Gaster, as such, it’s most likely assisting him with his Dark Fountain experiments. After all, unlike the tail of hell, the knight is technically still a Lightner, it can thus make its own fountains. This would provide a fairly solid explanation as to why it tried to abduct Toriel, why it took Undyne to the shelter, and why it opened a fountain inside the church. All of these things would help satiate the questions a man experimenting with Dark Fountains would ask himself: What happens if we use Darkness on an object covered with monster dust? What would happen if we used it on another type of Boss Monster? What would happen if the one monster that managed to achieve a formidable transformation using Determination was injected with Darkness instead?
Now that we’re done with UNUSED, let’s look at the other strange texts that can be found in Deltarune’s files, the error handler text. There are quite of lot of them, so i've divided them into diffent categories for clarity’s sake.
The “Repressed narration category”:
This category includes the following sentences
Based on my interpretation of the demon text and UNUSED, it looks like we have a pattern of text related to the Shelter Incident being hidden in the game’s code. This, coupled with the fact Kris’ trauma was caused by this Incident, leads me to believe that these messages are hidden in the game's code as a way to symbolize how Kris is repressing their memories of what they saw inside the shelter. As such, these bits of text would be narrative flavor text of what Kris saw/felt when they explored the place. This would imply that the blueprints for the broken machine from sans lab, are inside the shelter considering the error handler text is nearly identical to the narration we get when we check the blueprints in Undertale. This would further support the popular idea that these blueprints were made by Gaster. The other messages could almost be put in their own sub category because of they seem to describe a fight-or-flight response “It could not be” “Your eyesight became blurry” “Your heartbeat quickened” “Suddenly, you body seizes up. What are you looking at ?” which makes sense if these are what Kris remembers of their encounter with Gaster. These messages can even be used to tie the Knight into all of this because some of the flavor text during their fight is almost identical
Here are the flavor texts similar to “Your heartbeat quickened” :
"Kris held their breath. their heartbeat quickened"
"Your chest feels tight"
"Your heartbeat becomes twisted"
As for “Your eyesight became blurry” one of the flavor texts during the fight reads "Your vision narrows"
These details could imply that the Knight’s presence is making Kris’ repressed memories resurface, linking it even more closely to Kris’ trauma.
The “Gaster Poems” category
These are 3 error handler messages that rhyme when put together, forming some kind of poem. As many have pointed out, it seems to describe the Mystery man's face "Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye?"; "The gash weaves down as if you cry"; "The pain itself is reason why"
As such, this text seems to be specifically about motifs related to Gaster: Pain, the Mystery Man, and rhyming. Indeed, the two other major instances where we find rhymes are in parts of the Prophecy itself (which was likely written by Gaster) and in the speech of one of Gaster’s followers
Now that we’re done with the error handler text, we can focus on the flavor text you get when fighting Echidna aka G BODY. This is something pretty obscure, so in case you don't know what I’m talking about, I once again recommend checking HalfbreadChaos' video on the matter, they explain what this enemy is way better than I could.
In any case, if you somehow start a battle with this enemy, you will get the following flavor text "You've come again to this wonderful place. Now tear off the mask beneath your face!"
This is yet another text that rhymes and this one also uses the adjective “wonderful” which is one of Gaster’s favorite words (it keeps coming back in his tweets, and is also used multiple times in the Goner maker sequence). The text also states that whoever is being addressed has already been in a the “wonderful place” it mentions. Considering all these elements, I believe it is directed to Kris, and that we will most likely see it in-game when we enter the shelter, either from Gaster himself or from the shadow mantle holder, this message seems to be particularly in-character for the latter. The forgotten man also seems to vaguely allude to this place and the strange “Now, tear off the mask beneath your face!” thing in his chapter 3 dialogue “IF YOU WILL IT, WE SHALL MEET AGAIN AT THAT PLACE”; “SO TAKE YOUR TIME, WASH YOUR FACE, AND GET DRESSED!” as well as his Valentine letter “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT”. Overall, this text is another piece connecting Kris, their trauma, Gaster, and the Shelter.
Now that we’re done with the first part of this theory, let’s sum everything up
One night, Asriel, Kris, Noëlle and Dess explored the forest past the graveyard. Using the code she stole from her mother, Dess opened the Shelter, wanting to go inside. But because Noëlle was scared, only Dess and Kris, the two more adventurous kids of the bunch, went inside while Asriel stayed outside watching over Noëlle. At the same time, Doctor W.D. Gaster, a scientist that had been doing researches on Souls and Darkness, managed to open the first ever Dark Fountain, creating a Dark world inside the shelter. The Darkness had also created the first ever Darkner from a burnt pizza box Gaster had retrieved nearby a few weeks before. Because of the negative emotions and memories poured into that box however, the Darkner was particularly malicious. It became Gaster’s humble servant, promising to follow him to the utmost, figuratively making it the “tail of hell”. Kris and Dess, who were lost inside the shelter's dark world, were then brought to Gaster by the tail. As he was recording his observations, he came up with a new experiment: He would use Darkness on living beings. Amidst the chaos of this terrifying encounter, Kris, perhaps after Gaster tempered with their soul, making them able to be controlled by someone else, stabbed (or was forced to stab) Dess. Gaster used this opportunity to use Darkness on her boss monster soul, saving it from destruction. (It’s possible that this is the point where Kris made that infamous promise. A deal with the Devil, in exchange for Dess’s salvation. They would agree to let their soul be controlled, and follow instructions, in exchange for Gaster’s help. Using Darkness, he would save Dess. This might be what “the promise in our hearts” refers to assuming don’t forget is sung by Dess). Either way, Kris make it out of the shelter, losing their headband in the process. When they returned home, Toriel caught them with the Knife they used to stab Dess, and decided to hide the truth to protect her child. Asgore on the other hand, would become obsessed with finding Dess, which would cause a falling out between him and Toriel, leasing to their divorce. Kris would remain deeply traumatized by that night, and they would go on to struggle with their own soul, as well as with an immense feeling of guilt over what happened. They would resort to self-harm, and would try to repress any memory of what they saw. Meanwhile, in the shelter, Dess merged with Darkness itself, would slowly break because of the dark. After many years, she would end up completely subjugated to the one behind the scratching noises, Dr. Gaster. She would be reborn, not as Dess, but as a amalgamation of Darkness, of traits inherited from her newfound master, and remaining features of the rowdy girl she once was. With the previous experiment being conclusive, Gaster created another pure Dark Fountain, this time inside the school's closet. Using the headband he took from Kris, another special Darkner was created, Ralsei. This one would have the same unique properties as the tail of hell, but because the object that was used to make him was filled with positive memories and feelings, he would have a nearly opposite personality. Ralsei would be born with innate knowledge about the rules of the world and its Prophecy, he would be completely dedicated to its purpose: carrying out the Prophecy, or as chapter 4 puts it, “recording the fate”, acting as a control case for Gaster’s next experiments.
PART 2 : ANOTHER DELTARUNE
This theory was originally supposed to end there, but it still felt like I was missing something. Where does the Prophecy fit into this? What’s going on with the Forgotten man? Why is he so different and yet so similar to Gaster? What about the FUN events and all that Gaster stuff from Undertale? If Alphys' determination experiments are a parallel to Gaster's experiments, shouldn’t there be a point where his experience go wrong? Eventually, it clicked. If Gaster kept experimenting with Dark Fountains, and if FUN events are actually telling parts of Deltarune’s lore, then this Gaster follower dialogue takes on a whole new meaning:
What if Gaster’s experiments going wrong wasn’t something that happened in Undertale, but in Deltarune?
In this second part, I’m going to develop an explanation that will hopefully bring us closer to understanding what the deal with Gaster is.
Here’s the gist of it: I believe that the voice we hear in chapter 1’s intro and the Forgotten man are both Gaster, but unlike what most people believe I don’t think one is from Deltarune and one is from Undertale. I believe that they’re both from Deltarune, except the Forgotten man is from a “failed” timeline, one where we, the player, weren’t present.
In this timeline, the heroes failed to stop the knight, and Gaster’s experiments unwillingly caused the Roaring, dooming the world to eternal darkness. However, aside from his experiments with Darkness and similarly to Alphys, Gaster had also been studying alternate universes, and discovered the existence of the Undertale universe, his reports showed that an anomaly was messing with this universe’s timelines. Gaster thus planned to travel to this universe with the objective of bringing the anomaly to the Deltarune universe, using its powers to change the inevitable fate he had created for his universe, correcting his failing experiment into a success.
Using the blueprints he had designed, and with the help of two men he met some point after his experiments went wrong, these men being sans, who had been studying quantum physics, and his little brother, who excelled in creating complex machinery that he usually used to create puzzles, Gaster was able to complete a machine that could achieve space-time travel. During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, and while sans and his brother were able to make it to their destination, Gaster ended up in the past, long before the anomaly’s arrival. With the machine broken and its creator missing, sans and his brother had no choice but to accept Undertale as their new home. As for Gaster, seeing he ended up in a point in time too far from the anomaly, decided to leave hints about him that would arouse the anomaly’s curiosity. Thanks to his scientific background, he was hired by King Asgore as the Royal Scientist. He eventually built the CORE, and used it to create GONERs, these creatures would tell bits of information about Gaster and events from his home world in order to make sure the anomaly would look for him. Having left all these breadcrumbs, Gaster vanished as suddenly as he appeared, once again crossing time and space to return to the Deltarune universe as the Forgotten man, a being shattered across time and space. Now experiencing time in reverse, he eventually met his own, non-shattered self. The Forgotten man told Gaster what had happened to him, said events would form The Prophecy as well as the existence of the anomaly. With this knowledge, Gaster created the SURVEY_PROGRAM, before contacting the anomaly that had been looking for him. Using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect it to the Deltarune world, this Gaster’s goal is to use our power to create a new future. Not out of any desire for good, or evil. But because this would certainly be the most interesting experiment he ever conceived.
I know this all sounds completely crazy, but let me go over the evidence.
The failed Deltarune
I believe this is a good way to start this crazy part so let’s go over everything that implies the events of Deltarune have somehow already happened once before. Our first main clue comes from the Legend and Roaring cutscenes. Both of these are told through sepia-colored screens, which in both Undertale and Deltarune, they’ve only ever been used to tell flashbacks, which implies that one way or another, the roaring and the prophecy have already happened once.
Speaking of the Roaring, let’s pay attention to how it’s described. Ralsei tells us in chapter 2 that it is an event that ends with the world being plunged in a never-ending night, which will start “when the fountains fill the sky”. What Ralsei is saying is that when darkness fills the sky, the Roaring will start, leading to the eternal night. This is very similar to what Gaster says when you choose to give up upon getting a game over “THEN THE WORLD WAS COVERED IN DARKNESS” and on top of that, the theme that plays (which also happens to be 66 seconds long) is called “DARKNESS FALLS”. So, when the end of the world happens, Darkness fills the sky, before falling from it, covering up the entire world. As I’ve explained before, Darkness and water are thematically the same thing, so Darkness falling from the sky is the same thing as saying water falls from the sky, which is called raining. But if darkness is water, does that mean it can exist in the two other primary states of water: gaseous and solid? Turns out it absolutely does: the dark fountains literally make smoke, while darkness has been associated with coldness on multiple occasions: Earlier, I quoted Flowey posing as a deceased Toriel, specifying that everything was dark and cold. Furthermore, just before Gaster took over the UT/DR X account, we got this tweet.
The reason I’m establishing a link between darkness and cold/ice is because of this prophecy panel:
This panel ties back to the idea of darkness falling from the sky, except it uses snowflakes. But considering the panel doesn’t use the term “snow” but specifically “cold water” and how darkness has been established to be cold, we can safely assume that Darkness, water, cold and ice all refer to the same general idea. Therefore, if darkness falling from the sky refers to the end of the world, the fact Gaster immediately says that this is what happens as a consequence of us, the player, choosing to give up means that he already knows that without us, the Roaring will not be stopped. This further suggests the existence of a playerless timeline that ended up in failure, and gives context as to why he says that he aims to “CREATE A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU” and how we apparently need each other. Another element that supports this idea is the first sentence from the Forgotten man in chapter 3 “WELL, SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER, AND SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD.” have you ever wondered what this sentence was supposed to mean? He initially goes from spring to summer, nothing strange there, but then, not only does he skip fall, he says COLD, not winter. The choice to use the world cold feels deliberate. He’s not talking about the passing of seasons; he’s talking about what happened in his failed timeline. One of the few things we know about Deltarune’s time period is that the game’s events are set around the end of spring/the beginning of summer since Asriel is meant to come back to hometown next week for his college vacation, and Kris has the search query “summer vacation college when” inside their cyber world room. SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER thus refers to the events of the game, while SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD means that the world ended up covered in darkness. As we’re going to see in a moment, the forgotten man seems to experience time in reverse, most of the things he says are either in reverse or out of order, but this sentence is one of the only times he follows the normal flow of time. If this man has been travelling through space and time, it makes sense he would struggle to keep track of everything, but would recall the events of his original timeline in a normal order.
Finally, let’s look at this quote from the Forgotten man’s valentine letter: “AS YOU ARE WAITING PATIENTLY, THE TIME IS GOING AROUND”. The correct expression would be “time is going by” to suggest the passing of time, but here, the Forgotten man says that it’s “going around” almost like time is repeating itself. To my knowledge, he is the only character that has suggested this so far. I know that there have been theories that Deltarune is stuck in a never-ending time loop, but I don’t think that is what’s going on, I think this is rather signaling time is repeating from his perspective. After all, if the forgotten man is from a failed timeline, everything leading up to the game’s ending is just a repetition for him. Furthermore, if he’s experiencing this new timeline in reverse after reaching “the end” of his own timeline, he is quite literally going around through time.
2. Space-time travelers
Now that I’ve established the existence of a failed timeline, let me demonstrate how Gaster, with the help of sans and his brother, was able to escape the fate he brought upon his own world, and how he became the forgotten man. Small heads up before I go on though: since I’ll be referring to two different Gasters, I’ll use “Forgaster” (Forget + Gaster) for simplicity to describe the one who came from the failed timeline, went to Undertale, and returned as the Forgotten Man. I’ll keep “Gaster” for the one who appears to be speaking to us on social media and in the goner maker sequence.
Forgaster ended up creating an unavoidable fate for everyone in the Deltarune universe, with no means to stop it. So, what could he do? Like I implied earlier, I have reasons to believe Gaster was aware of the existence of Undertale and had been researching that universe, on top of his Darkness researches. Even alphys, who’s researched primarily focused on determination and MTT is confirmed to have been studying alternate universes based on this dialogue you get for answer “Nobody” to the final question of MTT’s quiz “Hey, I’ve done research about this! There are alternate universes out there!” so the idea that Gaster would also do this as a side gig isn’t out of the question. Furthermore, I established that the blueprints for the broken machine in sans’ lab were most likely in the shelter. Finally, during his fight, sans states that “our reports have shown a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting. Until suddenly, everything ends” what “reports” is he talking about? This guy sells hotdogs for a living; how would he have the means of producing a scientific report? This dialogue, is sans admitting he has a scientific background, and based on the books we find in his undertale house, or how he makes a joke reference to the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, it’s pretty clear that his field of research is quantum physics. The fact he specifies “our reports” means he didn’t do this research alone. While his colleague could be Alphys, the fact she never shows any knowledge about what is going on with the timelines in Undertale disproves the idea. I think it’s far more likely in light of everything we know today, that sans somehow met Forgaster at some point. These reports are what allowed them to learn of the existence of the anomaly (which is just how sans refers to what fans tend to call “the player”) and come up with the idea of luring it to Deltarune to change fate. After all, an anomaly that has the power to rewind time and exert complete control on timelines would’ve been seen as a godsent in their situation. Sans’ brother’s involvement in this is rather speculative, but if this brother really is Papyrus, then it throws a few wrenches in the next part of my theory which is basically me agreeing with the “sans undertale is the same as sans deltarune” but I’ll address these in due time. If Papyrus was involved, I doubt he took part in the whole time-space research. At best, I think it’s more likely that he helped build the machine, seeing how undertale implies that his knowledge of machinery is rather impressive, judging by the complex books on puzzle creation on his bookshelf.
In any case, this machine is definitely how sans and papyrus ended up in undertale, but I also think that it’s the reason for Papyrus being so lost and naïve as well as what caused Forgaster being shattered across time and space. Let’s go over the major evidence in favor of “sans is from deltarune”
The first clue implying that sans and Papyrus do not originate from Undertale (and by extension, the idea of an Undertale counterpart for Gaster being incorrect) actually comes from what the snowdin shopkeeper tells us about them “There’s two of ‘em. Brothers, I think. They just showed up one day and… asserted themselves”. The way they just suddenly appeared out of nowhere would make sense if they arrived there thanks to the machine. As for Forgaster, the riverman has one dialogue that was always believed to be about him “Beware of the man who speaks in hands” seeing how Deltarune has been bringing back this hand motif with the knight most notably, and how the Wingdings font uses multiple hand signs, this is a fair assumption. However, there is another line from the Riverman that is nowhere as iconic as the previous one, and that was always harder to connect to Gaster “Beware of the man who came from the other world”, back when we only had Undertale, there wasn’t much to suggest this had anything to do with him, aside from how both sentences used a similar structure and mentioned a man. But thanks to what we learned in Deltarune and what I’ve established so far, this sentence makes a lot more sense. The riverman is telling us that a man came from another world that he doomed because of his experiences, and is trying to lure us in order to take advantage of our power. Besides that, one of Gaster’s followers states that “one day, he vanished without a trace” which sounds like the inverse of sans and papyrus: while the two brothers suddenly appeared out of nowhere one day, Forgaster appears to have suddenly disappeared. I’m not exactly sure if him vanishing is alluding to when he returned to the Deltarune universe, or if the follower is talking about how he escaped from the failed timeline thanks to the machine.
Sans also has dialogues that sound a bit nonsensical if you only consider Undertale, especially during the hangout at MTT resort, and during his fight.
“Your journey’s almost over, huh? You must really wanna go home. Hey, I know the feeling, buddo. Though maybe sometimes it’s better to just take what’s given to you. Down here you’ve already got food, drink, friends… is what you have to do… really worth it?”
There’s the obvious fact he says he wants to “go home”, but even if we disregard that and chalk it up to sans meaning he wants to go back to the surface, he seems to be projecting a bit in this scene. Him stating that Frisk already has food and friends in the underground sound like what he’s been telling himself to cope with the fact he’s stranded in a world that’s not his own. Going off of that, the way he asks if what we have to do is really worth it could also be him implying he came here with a goal, supposedly getting the anomaly, and wonders if it’s really worth it. It’s not like he’d have a way back anyway. These doubts might also partly explain why he prioritizes the promise he made to Toriel over his desire (or his mission) to kill us, especially if the two were close in Deltarune.
As for his desire to go home, he outright confirms he’s not talking about the surface during his fight “Look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago. And getting to the surface doesn’t really appeal anymore, either” Moreover, the theme that plays during that scene is called “It’s raining somewhere else” and in Chapter 4, we got to hear a very similar track called “The place where it rained”. I’ve already showed that darkness and water are the same thing thematically, and that the world of deltarune ended with Darkness (water) falling from the sky, covering everything. Figuratively, you could say that the end of the world is represented by rain. With that in mind, the name of these two tracks can not only be interpreted differently, they also respond to each other: He knows that while he’s stuck in undertale, darkness is still falling from the sky in his home world, that’s why the track uses the present continuous, it’s raining somewhere else. And thus, the track from Deltarune not only tells us what this “somewhere else” is, it also alludes to the existence of the failed timeline, it tells us that the world of deltarune is the place where it rained. The use of past tense is significant, because it doesn’t make sense from our perspective as players, since the roaring hasn’t happened yet, but it does for someone who came from Forgaster’s failed timeline or who simply knows what happened
As for Papyrus, we have this dialogue from the Fangamer Q&A:
Considering there isn’t really any spot with green grass in the Underground, this is a huge hint because it means Papyrus may also be from Deltarune. But it poses a few problems: why does sans state his brother never saw any human? Why does he appear to be a shut-in type of person in Deltarune when his personality in Undertale is the exact opposite of that? Considering his supposed Deltarune memories seem a bit hazy, I believe what’s being implied here is that Papyrus either suffers from amnesia/cognitive issues or trauma (maybe a mix of both). The reason why I believe that lies with the fact the machine is broken. It implies it malfunctioned when it was used by Forgaster, sans and papyrus when traveling to Undertale. If the machine was built in a hurry, as the Roaring was happening, then we have a pretty good explanation for why it happened. It seems like sans was able to make it out in one piece, however Papyrus’s mind seemingly suffered from it, while Forgaster was unaccounted for. If Papyrus has trouble remembering things, then that’s something he has in common with the Forgotten man. What if this is because their memory issues have the same origin? Considering sans seems fairly depressed over his situation, I guess this would explain why he seems to purposely interrupt the Q&A: he’s preventing his brother from remembering what happened so that he won’t suffer from it. This is a solid explanation for why the Forgotten Man speaks in a way that is very similar to Gunter’s, but not quite identical: Forgaster speaks like someone who was shattered across time and space, while Gaster is just normal. This also implies that the trip from Deltarune to Undertale was the moment when Forgaster was shattered. That makes perfect sense: what machine would have the potential to shatter someone across time and space without it coming from nowhere, if not a device literally designed to travel between dimensions and timelines? Perhaps this really was what one of the Gaster followers meant when he said that “he fell in his creation”. It would have the added bonus of confirming that the idea that he fell into his own creation and the fact that he was broken refer to the same thing, which would be nice since it simplifies things for us.
Thanks to all these elements, it also becomes clear that all of the main characters from Undertale have a Deltarune counterpart, with the exception of sans, Papyrus and Gaster. In other words, Forgaster discovered a world similar to his own, but in which he didn’t exist.
“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same… Except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you… Ha, ha… the thought terrifies me”
I’m positive this is what the goner kid was talking about all along, they embody Forgaster’s feelings upon making that discovery. More generally, Goner kid seems to reflect his fear and his sadness, the more human side of a man who has otherwise been horrifyingly cold to everyone who ever crossed his path so far. This last bit is more speculative, but I wonder if their dialogue when we bring them an umbrella is meant to give us some insight into how Forgaster might have felt some fort of guilt or grief about causing the roaring “An umbrella? But it’s not raining. You know, that does make me feel a little better about this. Thank you. Please forget about me” especially since Forgaster has a strange dialogue if you answer no when he asks if you want to meet him again “WELL. I’M STARTING TO REALIZE WHY I WAS FORGOTTEN” I’m probably reaching hard here, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s implying, he was forgotten as punishment for what he did to the people in Deltarune. Food for thought, I guess.
3. I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
We’ve covered what happened to sans and papyrus, but what became of Forgaster after he was shattered? His story pretty much goes on accordingly to what the followers tell us from this point on. He ended up in the past, long before the events of Undertale. Since the anomaly had not yet arrived, the only thing left to do was setting up the baits that would allow him to lure it into Deltarune. He became the Royal scientist, most likely worked in the true Lab and eventually built the CORE. According to Alphys, it converts geothermal energy into magical electricity, and powers the entire underground. Before Forgaster built this structure, monsters seemingly had no access to electricity and used primitive light sources as revealed by one of the signs in Waterfall “Without candles or magic to guide them Home, the monsters used crystals to navigate”
The signs inside the CORE have a very similar interface to the one we see for the save file menu in chapter 1, which isn’t surprising since both were made by the same person. The way these signs are written are similar to how Gaster speaks, using vague and drawn-out expressions “Traverse the northern room, and the end will open”. Another sign reads “North, the warrior’s path, West, the sage’s path. Any path leads to The End” which is a hint on how the player can reach the last room of the CORE, you can either solve a puzzle (the sage’s path) or cross a bridge where you’ll have to fight powerful enemies in order to reach a switch (the warrior's path). The way the CORE is designed is almost an allegory for Deltarune: regardless of whether you choose to use violence or to avoid fighting, you reach the same end either way. This is further reinforced by what we see when we reach “The End” of the CORE:
A room with an effigy of the Angel on top of its entrance.
Another sign reads “I cannot fight. I cannot think. But, with patience, I will make my way through” while this initially appears like another hint for the player to help them cross the laser room, the fact this sign was made by Forgaster could also apply to his situation after being shattered. He’s the only one with battle stats but no boss fight, and the Forgotten man has cognitive issues judging from his dialogues. The second part of the quote is also interesting, because both Gaster and Forgaster keep talking about they have been waiting for a long time. I believe this sign supports the idea that Forgaster was left in a fairly bad state after his machine incident and that “making his way through” might be about making his way through Undertale specifically, setting up baits for the anomaly before returning to Deltarune. Even then, he’d still have to wait for the anomaly to arrive and find the breadcrumbs he left.
But does the CORE have anything to do with this plan? After all, it’s just a power plant, isn’t it?
This is what Alphys thinks, but let’s look at the other room where the Angel symbol appears:
See these pillars that appear all throughout the CORE? They’re called “spr_darknesstotem” in the game files. How could there be advanced darkness technology inside the CORE if the Gaster that built the CORE was from Undertale? Nothing in Undertale suggests Darkness technology was developed, the only exception being entry 17 but as I’ve established, this is from Deltarune. This might be the best evidence to back up the claim that “Undertale Gaster” was always from Deltarune, because if the man who built the CORE is the man who came from the other world, he would have the knowledge necessary to make these totems. But what could be the use for these totems? Well, have we ever seen something similar? A machine that uses Darkness to make something? If we had seen one, we could assume that the CORE might have a secret functionality that would be similar. And it turns out we have: the Goner maker device. It uses darkness as suggested by the IMAGE_DEPTHS background, when said image appears, we clearly hear the sound of a machine booting up, and this is the part where we create a goner. This is the actual reason Forgaster built the CORE, it wasn’t about helping monsterkind, it was about making goners that would relate the events of Forgaster’s failed timeline. They would be the bait that would help lure out the anomaly, as only a being that has the power of RESET could eventually find all of them. One more element in favor of the CORE having a secret “goner maker” feature lies with the fact all goners are grey and the infamous “COPIES ARE MONOCHROME” quote. Goners are grey, and happen to all be copies of existing NPCs (whether they’re copies of Deltarune NPCs or Undertale NPCs doesn’t matter as far as my theory goes, Forgaster could have used either of those) so that would mean the CORE acts as a copy machine. It just so happens that the area right after the CORE is New Home, which as you probably realized, is literally a grey copy of the ruins aka Home. The CORE having this copy feature would explain why that is. Since monsters no longer feared humans, they all moved out of Home, and Forgaster, as the Royal scientist, was probably tasked with helping with the construction of the new capital, and thus, used the core’s secret feature to make a copy of Home. You could even speculate that the creation of New Home was nothing but a test run for the CORE, and after it had successfully created New Home, Forgaster used it for his real objective, creating lures for the anomaly. And once that was done, he simply disappeared, not having any business left in Undertale. How Forgaster returned to Deltarune isn’t clear, but seeing how the Forgotten man can just vanish in an instant and isn’t bound by the limits between the Light and Dark worlds, I believe this is how Forgaster was able to make it back to Deltarune. This might be what being shattered across time and space means: he can travel from the beginning of one universe's timeline to the end of another universe's timeline.
As such, most remaining FUN events would then be just that, lures. The sound test room, Something Forgaster hastily stitched together with the sole purpose of making sure the anomaly hears his theme: after all, the sound test room only has 4 songs, and 3 of them are uninteresting loops, almost as if they were just filler meant to justify this room being called a sound test room, while Gaster’s theme (aka him.ogg) is the only one that somewhat sounds like actual music. Moreover, not only does the game not allow you to play any of the other songs once you’ve started “Gaster’s theme”, listening to it is also the only way out of the room, as if it won’t let you leave until you’ve heard that theme. The message you get afterwards is also pretty suspicious “Thanks for your feedback! Be seeing you soon!” as the phrasing is similar to what Gaster said before chapter 1 was dropped.
The wrong number song has been speculated to be many things, from Spamton trying to reach Gaster on the phone, to Kris making a phone prank, regardless, its function is the same as the other events I’ve talked about: teasing Deltarune.
This finally brings me to the Clam goner. We learn from her dialogue that she lives in New Home and that her neighbor has a daughter named Suzy. She states that she might be the reason we came to the underground, and that we should become friends with her, that fate will find a way. The clam goner event where she states that the time we will meet Suzy is “fast approaching” was part in the switch version a few weeks before Deltarune’s reveal implying that Susie is somehow related to Suzy. It's possible Suzy is the Undertale counterpart of Susie, but in any case, what really matters is that this girl is implied to be the reason we came to Undertale, and is associated with fate. This is important, because Susie is one of the characters Gaster lists as “VERY VERY WONDERFUL” and has been established as a character willing to defy fate, also having the unique ability to override the player’s choices. As such, what if this FUN event is Forgaster trying to push us to befriend Susie when we go to Deltarune in order to make sure we’ll be able to change the inevitable fate of the Deltarune world? After all, two entities, each having the power to change fate, working together would be very useful to someone trying to create a new future, wouldn’t it?
4. ANOTHER DELTARUNE
We have finally reached the last section of this massive theory. With everything set up to draw the anomaly’s attention, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, no longer being “Gaster” but the Forgotten man. Because he’s been shattered, it appears that he can navigate through time in any and all directions.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, people have pointed out that Forgaster’s dialogues imply he’s experiencing time in reverse. In case you’re not convinced by the idea, let’s look at the main pieces of evidence. First off, Forgaster’s schedule. If you pay attention, he’s actually giving you a recipe for making donuts in reverse “I GO TO SELL THE DONUTS, I TOSS THE LEFTOVERS IN THE DUMPSTER, I LET IT COOL ON THE WINDOWSILL, I HARVEST THE WHEAT”
If we read this dialogue in reverse, it suddenly makes more sense: he starts by harvesting the wheat, lets the donuts cool, throws the dough scraps into the trash, and finally goes to the bakery sale.
Towards the end of his speech in chapter 3, he also says “COUNT BACKWARDS TO 100”
This is an odd choice of words, since we would normally say "from 100." If Forgaster experiences time backwards, though, the phrasing could be intentional: he sees 100 as the point he’s moving toward rather than the point he’s are moving away from, meaning that the sequence we see as normal (1 to 100) is perceived by him as moving in reverse.
And lastly, in his valentine letter, Forgaster begins with “HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR WAS IT THE OLD YEAR?” If he were experiencing time normally, he wouldn’t be confused about this. The only situation in which it would make sense for him to doubt the order of the new year and the old year is if he were experiencing time in reverse.
So Forgaster can experience time both in reverse, as I’ve just demonstrated, but he can also follow the normal flow of time: in his schedule, the days are in order, and the events of the failed timeline he describes through the passing of seasons is also normal. The fact his Lightworld appearances and the number of coins he puts in chapter 4’s water fountain both depend on whether or not you got the eggs in the previous chapters which means he’s at least aware of how things happened in what would be his “future” from his perspective. Alternatively, this could be explained by the fact that he can not only experience time in reverse, but also appear at any point in time. This idea would explain why, besides his dialogues showing that he is in reverse, he also says things that are completely mixed up. Look at the story he tells us “WELL, THE WORLD CHANGED. SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED. THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER? DINAUSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE”.
The correct order would be THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER, DINOSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE, SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED, meaning Forgaster’s story doesn’t follow any order at all, which he points out himself “IS IT MIXED UP?”
All in all, Forgaster’s time shenanigans are perfectly summed up by his sentence in the valentine letter: “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT. NOT NECESSARLY IN THAT ORDER. OR, IN ANY ORDER AT ALL.”
He can go anywhere, anytime. This is definitive proof that the Forgotten man IS the Gaster that was shattered across time and space, while the one in the goner maker is normal.
So, what is he trying to do? Considering both Forgaster and Gaster are “waiting” for Deltarune, I believe they share the same goal: to create a NEW FUTURE with us, the anomaly.
Because there is no anomaly in the Deltarune universe, all timelines converge to the same point. This means that even if the timeline we see in the game isn’t the one Forgaster experienced, things aren’t going to be any different. In this new timeline, Gaster has made the same researches on Darkness, the shelter Incident happened all the same, the knight was still created. As such, the fate of this world has already been decided. This is where Forgaster truly factors in. Because he’s experienced it all before, he knows who to contact if he wants to change things: the Gaster from this timeline. He would have the means to do so thanks to his shattered state. Forgaster most likely informed gaster of everything that happened in the failed timeline. This is the true origin of the prophecy, it wasn’t made by Gaster, but by Forgaster which is why it was “foretold by time and space” why the Prophecy text is identical to how the Forgotten man speaks and why it is so specific, why everything it says will come to pass.
To Gaster, this is his chance to change one key parameter in his experiment. Thanks to Forgaster, Since he knows that the current model ends in failure, adding the Anomaly as a variable would be a very interesting experience. Thanks to the breadcrumbs Forgaster left in Undertale, Gaster was able to lure us into Deltarune, using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect us to this world. Forgaster is the reason Gaster knows we’ve been searching for him, and the knowledge that his experiments will go wrong is the reason he’s been looking for us. By connecting this anomaly to Deltarune, and by combining its power with Susie’s hope, Gaster has the chance to conduct the most ambitious experiment he’s ever imagined and turn his biggest failure into an absolute triumph over fate itself. In his own words “HOW LUCKY WE ARE TO NEED EACH OTHER IN THIS WAY”
This finally explains why Gaster’s theme in undertale was called “him” while the gaster theme in Deltarune is called “ANOTHER HIM”: “him” was a piece left by the Gaster who came from the failed timeline, it’s Forgaster’s theme, while ANOTHER HIM is the theme of the Gaster from the game’s timeline.
As such, I have a hard time believing Forgaster is going against Gaster, I believe he’s doing the same thing as Gaster, following the scientific method, changing specific parameters to modify the outcome of the experiment. This is why Forgaster is giving EGGs to Kris. They are the one Forgaster wants to help, and that’s why he’s asking help from us. We are the ones taking Kris to these egg rooms. He’s probably trying to help them remember the Incident and overcome their fear. Considering he’s experienced the failed timeline, it’s likely that he’s doing this because Kris never overcame their trauma in the original timeline, which might have been played a role in the heroes’ failure.
As for the shadow crystals, while their origin is hard to pinpoint, it’s clear now that the visions they show are what will happen in the future. This is why they don’t change the prophecy text; the two show the same thing.
Let’s look at all the shadow crystal visions to demonstrate this.
“You thought you saw toys strewn on the floor”: This predicted that the Card castle fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw through your hand”: This is predicting that Kris will lose their hand
“You thought you saw the computer lab”: This predicted that the computer room’s fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw Susie glaring at you, coldly...” This probably predicts what Susie’s reaction will be when she finds out that Kris has been working with the Knight and hiding many things from her. As she puts it “there’s nothing that pisses me off more than people who don’t tell you the whole deal”
“You thought you saw the television get smashed to pieces”: This is literally just an alternate version of “THE LORD OF SCREENS, CLEAVED RED BY BLADE”
“You thought you saw the lobby of the church”: This predicted that the fountains inside the church would be sealed
“You thought you saw Undyne frozen in ice”: this one is unused for now, so it should be taken with a grain of salt, still, it may predict the “police sacrifice” we heard about
Finally, we have “You thought you saw Noelle close against you, whispering” this one feel like it’s predicting something that hasn’t happened yet. As such we can only speculate for now. Some say it’s from the couch scene in the weird route, but Noelle isn’t whispering during that scene, if anything we are the ones directly whispering inside her mind. This might just imply that Kris and Noelle’s relationship will become a focal point later on. Considering their shared history with the shelter Incident, their relationship might be the single most important one moving forward.
This would also explain why the Darkners who used these crystals went crazy: the knowledge of a failed timeline, and of an entire universe marching toward an unavoidable eternal night that no one can escape, no matter what they do, seems like enough reason to go off the deep end.
CONCLUSION
We have finally reached the end of this theory. I can only apologize for how long this turned out to be, so let me recap sum up the take-home message of the entire thing.
Asriel, Kris, Noelle and Dess explored the forest seven years before the events of Deltarune, Dess and Kris entered the Shelter using Carol’s code
On the same night, Gaster created the first dark fountain in the shelter, creating a dark world, and turning the ice-e pizza box, he retrieved a few weeks before into a malevolent Darkner that would act as its servant, the tail of hell
Entry 17 is a cutscene/recording of gaster taking notes on the fountain, before being interrupted by Kris and Dess who are the two persons he’s talking to at the end of entry 17
Gaster tries to use them for his next experiments, and Kris ends up accidentally killing Dess in the confusion
Gaster tempers with Kris’ soul, and inject Dess’ with Darkness, before letting Kris escape, supposedly after the two made a Faustian deal
Toriel finds Kris holding a knife, potentially covered in blood, as Dess apparently disappeared. She decides to hide the truth from everyone and keep this a secret so that Kris will not get into serious trouble
Asgore becomes obsessed with finding Dess, eventually leading to arguments with Toriel who ends up divorcing him, while the Holiday and Dreemurr families, especially Toriel and Carol, grow distant
UNUSED are follow-up entries to entry 17, transcripts of Dess’ thoughts written down by Gaster as her mind slowly breaks because of the darkness.
Dess is reborn as a Dark Amalgamate, a powerful creatures subjugated by Gaster that helps him with his dark fountain experiments
These experiments eventually cause the Roaring, causing all of gaster’s work to go to waste
Having observed an alternate universe where an anomaly capable of changing fate resides, Gaster builds a space-time machine with sans’ help in order to travel to Undertale, capture the anomaly and use its powers to prevent the Roaring
During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, causing Gaster to shatter across space and time, while sans and papyrus get stranded in Undertale’s present with no way back, while gaster becomes Forgaster and lands in Undertale’s past
Forgaster becomes the royal scientist, uses his position and his Darkness technology to build the CORE, a power plant that doubles as a GONER MAKER. Using it, he’s able to create New Home, and set up all the FUN events that the anomaly will eventually come across when it arrives in the Underground
Having finished his work in the Undertale universe, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, in a new timeline where things are set to repeat identically to the failed timeline and contacts the gaster from this timeline
Forgaster recounts what happened in the failed timeline to Gaster, thus creating the Prophecy
In order to change fate, Gaster creates the SURVEY_PROGRAM and uses the anomaly’s curiosity to connect it to Deltarune, with the objective of creating a new future, his own story for this world: HIS Deltarune. To achieve this, he contacts specific Darkners with high-potential and gives them Shadow Crystals, in order to make them realize what is really going on, in hopes that this will help change fate. He allows the anomaly to keep trying to win against his knight, not because it has a chance of defeating it – the knight is Gaster’s perfected weapon, the anomaly cannot win, period – but because it and Susie can achieve something that might cause a butterfly effect that could change fate: retrieving the blackshard, a weapon that can take down darkness. Meanwhile Forgaster is helping Kris with overcoming their fear, in preparation for what is coming.
As a closing thought, I want to address a question you may be asking yourself after reading all this: if Gaster and Forgaster know that their experiments led to the world’s destruction, why do they continue creating yet another experiment, therefore putting another timeline at risk?
Because Gaster isn’t Sans. He isn’t about accepting what is given to him. He is driven to perform endless experiments in order to gain ever more knowledge, to reach Absolute Truth. And isn’t that, in his eyes, what True Freedom is? As such, he will never give up his experiments, no matter what.
And this is where we realize who Sans was really talking about during his Genocide fight:
“I know your type. You’re very determined, aren’t you? You’ll never give up, even if there’s absolutely NO benefit to persevering whatsoever. No matter what, you’ll just keep going. Not out of any desire for good or evil, but simply because you think you can. And because you can, you have to.”
In this moment, Sans saw Gaster in us: two beings filled with determination to satisfy their curiosity, regardless of morality, simply because they have the power to. If Undertale taught us that “to will is to be able,” then Gaster’s philosophy suggests that “to be able is to be obliged.”
SOURCES
UT/DR text dump: hushbugger dot github dot io
Most screenshots were captured in-game, or taken from the Undertale and Deltarune wiki :
Thank you so much for reading through the entire theory. It means a lot. Getting this out before Chapter 5's launch was a real pain. I'm looking forward to how Chapter 5 will impact this model. I'm expecting to learn more about Toriel, Asgore and Carol. The final egg room will most certainly be fascinating, and will probably make or break the second part of this theory if it reveals the Forgotten man. You may have noticed she was almost completely ignored, this is intended, as I feel we still lack information about her motives, so we can't do anything but speculate. The way I see it, it's ok to do this with ellusive characters like Gaster, part 2 is mostly just that to be honest. But when it comes to more mundane characters like Carol, I don't find it as appealing, it's basically the same as making predictions about the next chapters, while I wanted to provide a good basis regarding what happened before the story.
Once I’ve gone through Chapter 5 and had time to refine my ideas, I might come back with a V3 !
The Dark Amalgamate Theory : an attempt at creating a comprehensive model of Deltarune's past and its parallels with Undertale before Chapter 5
Hi, I’m SOUL Goodman. If you’re a UT/DR fan interested in the lore of Deltarune before Chapter 5, this post is for you. You might want to keep these ideas in mind before playing on June 24th.
This theory started as a small idea after Chapter 2, originally abandoned and never published. But with Chapters 3 and 4, it surprisingly became stronger and much larger than expected.
This is my first time writing and sharing a full theory, and it ended up becoming far bigger than I initially planned. With Chapter 5 fast approaching, this felt like my last chance to finally share it.
This, is the Dark Amalgamate theory !
(The theory covers more than this single concept, don't be fooled by the name, I chose it for the title because it sounds cool)
I first started developing this theory after Chapter 2, when it still felt like a simple hypothesis. But as I looked deeper into the game and community discoveries (including datamined elements), it started to feel like a real coherent model rather than just speculation.
I eventually stopped working on it, but Chapters 3 and 4 ended up reshaping and reinforcing many of its ideas. Now, with Chapter 5 approaching, I want to finally present it in full.
I might not consider every part perfect, but I believe the core ideas are meaningful and relevant.
The goal of this theory is not to predict future chapters or the ending of the game. Instead, it focuses on what happened before the events of Deltarune, and what set everything in motion.
If you enjoy Undertale / Deltarune lore, this will defintely be an interesting read while waiting for Chapter 5.
Before I start, here’s a few disclaimers:
I’ve rewritten this multiple times, but due to its length, some mistakes might remain.
You should be familiar with Undertale, the Gaster mystery, and all four released chapters of Deltarune. Some parts rely on community findings and datamined content (credit to HalfbreadChaos, linked in sources).
This theory is split into two main parts, the second being a bit more speculative and could almost stand alone, but is still deeply connected to the first.
Table of Contents
Part 1: The Shelter Incident
Quick character analysis
The Time and Place of The Incident
The First Darkner, the Devil's accomplice
The poor test subjects!
The sins of the Dreemurr family
Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
Part 2: A NEW FUTURE, born from an Eternal Night
The failed Deltarune
Space-time travelers
I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
ANOTHER DELTARUNE
Conclusion
Sources
With all that out of the way, let's begin!
PART 1: The Shelter Incident
My goal here is to explain what happened during the night where Kris, Asriel, Dess and Noelle explored the forest near hometown’s graveyard and explore the consequences for our main characters as well as what it implies for the events of the game we’ve seen so far.
My starting hypothesis is that there was an incident involving Dess, Kris and Gaster inside the shelter, leading to the creation of what I call a “Dark Amalgamate.” To support my hypothesis, I will be using information from the game itself but also some stuff that came from the sweepstakes or the newsletters (Although their canonicity is a bit dubious from what I understand, so I will try to rely on that as little as possible), linking various elements based around the same thematic as well as some texts hidden in the game’s code. For practical reasons, I’m not going to put a screenshot every time I quote an in-game dialogue, I will be highlighting those in red instead, so you can have the exact text and not me paraphrasing the game.
Quick character analysis
Before we delve into what happened in the forest, we need to take a quick look at how the four children are characterized. The idea isn’t to go on a long analysis for each of them, but simply to point out important elements of their personalities that we will have to take into account to figure out how and why they would even end up inside the shelter, when most people understandably assume whatever happened with Dess took place in the forest or near the shelter at best, not straight up inside it.
Asriel: This is the easiest one since there’s not much to talk about considering he has yet to appear in Deltarune. From what we’ve been told so far, his personality does seem relatively similar to his Undertale counterpart, a quiet and kind boy as well as a bit of a scaredy cat who’s a bit overzealous considering Father Alvin talks about how he would always confess his “sins”. We also know he was quite popular considering all the prizes in his room, how so many people in hometown always bring up Asriel and praise him when Kris talks to them. The important aspect of his character in Deltarune specifically is how close him and Dess were, which we’ll go over when we talk about Dess herself
Noelle: She’s pretty much the same as she is today in terms of personality, what is interesting about her is how easily scared she is and how she has a clear tendency to “freeze” when something scary or traumatic happens and how she seems to “forget” any memory of such events. We can actually see that on many occasions during chapter 2’s weird route: right after being forced to freeze an Addison to get the FreezeRing she goes “What… What just happened? Did I actually just… No, they… they must have given it to us. The ring”; when told to proceed during the second mice puzzle, as you push her closer and closer to the laser forcefield, she states “Th… there, looks like I… did it?” as if she had trouble remembering what had just happened. This is later reinforced when she asks herself “…what did I do when we got that ring? …when I solved that puzzle? … It… It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I can’t remember”. Similarly, right after using Snowgrave on Berdley, she once again asks “What… What happened? There was so much snow, I couldn’t see anything…” which really comes across as a form of denial considering Berdley’s frozen corpse is right in front of her at that moment. Basically, whenever she’s faced with something traumatic, her reaction is to freeze and forget it. This isn’t exclusive to the weird route either, we’ll go back to this later, but another smaller example that occurs in the normal route that I can give right now is in sans’ store in chapter two: one of the NPCs mentions that “Sometimes the hoofed girl comes here, opens the freezer door then stands in front of it, lost in thought”.
Kris: There’s obviously a lot to talk about when it comes to them, but what I want to focus on for this theory is the shift in their behavior. Not the shift caused by the presence of the SOUL/player control, but how they seemingly went from being a prankster as a child to a very weird, shut-in type of person. Whenever we have characters talking about younger Kris, it feels like they were a fairly normal mischievous kid. They were close to their brother, as well as the Holiday sisters, loved to mess with Noelle and overall, none of the weirder stuff we’ve seen from modern day teenage Kris is brought up. Like I said, that shift seems to have happened before the events of the game, considering it’s implied the Dreemurr and the Holyday have grown apart before the start of chapter 1, the last time Kris and Noelle spent time together was probably when Kris came to Noelle’s house to play the piano as mentioned in one of her blog posts. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but Kris had to have been old enough to have learned how to play piano (which they obviously couldn’t have done in a few weeks as a little kid). The important part here is that whenever the stuff Noelle talks about in that blog post took place, Kris had already started to act weird: they’d come over to Noelle’s house and after a while, she explains that “they would suddenly get very still, like they were remembering something” before going to play the piano. We learn about another event that took place before chapter 1 where Kris once again showed a strange behavior in Noelle’s blog post about Susie. This probably took place a few weeks/days before chapter 1, and is more in line with the Kris we see in-game. When Susie threatened them, they remained completely silent up until they eventually said something that seemingly made Susie back off. Noelle, who had seen all of this, hid in her locker. Yet, somehow, Kris was able to tell she was there, violently open the locker before slowly closing it without a word after seeing it was her. Unlike the previous Noelle blog post, this event hasn’t really been referenced in-game so far so I won’t talk about it too much but the main take-away here is that Kris used to be a normal kid, but started acting strange at some point before Chapter 1 which suggests this isn’t linked to the SOUL (or, more specifically, it’s not linked to what Kris does once we have control over the SOUL), which makes me wonder, what happened to Kris for them to have such a drastic change in their behavior?
Dess: Finally, we have the older Holiday sister. Like Asriel, she hasn’t appeared in-game so far, but we get a lot of info about her from other characters, or by investigating her room in chapter 4. I won’t go over every single detail about her, but the gist of it is that she seemed like an adventurous, rebellious tomboyish kind of girl who seemed to be really into exploring seeing how she was making a herbarium and owned a ton of exploration gear like binoculars, walkie-talkies, army rations, multitool knives. On top of that, it appeared she was also a musical prodigy considering we can find many different instruments in her room, from flutes and violins to that infamous red guitar. Lastly, we have to focus on her relationship with Asriel. Whether you believe these two were together or not, the fact of the matter is that they were very close, to the point where she had Asriel’s jacket in her room, as well as his retainer. Likewise, considering Dess kept a crude drawing of a dragon under her bed and that Asriel borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book, we can infer that he wanted to gift her something she’d enjoy. Her disappearance is probably the reason he never returned the book; he probably wanted to keep it as a token of rememberance or something like that. Which leads me to my main point regarding Asriel and Dess, as many have pointed out, the Ribbick battle dialogue seem to describe Asriel and Dess over the years “a poorly trimmed boy, a messy and unfocused girl”, “a rowdy and dirty girl, a quiet and smelly boy” and most importantly “a lost, and lost, and lost girl” which is an obvious reference to Dess’ disappearance, her being the “Lost girl” we’re meant to find, while “a crying and crying and crying boy” shows how hurt Asriel was by her going missing. Another detail that will be crucial later on is how she apparently had the habit of beating up Kris whenever they pranked Noelle, often using her wiffle bat to hit their head, which is alluded to when you check those items in her room with the flavor text reading “Rollerblades, wiffle bat. Looking at these things makes your head hurt”.
2. The Time and Place of the Incident
As you probably know, there is a forest south of Hometown, past the graveyard, where you can find what looks like some sort of shelter. Its doors are locked and can’t be entered by the player. If you get close to the doors you’ll hear a strange sound. If you speed up that sound by 666%, you’ll realize it’s actually smile.ogg (entry 17’s sound as well as the noise Kris’ phone will make if you try to use it in a dark world). Smile.ogg and the number 6 are directly tied to Gaster, which logically connects this place to him. Back in chapter 1, this place wasn’t mentioned by any character, but things got a bit more interesting with chapter two as a cutscene plays if you go there, as Monster kid and Snowy will be standing in front of it. Their dialogue implies there are ominous rumors about what is inside that place, with MK wondering “You think it’s true? You really think there’s…” before being cut off by snowy claiming only kids believe those rumors. Chapter 4’s church segment shows us that this isn’t the case at all, since when asked about “the shelter” even adults characters seem to fear that place to some extent, Ms.Boom tells Kris “Shelter? No, no, you know that’s not a wholesome place!” and Father Alvin seems particularly freaked out when Kris tells him they want to enter it, almost as if they had expressed the desire to do something very wrong “I do not know what you are experiencing recently, but… Kris please, look to the Angel for guidance […] Kris, stay away from the shelter” these dialogues from Alvin and Ms.Boom could imply Kris specifically has some history with that place. What is interesting is how MK proceeds to mention Kris before being once again cut off by Snowy asking if MK is going to be a weenie like Kris. After Susie scares these two off and asks Kris what is going on with this place, they remain completely silent. This cutscene strongly suggested Kris had been inside that shelter in the past and is scared of it, which was then further proven by chapter 3’s SWORD route where Kris will fight back against the player’s input and try to turn back when approaching the mini-game version of that same shelter. When asked about it, Alphys, while also being seemingly anxious about what could be inside, is a bit more informative stressing how it’s been closed ever since she moved to Hometown and how no one ever goes there aside from Undyne and the mayor, further suggesting that people in Hometown avoid the place in general. Most importantly, this place is alluded to during Noelle’s heart-to-heart with Kris in Cyber City. She doesn’t directly mention the shelter, but she explains that when they were kids, her, Kris, Asriel and Dess liked to explore areas around hometown (which was most definitely Dess’ idea considering what we’ve established about her character) and talks about one specific night where they “explored the forest behind the graveyard” which corresponds to the shelter’s rough location.
My hypothesis is that they found the shelter, Kris and Dess entered it and met Gaster and that something happened to Dess, turning her into that infamous “voice in the code”: the mysterious UNUSED dialogue people have found in the game’s data and that seems to get a new entry with each new chapter.
While as far as I can tell, this general idea has become fairly wide-spread with chapter 3 and 4, there was always a lack of evidence that whatever happened in the forest had something to do with the shelter itself and that the UNUSED voice (as well as the other strange messages in the game’s code, more on that later) had anything to do with Dess. In fact, some people actually seem to believe that Dess’ disappearance happened in the forest itself based on the fact that the forgotten man is found behind a tree and that the NPC in the roots prophecy room says “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail. The poor children”. However, I believe I’ve gathered enough evidence to prove that they did enter the shelter and that whatever happened to Dess occurred inside it and that this is the origin of the trauma Kris, Noelle and Asriel all seem to have to a different degree.
But first, let's go on a small tangent on WHEN this incident happened. We actually had a pretty big clue on that ever since chapter 2: while Noelle is talking about the night they explored the forest, you can actually see the outline of her sprite change to a smaller kid-like version as she walks past one of the panels. As you can see from the following screenshother sprite is identical to the one we see during Berdly’s flashback, which strongly suggests that it happened when Kris and Noelle were very young.
If they witnessed the Incident at such a young age, it perfectly explains why they’d be so traumatized, too. This idea is basically confirmed by Berdly’s spelling bee flashback when he explains that “When it came down to the two of us… she got nervous and couldn’t speak” and we see that the word that made her “nervous” was none other than DECEMBER, the name of her sister. Noelle having this reaction upon seeing that specific word only makes sense if it happened after her sister went missing. Furthermore, her reaction is similar to her behavior in sans’ store I mentioned earlier. It becomes obvious to me that when she opens the freezer, the cold reminds her of Dess which triggers some sort of traumatic response. So, we’ve established that Dess disappeared when Noelle and Kris were still young children, but thanks to Berdly we can figure out even more precisely when it happened. As I mentioned earlier, Asriel probably borrowed the “How to draw dragons” book from the library in order to make a nice gift for Dess. Considering Asriel was deeply hurt by her disappearance based on the “crying boy” Ribbick dialogue, and how the narrator says that “Your brother will never return this book…” upon inspecting it, it’s fair to assume Asriel kept it as a memento of Dess. Which brings me to Berdly’s dialogue in chapter 1, if you go talk to him at the library, he will reveal that the book is 2583 days overdue which is about 7 years. We can deduce that when chapter 1 takes place, this “shelter Incident” happened roughly seven years ago. We can go even further and calculate how old Kris and Noelle were when it happened: since we know Asriel is in college that means he’s around 18 years old during the events of the game, assuming he and Dess were of the same age, that would make them around 11 when the Incident happened and because they’re the older siblings, the younger pair of Kris and Noelle were obviously younger than 11. Since we know Noelle participated in a spelling bee around the same time, she must have been at an age when spelling was still a challenge that required practice (Berdly mentions he and Noelle had to study for that spelling bee), which would be around 7-9 years old. A 3–4-year-old gap between Kris/Noelle and Asriel/Dess sounds reasonable. Lastly, if we assume the game takes place in 202X based on the date written on the unused graphics for Ralsei’s manual, we can date the Incident to the early or mid 201X.
Basically, Asriel’s goon material and Berdly just allowed us to build a fairly precise timeline of events.
Now that this is out of the way, let’s delve into why I think there was an Incident inside the shelter specifically and not just in the forest. While Noelle never talks about the shelter in chapter 2, even mentioning that they “never found anything interesting” when exploring the forest, it’s important to remember that when she’s scared or dealing with something traumatic, Noelle has a tendency to forget stuff. Actually, right after saying this, she implies she doesn’t remember much from that night: “I mostly remember… crying, because I was scared”. Since Noelle can’t help us figure out more about what went down, let’s focus on Kris: as we saw earlier, they seem to be scared of the shelter specifically which wouldn’t make sense if nothing happened there. One may argue that the NPC from chapter 4 talks about the forest and says nothing about the shelter, but let’s look at the exact quote “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail”. The first thing to note is that the NPC uses the plural noun “children” implying that more than one child was present: it was not just Dess, but at least one other person. Second, he specifies that the children were “lost where the forest would grow”, not “lost in the forest” which seems like an important detail. Furthermore, the NPC says this right in front of this strange prophecy panel depicting a house between two trees with the word “ROOTS”.
Considering that trees grow from their roots, and given how much the panel emphasizes that word, I think the expression “where the forest would grow” might actually refer to an underground location, since roots are by definition underground. This would also explain why the two OSTs containing the term “roots” in their titles — “Digital Roots” and “Bit Roots” — only play while exploring underground areas. Also, if you didn’t know, the game files contain an unused song called “spamton_house,” which likely would have played outside Spamton’s shop and sounds nearly identical to “Digital Roots.” The reason Toby may have chosen not to use it could simply be because it would have conflicted with the idea of a musical theme specifically associated with underground locations. Which brings me back to the shelter: it is an underground location, and while there is a dark fountain inside it right now, when we enter the game version during the sword route, we end up in some sort of dark cave where the slowed entry 17 sound plays once again. If the NPC is talking about the shelter, it explains the image of the panel itself: the two trees represent the forest, and the house represents the shelter which would be Gaster’s underground “home”, located where the roots of the trees are, or should I say “located where the forest would grow”. The idea so far is that as part of their exploration, Dess, Kris, Noelle and Asriel went to the forest, entered the shelter and got lost inside before encountering Gaster. But how could they have entered the shelter if the place is closed? The segment in Noelle’s house gives us a pretty simple answer: Dess had managed to get the code from her mother and kept it inside her red guitar, unbeknownst to everyone else. It couldn’t have been Carol who kept it there because not only does it make no sense for her to keep something as important in her rebellious daughter’s belonging, she and Kris both did not expect it to be there : Kris clearly wants to prevent the SOUL from getting the code, if they knew the code was inside the guitar they would’ve removed the SOUL before it could inspect it and read most of the code, which strongly suggests they did not know about it and barely reacted on time. This would also explain why they even made a phone call right after that: they informed whoever they’re working with that the code is inside the guitar and that Susie is looking for it. It would explain why the voice insists on stopping Susie from getting the guitar.
3. The first Darkner, The Devil's accomplice
Now that we have established where and when the Incident happened, it’s time to try and figure out what happened inside the shelter. First off, even if it ultimately doesn’t matter much, I don’t think Asriel and Noelle entered the shelter. Based on how they’ve been portrayed so far, they seem like scaredy cats while Dess and Kris feel like more daredevil type of kids. Again, Noelle states that she was crying because she was scared and that Dess comforted her. It is true that Noelle is easily scared, but I don’t think it makes much sense for her to be scared of simply exploring the forest at night because exploring seems like something they would do every so often. The thought of entering a creepy structure like the shelter however, definitely sounds like something that would terrorize young Noelle. It’s more likely that Asriel stayed outside the shelter to watch over Noelle and that Kris and Dess were the only ones who actually entered the shelter, which would still make sense with the sentence “the children followed the pointed tail”. If only these two entered the shelter, it would also explain why Noelle and Asriel are physically ok during the events of the game, while Dess is missing and Kris is struggling with their soul which has seemingly been happening for a while, even before chapter 1. Regardless of whether or not Asriel and Noelle were there, we know thanks to the Harmonik NPC that they lost themselves inside the shelter and this is when they followed a “pointed tail”.
Many people seem to obsess over that tail and assume it’s the tail of this smiling figure with pink and yellow eye:
This sprite is called IMAGE_FRIEND and its first appearance was in Queen’s basement, while retrieving the EmptyDisk. Since then, it has appeared on many other instances, the most notable ones being during the SWORD route boss fight, during one of the dark sections of chapter 4’s dark world and in the battat mini game. Because the name of the sprite follows the same naming scheme as what is used in chapter one’s intro where Gaster helps you create a vessel, and that it appears in the battat minigame which is centered around cats and seems to be based on the CatPetterz game which Noelle used to play as a kid as revealed in one of her blog posts in the Spamton sweepstakes, it is a common belief that FRIEND is tied to Gaster and is a cat. This led people to assume the tail of hell is FRIEND’s cat tail and that it was therefore that entity that the children followed. While there is merit to the general idea, I feel like this interpretation is too literal which denotes from how the prophecy refers to other characters in a figurative manner: Kris is “The cage with human soul and parts”, Asgore is “The flower man” but that doesn’t mean Kris is literally a cage or that Asgore is made of flowers. As such, I believe we shouldn’t take these “pointed tail” and “tail of hell” expressions at face value. In my opinion, it’s more important to understand what the role of that “tail” is, and what it did specifically than to figure out its identity. As such, I’d like to focus on how the harmonic specifically says “the pointed tail”. Cats don’t have pointed tails so even if you are convinced that the tail really is FRIEND, even if FRIEND really is a cat, that phrasing in itself shows how these descriptions are figurative and symbolic first and foremost. With that in mind, that tail is seemingly mentioned in two other instances, first during the Harmonik battle “the tail, which must not be followed” which is a clear reference to the sentence we get in front of the ROOTS prophecy. Second, in this prophecy panel
“They’ll see the tail of hell take crawl”
So, we have a “tail” that must not be followed, implying it is malevolent and/or dangerous, it is “pointed”, seemingly comes from “hell”, and it apparently crawls. When taking all these elements into account, it hardly sounds like a cat tail anymore, it becomes pretty clear that Toby is trying to invoke satanic imagery: the expression “pointed tail” evokes the tail demons and the Devil are often depicted with, there is even an unused prophecy panel that shows exactly that
But since this panel went unused, it looks like Toby Fox changed his mind about how he wanted to relate that tail to the Devil (and thus Gaster) since the panel that is in the final game uses a different satanic symbol. The final panel talks about a “tail of hell” that will “take crawl”. The fact that the it crawls, coupled with the panel image actually makes it similar to another type of animal, a snake. The idea that dark creatures are thematically linked to, snake-like imagery is actually further reinforced during the Titan fight
Comparing the tail of hell to a snake is another way of connecting it to the Devil, as this is clearly a reference to Christianity: The Devil, taking the form of a snake, lured Adam and Eve to the apple tree and convinced them to eat the forbidden apple. Whether that tail is figuratively a devil’s tail or a snake, the fact of the matter is that it ties it to the Devil, and in both Undertale and Deltarune, the one character that has been repeatedly compared to the Devil is none other than Doctor W.D. Gaster. Which means that in a way, the tail is some sort of Gaster follower. To be clear, I’m NOT saying “the tail” is literally a snake or that it is one of those 3 grey NPCs from UT, when I say it’s a Gaster follower I mean that “the tail” serves Gaster, that it’s not an unrelated entity/character with completely different motives and affiliations, and that it led Kris and Dess to Gaster. This might be why the prophecy even calls it a tail in the first place: wherever the Devil goes, his tail follows. Keep that in mind, because the idea of a demonic entity vowing to serve some master might have been teased since Undertale, but I’m saving this for when we’ll go over who/what that tail really is. In any case, this tail being associated with snakes is probably why Kris is specifically linked to apples and why they can meet a man behind a tree: they were lured to the apple tree by the Devil’s tail.
Thus, we have two kids who entered a dark place and were supposedly led to Gaster. This is a big assumption and while I’ve established that they did enter the shelter, I’ve mostly used symbolism to defend the idea that they actually met Gaster, so let’s go over something more concrete that will back up this idea and give us an idea on what really happened to Dess: Entry number seventeen.
This entry has been a huge mystery for years now, but I believe we now have enough context to understand what it’s really about. Before looking into what’s written in the entry itself, I want to point out something that’s rarely mentionned: unlike all of Alphys’ entries which are just written entries, entry 17 is actually an audio entry as you can hear Gaster’s voice beep. This is huge, because it means that this is actually a recording made by Gaster. With that in mind let’s go over what he says. Entry 17 can be separated into three parts; the first part is Gaster taking notes of a phenomenon he’s observing:
“DARK, DARKER YET DARKER.
THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING.
SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER.
PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE”
Now that we have Ralsei’s explanations about dark worlds and dark fountains in chapter 3, it’s clear that whenever and wherever Gaster recorded this, he was doing exactly what ralsei talks about at the start of chapter 3 “And when the light runs out, you see nothing. Of course, your mind can’t make anything of nothing. But what if it became even darker? Darker than dark. What if we could take away the light that wasn’t there until we reached another side? You could start to see things again, and hear them, and feel them. That is the dark world”.
Gaster had created a dark fountain and was observing its effects. Entry seventeen is just a less intelligible way of explaining what happens when a dark world is made. And if Gaster made a fountain, it can only be the one inside the shelter, or the Grand Fountain since all the other fountains already have a confirmed creator. I’m of the mind that he created both of these fountains and because of timeline reasons which I will go over in a bit, the one being made in entry 17 is the shelter one, while the one inside the closet was made much more recently.
On to the second part of entry 17:
“THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS
VERY
VERY
INTERESTING”
Whatever this next experiment may be, it can’t be the creation of a dark fountain because it’s literally what the first part of entry 17 is about. The only additional clue we have is that this exact sentence appeared on the Deltarune website back in 2015 before eventually being changed to another message in wingdings, meaning whatever this next experiment is, it is tied to Deltarune and never had anything to do with Undertale. It’s pretty wild to think entry 17 was basically a Deltarune cutscene hidden in Undertale.
Now, let’s look at the last part:
“…
WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?”
Have you noticed how Gaster marks a clear pause in his speech with those ellipsis points, as if he was done talking? Not only does it further reinforce the idea that this is a recording, it also means he was going to end the recording with “VERY VERY INTERESTING”. It’s almost as if he noticed two individuals that overheard what he said, which prompted him to ask them about what they thought about all of this which comes off more as a snarky, slightly ominous remark than anything else. You probably see where I’m going with this: entry 17 is some sort of audio/cutscene (or maybe even a video recording obscured by the fountain's darkness) of Kris and Dess inside the shelter, finding Gaster in the middle of his experiment. You could object that the two people Gaster is talking to could be sans, papyrus, alphys… but keep in mind that this is a recording that takes place in the Deltarune universe, and if I’m right about it taking place during the shelter fountain’s creation and during the night of Dess’ disappearance, this is happening roughly seven years before the events of the game, whereas sans and his brother only moved to hometown shortly before chapter 1. Similarly, some of Alphys’ dialogues imply she hasn’t been living in hometown for that long, so none of these characters could have been present inside the shelter at this point in time.
Now that I’ve established that the shelter contains both a dark fountain and the tail of hell when Kris and Dess entered it, we can focus on its identity. As you might’ve guessed I don’t think that the tail is FRIEND and I don't even think FRIEND is an actual character.
If the tail serves Gaster and was located inside the shelter where we know a Dark world exists, then there is a high chance that it is a Darkner (which would also explain why it serves Gaster in the first place, as Ralsei explains in chapter 1, the purpose of a Darkner is to serve their Lightner). For now, we only had the chance to enter the 8-bit version of the shelter, so let’s look at what we have there: when 8-bit kris enters, they find themselves in a dark cave, and are eventually confronted by an entity that seemingly knows Kris. This entity is one of the most fascinating characters we’ve seen so far and I believe that it is what the prophecy refers to as “the tail of hell”. It has no canon name; its sprites simply refer to it as “shadow mantle” and its battle theme is called nightmare_boss_heavy.ogg in the game files. Despite the name of its sprites however, we know for sure that it is not literally the shadow mantle, considering this dialogue “that’s why you’re searching for them, aren’t you? The SHADOW CRYSTALs… and the SHADOW MANTLE that I’m holding!”, and the fact that you can make out a stand-up collar, which is probably part of the mantle, as well as its horns.
It is clearly some sort of obscured horned creature wearing the mantle. As such I will be calling that thing the shadow mantle holder (or just the holder for short) from now on. I believe that the holder is a darkner and the actual “tail of hell”. Speaking of, have you ever noticed the shape of the dungeon where we fight that thing?
It is literally the shape of a snake.
But if the holder is the tail, then where does FRIEND fit into all of this? Like I said earlier, I am convinced FRIEND is not an actual character and everything people pin on it is actually the holder’s doing. My reasoning for that is based on what we see during the fight: the holder literally creates not just one, but multiple FRIENDs during the battle, which to me is hard evidence that FRIEND isn’t its own character but merely an extension of the shadow mantle holder, acting as drones. The reason we’ve been seeing FRIENDS since chapter 2 is that the holder was keeping an eye on Kris this whole time and that “eye” takes the shape of the FRIENDs it’s been creating. You could think of FRIEND as the holder’s equivalent of Spamton’s pipis. Most likely, the holder is also the one who took the mantle from Seam : regardless of where the mantle came from (if you believe king’s cape is the shadow mantle, that cape flies off after the battle which means seam had the opportunity to collect it anyways), Seam is unable to find it in chapter 2 after you give them Spamton’s shadow crystal stating “did someone take it ?”, the holder would have a very good reason to steal the mantle, it knows Kris is looking for the crystals and seemingly wants to bring out Kris’ violent behavior. Since the mantle greatly increases their chance of getting it, it’s the perfect bait to lure them out which is exactly what happens in the sword route. However, you might see a problem with this. If the holder is a darkner that was created by the shelter’s fountain, how can it and its FRIENDS show up in other dark worlds, wouldn’t they have to be brought to these dark worlds ? And wouldn’t that mean the holder should have turned to stone in chapter 3? The answer I propose to these questions brings us closer to figuring out the holder’s real identity: It isn’t just any Darkner, it is the same type of Darkner as Ralsei. To back up this claim, let’s look at Ralsei’s unique properties.
Ralsei can somehow travel from his dark world to any dark world, and more importantly, seems to be compatible with any of them. His immunity to turning into stone isn’t outright explained so far, but I think we can make a good guess as to why that is based on what he says in chapter 2 “Each Dark fountain creates a different “world”, a “world” whose Darkners reflect the will of its fountain. But tough those Darkners can exist in their own worlds, they might not “belong” if they go to another one. [...] Castle Town’s Grand Fountain is made of pure darkness, as long as it stays flowing, any Darkner can live there.” If a world made of pure darkness allows any Darkner to live there (with the sole exception of Gerson Boom of course), and since we know that Grand Fountain is the one that gives form to Ralsei’s body, it stands to reason that a Darkner created by a Fountain of pure darkness would belong in any darkworld. He’s also one of the only characters that is aware of when you are on a weird route save and has different/additional dialogues showing that. Since the holder is the only other dark world entity we’ve seen so far that possesses all these traits, we can deduce that it also comes from a fountain of pure darkness. And if the holder was born from the shelter fountain, that means it has to be a pure dark fountain. All of this circles back to Gaster and why I said that I believe he created the shelter fountain and the grand fountain: All the fountains we’ve seen so far were “tainted” by their creator’s will and exposed non-native darkners to becoming statues. Who else would be able to create pure darkness fountains if not the one character that happens to be most associated with darkness, has an entire entry dedicated to it and who probably was the one who theorized and discovered the existence of dark fountains, thus being the one behind the only two fountains we don’t know the creator of?
But the similarities between Ralsei and the holder don’t even stop there
- While Ralsei initially wears the riverman hood to hide his identity, the holder wears the shadow mantle to do so.
-Both are horned creatures, both have fangs
-Both can use fire magic
-Both try to isolate themselves with Kris, Ralsei makes us close our eyes and think of Susie to talk to Kris without us hearing, while the holder stole the mantle from seam and elaborated the sword route in order to get to Kris
- Finally, both have ties to Gaster and consider that they have to fulfill their purposes: If you attempt to fight the knight without the mantle, Gaster specifically goes out of his way to inform you that “YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING IMPORTANT”, which shows that he wants you to do the sword route and interact with the Holder, who happens to give you a piece of armor that reduces damage from Dark and star attacks by precisely 66% (for the record, the SkyMantle, a similar armor that exists within the game but hasn’t been used yet, offers a 50% damage reduction against holy/electric attacks, which suggests that the specific 66% reduction was definitely intended). Additionally, the holder is the most likely candidate for being the “tail of hell” thus associating it with devil imagery, some of its dialogues put emphasis on fun (such as the hidden “having fun?” dialogue in the first sword route minigame, as well as how it asks “Is it fun, Kris? Playing around like this…”) and it also happens to always be smiling and laughing. These 3 elements have been well established as recurring motifs related to Gaster: The devil imagery, the FUN value and the entry 17 sound being named “smile.ogg” as well as the smile from the mystery man who, while not confirmed to be Gaster straight up, is still an entity that ties back to him. With that in mind, there is one more piece of evidence I’d like to mention and that ties back to what I was saying earlier about the idea of a demonic entity being someone’s servant: the S-room vending machine. This machine is often disregarded yet it has a pretty interesting detail, aside from the TV slop item, it also sells a SMILE (written in all caps). While getting it doesn’t do much aside from taking away one dollar despite the machine claiming it is free, it will become sold out once you defeat the 8-bit version of the holder, suggesting the real deal was hiding there and left, and most importantly the description you get before buying a SMILE reads “Always at your humble service.” which pretty much sold me on the idea that the holder is serving someone once I realized the SMILE was linked to the Holder, because the phrasing is eerily reminiscent of the “demon message” in Undertale’s strings : in case you didn’t know, when Undertale was released, Toby Fox had left a message for dataminers in the game’s strings, basically asking them to not post about whatever secret they may find by looking through the game’s files. This message was eventually changed in later versions of the game to this :
These dialogues read like someone receiving orders and vowing fidelity to someone. Additionally, in version 1.05A, there was additional text near a “demonx” that read “HE IS” which might be yet another ominous reference to Gaster that would further confirm that he’s the person being addressed by this “humble servant”.
These “demon messages” have been speculated to be from Chara, but now that we have a demonic, horned character who is tied to this strange vending machine that has very similar dialogues, I believe it makes much more sense for them to be pronounced by the Holder, a Darkner born from the shelter fountain, pledging allegiance to Gaster upon being created. While the idea of plot-relevant dialogue being first teased within the previous game’s code may sound silly at first, you have to consider that this isn’t the first time an in-game dialogue quotes something that was initially in undertale or deltarune’s code, for instance Spamton NEO’s description in the weird route “Time to wake up and taste the PAIN” is a quote from undertale’s unused/debug room 271 “La, La. Time to wake up and smell the pain”. With all of these elements, I think it is safe to say that the Holder is undeniably Gaster’s servant.
As for Ralsei, his ties to Gaster are much more indirect and speculative. I am not claiming that Ralsei knows who Gaster is or that he’s been working for him the whole time, I simply believe that because he is also a Darkner born from a pure darkness fountain and that the Lightner that made his fountain is Gaster, it would be a decent explanation as to why he felt like he had to always be smiling, or why he has innate knowledge about the rules of the world, the prophecy and the fact it was “foretold by time and space”. Basically, while the Holder seems to be directly taking orders from Gaster, I feel like Ralsei was born with his orders imprinted in his mind.
There are two more questions regarding these two that I’d like to tackle before moving on to the specifics of what Gaster did to Dess and Kris: if they were both born from one of Gaster’s fountain, why are they so radically different, why is Ralsei a goody-two-shoes whose almost too kind for his own sake while the Holder is such a violent and vicious being? And if they’re Darkners, what objects are they in the Lightworld? While it’s perfectly possible that the Holder and Ralsei are just pure darkness with no light world counterpart and that these questions isn’t vital for my theory, I do have an answer to propose. Thanks to Swatch, we know that when a Lightner pours strong emotions into an object, it becomes something powerful in the Darkworld, and we can also deduce that more generally, the Darkner an object becomes is shaped by how its owner felt about it as well as the stories they imagined for it (which explains why all the darkners we saw in chapter 1 to 3 match the identities Kris and Noelle made up for the objects they used when they were playing make believe). So, if the emotions associated with an object is part of what determines a Darkner’s personality, it means that whatever emotions/memories are tied to the object that turned into Ralsei have to be positive, while those tied to the object Gaster used to create the Holder are negative. Thanks to that, we can narrow down the possibilities.
For Ralsei, the best candidates I found are the green crayon that is missing in Kris’ house and of course, the red horned headband. The former doesn’t have much going for it aside from the fact it’s green and is supposedly important enough to the narrator’s eyes that it being missing is worth mentioning, while the latter fits all the criterions : We know from Toriel that Kris wore it for months when they were little, as such, it would be filled with positive feelings as it is both a token of a time Kris’ life was much happier, and also an object that allowed them to feel like they belonged in the Dreemurr family, which would explain why Ralsei looks like a Dreemurr, can use fire magic and why he’s so kind. We also know that it is missing since Toriel wonders “whatever happened to it?” and considering we cannot find it anywhere in the Lightworld for now, I believe that if Ralsei has a Lightworld counterpart, then this headband is the best candidate. I know that Kris’ knife is also a popular idea but as I will demonstrate when we talk about Toriel’s role in all this, I doubt Kris has positive feelings about it and they seem to carry it all the time, so how would Ralsei be able to be present in Kris’ pockets as a knife while also making changes to CastleTown between each chapter at the same time?
The holder is even more tricky, some people argue that since the door that leads into the Ice palace has red horns, it’s possible that the Holder is actually the headband. While it is a fair assumption, you would have to explain why Kris would pour negative emotions onto it. I personally have a second possibility with strong evidence to back it up: during the Spamton Sweepstakes we got secret pages that were each meant to tease something about future chapters. Now that chapter 3 and 4 have been released, we have an explanation for almost all of them. One of the only exceptions being the ice-e sighting page.
Based on Noelle's spelling and the fact that Dess was still present in Hometown, we can place the events being told here before the night of the Incident, maybe a few weeks or a few months earlier. Noelle talks about an Ice-e pizza box and says that she saw the Ice-e mascot printed on the box wink at her, which made her scared of the box, to the point where Dess tried to “kill” it, most likely as a way to reassure her sister. To do so, she apparently burned the box, specifically burning out the eyes of ice-e making it look evil. When Kris, Noelle, Dess and Asriel went to the graveyard to bury it, Kris scared Noelle using the box, prompting Dess to be violent with them, before throwing the box away. So, we have an ice-e pizza box that Noelle feared, believing it to be violent and evil, and these feelings were amplified with Kris scaring Noelle and Dess using violence on Kris. Besides all of these negative feelings being tied to that box, it was also never buried but thrown away instead. All of this happened in the graveyard, with the shelter being nearby, meaning there is a high chance that Gaster got his hands on that box, and given its history, it would be a great object to make a Darkner with. Considering the emotions associated with it were mostly fear and violence, and that its Lightner saw it as evil, it would explain nearly all the characteristics of the shadow mantle holder: it has horns to symbolize its wickedness and that it acts as Gaster’s servant, it can use fire because its Lightworld form was literally burned, the reason the Shadow mantle holder boss battle theme is called “BURNING EYES” could very well be because ice-e’s eyes were burned. But the connection between the Holder and ice-e don’t stop there : as people have pointed out, one of the sound effects that plays right before the battle is called ERAM which is MARE in reverse and thus a synonym for nightmare, and as I mentioned earlier, the BURNING EYES theme is called “nightmare_boss_heavy” in the files ; it being compared to a nightmare makes perfect sense if the object it was made from was feared but it also ties back to “Nightmare mode”. In case you don't know what nightmare, mode is, it’s a fun event that adds another character on the ice-e word jumble sans gives you in undertale
As you can see, this FUN event adds a snowman character called nightmare. This FUN event never really made much sense within the context of undertale, but now that we have Deltarune and this ice-e blog post, it seems like it was actually teasing the story of this pizza box. Moreover, if you pay attention to the words you’re meant to find in this word jumble, there are 3 sets of words: the words are arranged in three columns. In the first column, the four seasons represent the climate of the four regions featured in Undertale in the order they are visited. In the second column, the four words each describe one of the main bosses. The order is the same in both columns, so each season matches the boss from the same region. Meanwhile, the third one doesn’t make any sense at first glance, until you take Deltarune in consideration : in chapter two, one of the puzzles required to get one of the hacker’s blue checkmarks tasks you with spelling “giasfclfebrehber” Ralsei and Susie have some dialogue about that word revealing it’s just ICE-E’s catchphrase “Perhaps this isn’t a real word, Kris…” ; “Yes it is, it’s ICE-E’s catchphrase.” as for cig and cigars, Noelle mentions that when Dess burned the box, it smelled like “charcle pizza” (charcoal pizza) which can be compared to the smell of cigarettes or cigarette ash, while hot simply refers to the fact that the box was burned. With all of these elements, I believe we can make a fairly strong case in favor of the pizza box being the object that made the Holder. It also fits nicely into our timeline : at this point Kris and Noelle are small children, Dess isn’t missing, Gaster is doing research on darkness inside the shelter but hasn’t opened a fountain yet, he gets his hands on an object filled with strong, negative emotions which is perfect for the creation of the first ever Darkner; the night Kris and Dess enter the shelter, Gaster has finally managed to create the first fountain and the box turns into the first Darkner, a malevolent, demonic entity that vows to obey its creator. Meanwhile, Kris and Dess, get lost in the shelter’s newly created dark world, the Darkner lures them to Gaster who is already thinking about his next experiment.
4. The poor test subjects!
At this point, we know that during one night, seven years before the events of Deltarune, the first dark fountain was created inside the shelter by Gaster, the darkness spawned a malicious darkner that swore to serve him. On the same night, Kris and Dess entered the shelter and got lost inside. The darkner that had been created led them to Gaster, as he was recording his observations on the effects of the darkness and expressing his excitement regarding the next experiment. The way Gaster, a scientist, asks mere children with zero scientific background what they think of his next experiment imply they are going to be a part of it, almost as guinea pigs. So, what do I think this experiment was? I believe that just like Alphys; while doing research on a substance she called “Determination” ended up injecting it into people, Gaster used Darkness on Dess. Look at it from Gaster’s perspective: you have been studying darkness for a while, created a fountain and realized that it created a dark world, turning inanimate objects into darkners. Disregarding any form of morality, if using darkness on an object gives it life, what would happen if it was used on a living being? Moreover, considering that Toby Fox refers to Deltarune as “Undertale’s parallel story” it would make perfect sense to look for something similar to the true lab experiments: Gaster “injecting” Dess with Darkness, would be a direct parallel to Alphys’ experiments with determination only in reverse: Alphys initially injected monster people with determination, and then tried it on flowers, while Gaster initially used darkness on objects before using it on a child.
And if we follow that logic, since Alphys ended up creating Amalgamates, Gaster eventually created the Knight which I believe is a Dark Amalgamate. To prove my point, let’s first address the issue you may have with the idea of using Darkness on Dess: when is it established that what the game calls “darkness” can take the form of a physical substance? And the answer to that lies with the fact that Darkness is constantly being compared with water. I’m not going to go over every single instance to prove it, as there are A LOT of examples, I’ll simply give a few exemples : the background image used for the goner maker sequence and the dark fountains is a stock image of the ocean, and is called IMAGE_DEPTHS in the files, the dark fountains are literally fountains, the game even calls them geysers at some point, the shadow crystals’ darkworld description reads “a sharp shadow moves like water in the hand”. If shadows are like water, then they can take a liquid form which could be injected. But then, why am I saying this resulted in the creation of something similar to an amalgamate? First off, let’s focus on what the knight looks like: it has antlers that look similar to the holiday antlers, but most importantly it can shapeshift into a quadruped cervine form :
But while it has features associated with the holiday family, it also possesses some traits that are very similar to the mystery man such as these “holes” in its hands as well as an eerie smile, just like the Shadow mantle holder, and is directly tied to darkness itself. All of these things are thematically associated with Gaster. On top of that, the knight’ design is a nearly identical to the Titans that can be seen during the roaring cutscene in chapter 2. The Knight’s design is thus an amalgam of Titan-like features, Gaster imagery, and cervine elements unique to the Holiday family, similar to how the amalgamates in Undertale were amalgams of key features of different types of monsters.
The process that created the amalgamates and the effects of darkness on its surroundings are also nearly the same : Amalgamates came to be because the determination Alphys injected into her patients made them melt, in other words the outlines of their bodies blurred, and it formed these abominations, while in chapter 3 Ralsei explains that “when it gets dark, things become more indistinct” : Amalgamates are indistinct just like what happens when it gets dark, and I believe this is the point the game tries to make when it shows how the FRIEND we see in that cutscene is similar to endogeny
If you focus on the white part of endogeny, you see a dog-like creature, but if you focus on the black parts between its legs, you can see cat outlines. Meanwhile, FRIEND has the shape of a cat, but the outlines between its legs look more like dogs, which hammers how both creatures are indistinct. Shapeshifting is also a property that is shared between amalgamates and entities created with pure darkness: the knight can change into a ball and their quadruped cervine form while the holder takes on a bat-like form when it spews bombs, amalgamates can change into the battle warning indicator, pellets and even save points.
The main take away is that using pure darkness on something, or someone, will form a creature that is very similar to an amalgamate, the knight being what you get when you do that with a monster, and that this is what Gaster did to Dess. You may believe that the Knight is someone else, like Carol for example, but the rest of the theory will provide more concrete evidence to back up the idea that the Knight is its own entity, one that Dess was “reborn” as.
5. The sins of the Dreemurr family
Before we continue on Dess, we need to talk about what Gaster did to Kris. I actually don’t have strong evidence regarding this, as such I don’t want to waste much time speculating: Since Kris is the only human in hometown, meaning this is the only human soul Gaster would have easy access to, I believe he did something to their soul directly and that it was after this incident that Kris started doing things like ripping it off and putting it inside the bird cage. This would explain why the cage is already quite damaged in chapter 1 and why there is no particular sign of Kris doing anything like that in their early life (the heart-shaped pillow prank they did on Noelle was clearly just that, I see it more as ironic foreshadowing)
While I don’t have any solid lead on what Gaster did to Kris, there are interesting hints on what Kris did inside the shelter which actually gives us a general idea of where Toriel and Asgore fit into all of this. Then, I will demonstrate how their actions that night, coupled with what they saw Gaster do to Dess is the root of their trauma, which I will then use to further prove that Kris has been inside the shelter and that Dess has been used to create the knight (in case the entry 17 part wasn’t enough evidence for you).
The staring point actually lies within the last board of the sword route: As you explore this manhole dungeon thing, you eventually end up in this room, where a black monster is present and as you may already know, dataminers have found something interesting about this ennemy. I’m know almost nothing about coding, so I’ll just keep it simple. Basically, when the game loads in the sprite for that enemy, it doesn’t use the sprite you see when you enter the room, that sprite actually “replaces” this one :
This black deer is clearly meant to represent a member of the holiday family, and it can’t be Noelle since she’s already represented by the white cloak character. Which means this black deer can only be Carol, Rudy or Dess. This enemy also happens to be the only ennemy 8-bit Kris will kill themselves. On one hand, we have a deer associated with the color black, that Kris kills on their own and on the other hand, we have a deer family composed of four members, 3 of them are still present during the events of the game and none of them are associated with black, while the fourth one is missing and has never been seen in-game meaning we can’t rule out the possibility that it is associated with this color in some way, and we also have a black creature that happens to look like a deer. By process of elimination, I think the most likely candidate for who that black deer is meant to represent is Dess. But if Kris killed Dess as the sword route suggest, how can she also be the knight? I propose two interpretations, with interpretation B being the one that I feel is the most likely.
Interpretation A: the sword route is symbolic, and thus 8-bit kris killing the black deer with its sword is simply meant to represent the fact that Kris was able to run away from the shelter and leaving Dess to her fate. Considering she seemingly went missing after the fact, they would thus feel like they “killed” her, when in reality she was used as a test subject for Gaster’s experiments Interpretation B: the sword route is literal, meaning 8-bit Kris killing a black deer with their sword is meant to reveal that Kris used their knife to kill Dess when they were inside the shelter. This brings context as to why the shadow mantle holder tells Kris “Without play, the knife grows dull” : since it was present when it happened, it’s tormenting Kris over that (and since we had to do something similar to the 8-bit versions of Susie and Ralsei, the Holder’s sentence could also imply that Kris will be forced to do the same thing to their two closest friends that they did to Dess). This idea is reinforced by one of the chapter 4 egg room NPCs stating “Are you here for Art Club? Right, this is where we draw pictures and don’t kill each other”. Since there are many details that imply the egg plotline in general seem to be directly correlated with Kris’ trauma regarding the shelter incident, such as how the ticket to nowhere you need to get the chapter’s egg can be obtained from the gumball machine after you access the strange 1225 room that is obviously related to Dess, the fact we know from the PlayStation achievements that the eggs represent Kris’ “issues” and the chapter 4 egg room most likely being a reminiscence of Kris going to therapy in Hometown’s hospital to deal with the traumatic experience of that night in the forest, with Noelle and Asriel most definitely being the ones occupying the two other inaccessible hospital rooms. Them trying to draw what they saw that night but being so terrified that their drawing is just a monochrome smear, upon which they draw a tree is also another proof that the Man is the one who traumatized them, which only reinforced the popular idea that him and Gaster are one and the same. It would also explain why the motif of hands keeps showing up: when Kris washes their hands, the narration reads “You ran the water over your hands and dried them. Between your fingers, a faint grey crease glittered stubbornly. You can never wash it all away”. If interpretation B is correct, then that text is telling us that Kris killed someone with their own hands, and that they will never be able to wash off that sin. This is why they’re obsessed with bathrooms, and why they’ve been locking themselves inside them to repeatedly wash their hands. They feel immense guilt over what they did, it seems like they’d do anything to get rid of that “crease”… and if washing it doesn’t work then it explains why the game seems to be foreshadowing Kris losing one of their hands, mostly through chapter 1 shadow crystal’s vision that reads “For some strange reason, for just a brief moment, you thought you saw through your hand” as well as the narration you get in the 1225 room stating “It was a small, dark triangle. You tried to take it… but it slipped through your hand. And you couldn’t find it anymore. You couldn’t find you hand”
If the game is implying self-harm, then it’s also a possible explanation for that blood stain in Kris’ room. Maybe they thought that a cut on their hand could make the “crease” disappear. Of course, all of that symbolism would technically still work under interpretation A, it’s just not as strong as it is if Kris literally killed someone.
This is all well and good, but if interpretation B is correct, then Dess can’t be the Knight. At best, she would be another Darkner, similar to Gerson, one created from an object with monster dust sprinkled on it, meaning that the knight is someone else as it is able to open fountains and thus can only be a Lightner, right? But what if Dess and the holiday family are Boss Monsters? To my knowledge nothing in the game confirms or denies the idea thus far, and if Dess is a Boss Monster, then everything falls into place. Kris killed her, but her soul persisted, which is what Gaster used the Darkness on. Not only is this a nice parallel to what Alphys was initially trying to do with determination in the first place, allowing monster souls to persist after death as she explains in entry 3 and 6 : “And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans... The SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...”; “ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had fallen down. Their bodies came in today. They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject "determination" into them? If their SOULS persist after they perish, then... Freedom might be closer than we all thought”, this would give credit to what I suggested earlier, that what Gaster did to Kris had something to do with their SOUL specifically, meaning he tempered with the souls of both children. If I’m right about this, then it would be logical that next experiment he talks about would be about using darkness on souls, which is something Darkners don’t have. This might also be why the bird NPC one of the Gaster followers is based on and who’s behavior has become more and more bizarre as the game progressed seem so obsessed with the books, specifically those on the library’s second floor (and is also, ironically, the one preventing us from reading): Aside from “how to care for humans” all the books upstairs so far are about SOULS. Could it be that Gaster is somehow using that NPC to bring our attention to these books? Or to prevent us from realizing something about his true motives considering that NPC is also the one that has been limiting our access to these very same books?
There is one more crucial detail about the black deer in the sword route: the variable that causes this sprite to be replaced with the more standard monster sprite is actually called “Toriel”
So, in a way, “Toriel” is covering up the truth of “Kris” using its “sword” to kill a “black deer” by replacing it with something benign. If you replace all the elements by what they represent in reality: Toriel is covering up Kris killing Dess with their knife. And this realization is what allowed me to finally understand what the hell was going on in chapter two’s intro which everyone seems to gloss over. Chapter two opens with a scene where we only get to hear Toriel say the following “Kris ? Kris, honey… Are you awake ? …w… wait ! Is that a… a knife ?!! NOOOOO---”
I believe this scene is a flashback that takes place during the same night where the kids explored the forest, specifically, I think this is Kris coming back home after escaping from the shelter. Not only is the scene very similar to the one from Undertale, where after falling down in Waterfall, Frisk we get a flashback of Asriel meeting Chara, Toriel’s words imply it’s the first time she sees Kris with a knife, while she seems pretty casual about it in chapter 2. Her dialogue also confirms this took place during the night so as far as the chronology of events goes, it would fit nicely with my idea. With the added context of this “Toriel” variable, I think we can make a good case for the idea that she caught Kris holding their knife, maybe covered in blood, as they returned from the shelter, and chose to hide the truth to protect her child from the consequences. A questionable thing to do, but it definitely fits with her character. This event is probably what kickstarted her falling out with Asgore : as the chief’s police, he was most likely tasked with finding out what happened to Dess, and because she’s the daughter of his best friend, it’s no surprise he would obsess over solving the case even to this day. But Toriel knows that Asgore figuring out the truth would mean that both Kris and her would face severe consequences, and that Asgore is a man of Honor, driven by his unyielding sense of duty and that as much as it will pain him, he won’t do what Toriel did. I’m particularly confident with this idea since it is yet another parallel to their falling out in Undertale, that also involved the murder of children and a strong disagreement over a major moral dilemma. Furthermore, if Carol is supporting Asgore’s investigation, it also explains why she seems to have grown distant from Carol aswell, to the point where she won’t even say her name when talking with Rudy in chapter 4.
6. Kris' FEAR, buried in the code
What the theory states so far is that Kris has a severe trauma that relates to the night where they went inside the shelter with Dess, ended up in a dark world that had just been made by Gaster, where a vile Darkner, acting as Gaster’s servant, lured them to him. Gaster did something to Kris, supposedly to their SOUL, and they ended up killing Dess. As a Boss Monster, her soul persisted just long enough for him to use Darkness on it, as Kris was able to escape (or maybe they were allowed to, in exchange of something. Gaster IS the Devil after all; would he pass up the opportunity to force Kris to make a promise?). This was probably the moment they lost their horned headband, which would be another object gaster would be interested with for his experiments. When they returned home, Toriel realized they had seemingly killed someone and that Dess was missing, she decided to cover up the truth. Asriel, Noelle and Kris were all left deeply affected by this experience, and would attend Hometown’s hospital for therapy.
The results for Kris are… less than optimal, and their fear is what I’m going to use to provide more evidence for the fact they’ve been inside the shelter as well as figuring out what Gaster’s experiments led to, how he wasn’t just studying Darkness but also the space-time continuum itself and how that infamous “voice in the code” is undeniably Dess. I’m aware Dess being the one talking in the UNUSED text is a very common idea, but I feel like there is a lack of arguments being provided for this, we’ve all just kind of agreed to assume it to be the case. I will do my best to achieve this!
In case you didn’t know, there are a lot of ominous messages hidden in the game’s data, similar to the demon text from undertale. If you want more details about the stuff I’m going to be mentioning from now on, I have linked some of HalfbreadChaos’ videos on the matter at the end.
Let’s start with the “voice in the code”, this refers to a bunch of scripts found in the game’s files, there is one UNUSED script for each chapter and they seem to tell the story of an unknown character that seems to be stuck in a dark space:
As many people have pointed out, this UNUSED text seems to be quoted by Spamton in one of his shop dialogues “…can anyone hear me? Help…” which is another instance of in-game dialogue referencing something from the game’s code. What is often disregarded however, is the context in which Spamton suddenly starts quoting this text, which will actually be pivotal to understanding why he says that, who’s this voice in the code and how it even helps making sense of the other messages in the code besides UNUSED. You actually get this Spamton dialogue by choosing the “FEAR” dialogue option, and his full dialogue reads “WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF??? ACCORDING TO [[Encyclopedia of]] [[Being Afraid]] THERE'S NOTHING TO FEAR EXCEPT ... can anyone hear me? Help... HUH??? WHAT?? NO, I DIDN'T HEAR ANYTHING JUST NOW!!! ... BUT IT SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE TALKING TO YOU.” This added context sheds a new light on this strange piece of dialogue, Spamton is telling Kris what they are afraid of, which prompts him to quote the UNUSED text, before specifying that the voice was talking to Kris. This strongly suggests that the story being told in the UNUSED text and the character speaking are directly tied to Kris’ fear, meaning this somehow relates to their Shelter trauma, which fits nicely with what we’ve established so far. Let’s focus on the UNUSED text itself now and let’s look for details that could hint at who this person is and what happened to them. The first part is very similar to what Asriel, posing as Toriel, describes of his experience before being reborn as Flowey “Where am I…? It’s so cold here… And so dark… Someone help me… Anyone… please… Help me…” while the fourth part tells us that they don’t eat or drink. This strongly implies that whatever is going on, they aren’t just a normal person trapped somewhere, it seems they are in a strange in-between state between life and death. In the fourth part, they also mention late night-TV and breakfast. While this detail is sometimes used to rule out Dess since it sounds more like a typical morning for a Dreemurr, considering how close the two families were, it’s just as likely that she’s talking about sleepovers at their house. Another detail that sets their case apart from Flowey, is the scratching noise they hear, meaning that they are still conscious and to some extent, aware of their surroundings. So, we are dealing with someone experiencing something similar to what Flowey went through before being reborn, who’s also aware of the sounds around them. Earlier, I suggested that Dess could’ve been reduced to a soul, and injected with Darkness to allow it to persist. This UNSUED text would be a good description of how this process would look like to Dess, after all we know from Undertale that even when their bodies have been destroyed, the SOULs are still aware and retain their memories, this is why they answer our call for help against omega Flowey and eventually rebel against him when he starts torturing Frisk, why we are able to save the Monster souls by making them remember everything during the true pacifist final boss battle.
But what are the scratching sounds? And if Dess is the voice in the code, how can she also be the Knight? Considering Dess is being used by Gaster as a test subject, I think it’s highly likely that the scratching noise is Gaster taking notes, silently observing the effects of Darkness on Dess. I believe that’s what this UNUSED text is, Gaster’s notes. This would explain why unused is written in all caps, but also why Dess is both the knight and the UNUSED voice. The stuff described in UNSUED isn’t happening in parallel of the game’s event, these are written records of Gaster’s next experiment. You could almost say they are the follow-up entries to entry 17. This would also explain why the person behind the scratching isn’t answering Dess’s call for help: to Gaster, this would be an experiment, a way to find out what effects Darkness can have on the soul. Eventually, the voice’s mental state starts to deteriorate because of the dark, they lose track of time, implying it could very well have been years since they’ve been in there (which once again fits nicely with our timeline, Dess has been missing for seven years, and her transformation into the Knight wasn’t instantaneous which would explain why it only started acting shortly before the game started) and start to be irrationally grateful to the one behind the scratching “This sounds crazy, but even though no one can hear me, when I hear that noise, I feel like someone's listening. Anyone, if you're there... thank you”.
Someone’s mind slowly being broken by an unseen entity that is listening to them, and who says “thank you” to that entity… This is clearly meant to draw a parallel between what Gaster supposedly did to Dess and what we do to Noelle in the weird route: we both are unseen entities that are always listening “It’s rude to talk about someone who’s listening”; “Who…? Who’s going to hear?” We slowly break their mind until eventually, we turn them into obedient weapons. This is evidenced by how Noelle says the same thing as the UNUSED voice when we choose to think of her in chapter four: “Thank you.” This would make a nice parallel between Gaster/Dess and Us/Noelle and it also explains why Gaster’s dialogue at the end of chapter 4 doesn’t change in the weird route. He’s done the same thing we did; these are acceptable methods to him. The idea that being lost in darkness will eventually break your mind is visually alluded to in the Roaring cutscene and carries on to the Knight. Look at the human’s stance and notice how the knight’s position before they roar is nearly identical with the way they are both clutching their head with their hands, as if their minds were suffering:
Thus, I believe the Knight is a “Dark amalgamate”, a creature born from Dess (more specifically her soul) merging with Darkness. A couple questions remain regarding the Knight: Is it acting on instinct or is it intelligent, and what are its motives? I believe it’s pretty obvious that the Knight has some form of intelligence, they laugh at Susie’s words in chapter 4 and they nod when Kris coughs, meaning they understand words and cues. It also has the intelligence to hide or stay out of view whenever necessary, if we assume that it was hiding in the church’s closet and that it is the hand that pushes back Kris in the last prophecy room (which would be another clue in favor of Dess Knight, since a guitar sound is meant to be playing during this interaction). Furthermore, unlike Gaster’s, the fountains it creates aren’t pure darkness, and its dark worlds are filled with elements from Dess’ past or Kris and Noelle’s childhood: seam who’s apparently based on some sort of cat character Kris and Asriel made on their laptop, the baseball moon, the smiling plugs, the puppet scarf that feels like guitar strings, or the ribbons that look familiar according to Noelle. There’s also the fact that the knight’s fountain was able to make specific enough darkness to bring back Gerson as a Darkner, which would be possible for Dess as she probably had him as a teacher when she was younger. As for her motives and why she hasn’t caused the Roaring, thanks to the parallel with the weird route it becomes clear that the Knight has no motives aside from serving Gaster, as such, it’s most likely assisting him with his Dark Fountain experiments. After all, unlike the tail of hell, the knight is technically still a Lightner, it can thus make its own fountains. This would provide a fairly solid explanation as to why it tried to abduct Toriel, why it took Undyne to the shelter, and why it opened a fountain inside the church. All of these things would help satiate the questions a man experimenting with Dark Fountains would ask himself: What happens if we use Darkness on an object covered with monster dust? What would happen if we used it on another type of Boss Monster? What would happen if the one monster that managed to achieve a formidable transformation using Determination was injected with Darkness instead?
Now that we’re done with UNUSED, let’s look at the other strange texts that can be found in Deltarune’s files, the error handler text. There are quite of lot of them, so i've divided them into diffent categories for clarity’s sake.
The “Repressed narration category”:
This category includes the following sentences
Based on my interpretation of the demon text and UNUSED, it looks like we have a pattern of text related to the Shelter Incident being hidden in the game’s code. This, coupled with the fact Kris’ trauma was caused by this Incident, leads me to believe that these messages are hidden in the game's code as a way to symbolize how Kris is repressing their memories of what they saw inside the shelter. As such, these bits of text would be narrative flavor text of what Kris saw/felt when they explored the place. This would imply that the blueprints for the broken machine from sans lab, are inside the shelter considering the error handler text is nearly identical to the narration we get when we check the blueprints in Undertale. This would further support the popular idea that these blueprints were made by Gaster. The other messages could almost be put in their own sub category because of they seem to describe a fight-or-flight response “It could not be” “Your eyesight became blurry” “Your heartbeat quickened” “Suddenly, you body seizes up. What are you looking at ?” which makes sense if these are what Kris remembers of their encounter with Gaster. These messages can even be used to tie the Knight into all of this because some of the flavor text during their fight is almost identical
Here are the flavor texts similar to “Your heartbeat quickened” :
"Kris held their breath. their heartbeat quickened"
"Your chest feels tight"
"Your heartbeat becomes twisted"
As for “Your eyesight became blurry” one of the flavor texts during the fight reads "Your vision narrows"
These details could imply that the Knight’s presence is making Kris’ repressed memories resurface, linking it even more closely to Kris’ trauma.
The “Gaster Poems” category
These are 3 error handler messages that rhyme when put together, forming some kind of poem. As many have pointed out, it seems to describe the Mystery man's face "Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye?"; "The gash weaves down as if you cry"; "The pain itself is reason why"
As such, this text seems to be specifically about motifs related to Gaster: Pain, the Mystery Man, and rhyming. Indeed, the two other major instances where we find rhymes are in parts of the Prophecy itself (which was likely written by Gaster) and in the speech of one of Gaster’s followers
Now that we’re done with the error handler text, we can focus on the flavor text you get when fighting Echidna aka G BODY. This is something pretty obscure, so in case you don't know what I’m talking about, I once again recommend checking HalfbreadChaos' video on the matter, they explain what this enemy is way better than I could.
In any case, if you somehow start a battle with this enemy, you will get the following flavor text "You've come again to this wonderful place. Now tear off the mask beneath your face!"
This is yet another text that rhymes and this one also uses the adjective “wonderful” which is one of Gaster’s favorite words (it keeps coming back in his tweets, and is also used multiple times in the Goner maker sequence). The text also states that whoever is being addressed has already been in a the “wonderful place” it mentions. Considering all these elements, I believe it is directed to Kris, and that we will most likely see it in-game when we enter the shelter, either from Gaster himself or from the shadow mantle holder, this message seems to be particularly in-character for the latter. The forgotten man also seems to vaguely allude to this place and the strange “Now, tear off the mask beneath your face!” thing in his chapter 3 dialogue “IF YOU WILL IT, WE SHALL MEET AGAIN AT THAT PLACE”; “SO TAKE YOUR TIME, WASH YOUR FACE, AND GET DRESSED!” as well as his Valentine letter “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT”. Overall, this text is another piece connecting Kris, their trauma, Gaster, and the Shelter.
Now that we’re done with the first part of this theory, let’s sum everything up
One night, Asriel, Kris, Noëlle and Dess explored the forest past the graveyard. Using the code she stole from her mother, Dess opened the Shelter, wanting to go inside. But because Noëlle was scared, only Dess and Kris, the two more adventurous kids of the bunch, went inside while Asriel stayed outside watching over Noëlle. At the same time, Doctor W.D. Gaster, a scientist that had been doing researches on Souls and Darkness, managed to open the first ever Dark Fountain, creating a Dark world inside the shelter. The Darkness had also created the first ever Darkner from a burnt pizza box Gaster had retrieved nearby a few weeks before. Because of the negative emotions and memories poured into that box however, the Darkner was particularly malicious. It became Gaster’s humble servant, promising to follow him to the utmost, figuratively making it the “tail of hell”. Kris and Dess, who were lost inside the shelter's dark world, were then brought to Gaster by the tail. As he was recording his observations, he came up with a new experiment: He would use Darkness on living beings. Amidst the chaos of this terrifying encounter, Kris, perhaps after Gaster tempered with their soul, making them able to be controlled by someone else, stabbed (or was forced to stab) Dess. Gaster used this opportunity to use Darkness on her boss monster soul, saving it from destruction. (It’s possible that this is the point where Kris made that infamous promise. A deal with the Devil, in exchange for Dess’s salvation. They would agree to let their soul be controlled, and follow instructions, in exchange for Gaster’s help. Using Darkness, he would save Dess. This might be what “the promise in our hearts” refers to assuming don’t forget is sung by Dess). Either way, Kris make it out of the shelter, losing their headband in the process. When they returned home, Toriel caught them with the Knife they used to stab Dess, and decided to hide the truth to protect her child. Asgore on the other hand, would become obsessed with finding Dess, which would cause a falling out between him and Toriel, leasing to their divorce. Kris would remain deeply traumatized by that night, and they would go on to struggle with their own soul, as well as with an immense feeling of guilt over what happened. They would resort to self-harm, and would try to repress any memory of what they saw. Meanwhile, in the shelter, Dess merged with Darkness itself, would slowly break because of the dark. After many years, she would end up completely subjugated to the one behind the scratching noises, Dr. Gaster. She would be reborn, not as Dess, but as a amalgamation of Darkness, of traits inherited from her newfound master, and remaining features of the rowdy girl she once was. With the previous experiment being conclusive, Gaster created another pure Dark Fountain, this time inside the school's closet. Using the headband he took from Kris, another special Darkner was created, Ralsei. This one would have the same unique properties as the tail of hell, but because the object that was used to make him was filled with positive memories and feelings, he would have a nearly opposite personality. Ralsei would be born with innate knowledge about the rules of the world and its Prophecy, he would be completely dedicated to its purpose: carrying out the Prophecy, or as chapter 4 puts it, “recording the fate”, acting as a control case for Gaster’s next experiments.
PART 2 : A NEW FUTURE BORN FROM AN ETERNAL NIGHT
This theory was originally supposed to end there, but it still felt like I was missing something. Where does the Prophecy fit into this? What’s going on with the Forgotten man? Why is he so different and yet so similar to Gaster? What about the FUN events and all that Gaster stuff from Undertale? If Alphys' determination experiments are a parallel to Gaster's experiments, shouldn’t there be a point where his experience go wrong? Eventually, it clicked. If Gaster kept experimenting with Dark Fountains, and if FUN events are actually telling parts of Deltarune’s lore, then this Gaster follower dialogue takes on a whole new meaning:
What if Gaster’s experiments going wrong wasn’t something that happened in Undertale, but in Deltarune?
In this second part, I’m going to develop an explanation that will hopefully bring us closer to understanding what the deal with Gaster is.
Here’s the gist of it: I believe that the voice we hear in chapter 1’s intro and the Forgotten man are both Gaster, but unlike what most people believe I don’t think one is from Deltarune and one is from Undertale. I believe that they’re both from Deltarune, except the Forgotten man is from a “failed” timeline, one where we, the player, weren’t present.
In this timeline, the heroes failed to stop the knight, and Gaster’s experiments unwillingly caused the Roaring, dooming the world to eternal darkness. However, aside from his experiments with Darkness and similarly to Alphys, Gaster had also been studying alternate universes, and discovered the existence of the Undertale universe, his reports showed that an anomaly was messing with this universe’s timelines. Gaster thus planned to travel to this universe with the objective of bringing the anomaly to the Deltarune universe, using its powers to change the inevitable fate he had created for his universe, correcting his failing experiment into a success.
Using the blueprints he had designed, and with the help of two men he met some point after his experiments went wrong, these men being sans, who had been studying quantum physics, and his little brother, who excelled in creating complex machinery that he usually used to create puzzles, Gaster was able to complete a machine that could achieve space-time travel. During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, and while sans and his brother were able to make it to their destination, Gaster ended up in the past, long before the anomaly’s arrival. With the machine broken and its creator missing, sans and his brother had no choice but to accept Undertale as their new home. As for Gaster, seeing he ended up in a point in time too far from the anomaly, decided to leave hints about him that would arouse the anomaly’s curiosity. Thanks to his scientific background, he was hired by King Asgore as the Royal Scientist. He eventually built the CORE, and used it to create GONERs, these creatures would tell bits of information about Gaster and events from his home world in order to make sure the anomaly would look for him. Having left all these breadcrumbs, Gaster vanished as suddenly as he appeared, once again crossing time and space to return to the Deltarune universe as the Forgotten man, a being shattered across time and space. Now experiencing time in reverse, he eventually met his own, non-shattered self. The Forgotten man told Gaster what had happened to him, said events would form The Prophecy as well as the existence of the anomaly. With this knowledge, Gaster created the SURVEY_PROGRAM, before contacting the anomaly that had been looking for him. Using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect it to the Deltarune world, this Gaster’s goal is to use our power to create a new future. Not out of any desire for good, or evil. But because this would certainly be the most interesting experiment he ever conceived.
I know this all sounds completely crazy, but let me go over the evidence.
The failed Deltarune
I believe this is a good way to start this crazy part so let’s go over everything that implies the events of Deltarune have somehow already happened once before. Our first main clue comes from the Legend and Roaring cutscenes. Both of these are told through sepia-colored screens, which in both Undertale and Deltarune, they’ve only ever been used to tell flashbacks, which implies that one way or another, the roaring and the prophecy have already happened once.
Speaking of the Roaring, let’s pay attention to how it’s described. Ralsei tells us in chapter 2 that it is an event that ends with the world being plunged in a never-ending night, which will start “when the fountains fill the sky”. What Ralsei is saying is that when darkness fills the sky, the Roaring will start, leading to the eternal night. This is very similar to what Gaster says when you choose to give up upon getting a game over “THEN THE WORLD WAS COVERED IN DARKNESS” and on top of that, the theme that plays (which also happens to be 66 seconds long) is called “DARKNESS FALLS”. So, when the end of the world happens, Darkness fills the sky, before falling from it, covering up the entire world. As I’ve explained before, Darkness and water are thematically the same thing, so Darkness falling from the sky is the same thing as saying water falls from the sky, which is called raining. But if darkness is water, does that mean it can exist in the two other primary states of water: gaseous and solid? Turns out it absolutely does: the dark fountains literally make smoke, while darkness has been associated with coldness on multiple occasions: Earlier, I quoted Flowey posing as a deceased Toriel, specifying that everything was dark and cold. Furthermore, just before Gaster took over the UT/DR X account, we got this tweet.
The reason I’m establishing a link between darkness and cold/ice is because of this prophecy panel:
This panel ties back to the idea of darkness falling from the sky, except it uses snowflakes. But considering the panel doesn’t use the term “snow” but specifically “cold water” and how darkness has been established to be cold, we can safely assume that Darkness, water, cold and ice all refer to the same general idea. Therefore, if darkness falling from the sky refers to the end of the world, the fact Gaster immediately says that this is what happens as a consequence of us, the player, choosing to give up means that he already knows that without us, the Roaring will not be stopped. This further suggests the existence of a playerless timeline that ended up in failure, and gives context as to why he says that he aims to “CREATE A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU” and how we apparently need each other. Another element that supports this idea is the first sentence from the Forgotten man in chapter 3 “WELL, SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER, AND SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD.” have you ever wondered what this sentence was supposed to mean? He initially goes from spring to summer, nothing strange there, but then, not only does he skip fall, he says COLD, not winter. The choice to use the world cold feels deliberate. He’s not talking about the passing of seasons; he’s talking about what happened in his failed timeline. One of the few things we know about Deltarune’s time period is that the game’s events are set around the end of spring/the beginning of summer since Asriel is meant to come back to hometown next week for his college vacation, and Kris has the search query “summer vacation college when” inside their cyber world room. SPRING CHANGED TO SUMMER thus refers to the events of the game, while SUMMER CHANGED TO COLD means that the world ended up covered in darkness. As we’re going to see in a moment, the forgotten man seems to experience time in reverse, most of the things he says are either in reverse or out of order, but this sentence is one of the only times he follows the normal flow of time. If this man has been travelling through space and time, it makes sense he would struggle to keep track of everything, but would recall the events of his original timeline in a normal order.
Finally, let’s look at this quote from the Forgotten man’s valentine letter: “AS YOU ARE WAITING PATIENTLY, THE TIME IS GOING AROUND”. The correct expression would be “time is going by” to suggest the passing of time, but here, the Forgotten man says that it’s “going around” almost like time is repeating itself. To my knowledge, he is the only character that has suggested this so far. I know that there have been theories that Deltarune is stuck in a never-ending time loop, but I don’t think that is what’s going on, I think this is rather signaling time is repeating from his perspective. After all, if the forgotten man is from a failed timeline, everything leading up to the game’s ending is just a repetition for him. Furthermore, if he’s experiencing this new timeline in reverse after reaching “the end” of his own timeline, he is quite literally going around through time.
2. Space-time travelers
Now that I’ve established the existence of a failed timeline, let me demonstrate how Gaster, with the help of sans and his brother, was able to escape the fate he brought upon his own world, and how he became the forgotten man. Small heads up before I go on though: since I’ll be referring to two different Gasters, I’ll use “Forgaster” (Forget + Gaster) for simplicity to describe the one who came from the failed timeline, went to Undertale, and returned as the Forgotten Man. I’ll keep “Gaster” for the one who appears to be speaking to us on social media and in the goner maker sequence.
Forgaster ended up creating an unavoidable fate for everyone in the Deltarune universe, with no means to stop it. So, what could he do? Like I implied earlier, I have reasons to believe Gaster was aware of the existence of Undertale and had been researching that universe, on top of his Darkness researches. Even alphys, who’s researched primarily focused on determination and MTT is confirmed to have been studying alternate universes based on this dialogue you get for answer “Nobody” to the final question of MTT’s quiz “Hey, I’ve done research about this! There are alternate universes out there!” so the idea that Gaster would also do this as a side gig isn’t out of the question. Furthermore, I established that the blueprints for the broken machine in sans’ lab were most likely in the shelter. Finally, during his fight, sans states that “our reports have shown a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting. Until suddenly, everything ends” what “reports” is he talking about? This guy sells hotdogs for a living; how would he have the means of producing a scientific report? This dialogue, is sans admitting he has a scientific background, and based on the books we find in his undertale house, or how he makes a joke reference to the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, it’s pretty clear that his field of research is quantum physics. The fact he specifies “our reports” means he didn’t do this research alone. While his colleague could be Alphys, the fact she never shows any knowledge about what is going on with the timelines in Undertale disproves the idea. I think it’s far more likely in light of everything we know today, that sans somehow met Forgaster at some point. These reports are what allowed them to learn of the existence of the anomaly (which is just how sans refers to what fans tend to call “the player”) and come up with the idea of luring it to Deltarune to change fate. After all, an anomaly that has the power to rewind time and exert complete control on timelines would’ve been seen as a godsent in their situation. Sans’ brother’s involvement in this is rather speculative, but if this brother really is Papyrus, then it throws a few wrenches in the next part of my theory which is basically me agreeing with the “sans undertale is the same as sans deltarune” but I’ll address these in due time. If Papyrus was involved, I doubt he took part in the whole time-space research. At best, I think it’s more likely that he helped build the machine, seeing how undertale implies that his knowledge of machinery is rather impressive, judging by the complex books on puzzle creation on his bookshelf.
In any case, this machine is definitely how sans and papyrus ended up in undertale, but I also think that it’s the reason for Papyrus being so lost and naïve as well as what caused Forgaster being shattered across time and space. Let’s go over the major evidence in favor of “sans is from deltarune”
The first clue implying that sans and Papyrus do not originate from Undertale (and by extension, the idea of an Undertale counterpart for Gaster being incorrect) actually comes from what the snowdin shopkeeper tells us about them “There’s two of ‘em. Brothers, I think. They just showed up one day and… asserted themselves”. The way they just suddenly appeared out of nowhere would make sense if they arrived there thanks to the machine. As for Forgaster, the riverman has one dialogue that was always believed to be about him “Beware of the man who speaks in hands” seeing how Deltarune has been bringing back this hand motif with the knight most notably, and how the Wingdings font uses multiple hand signs, this is a fair assumption. However, there is another line from the Riverman that is nowhere as iconic as the previous one, and that was always harder to connect to Gaster “Beware of the man who came from the other world”, back when we only had Undertale, there wasn’t much to suggest this had anything to do with him, aside from how both sentences used a similar structure and mentioned a man. But thanks to what we learned in Deltarune and what I’ve established so far, this sentence makes a lot more sense. The riverman is telling us that a man came from another world that he doomed because of his experiences, and is trying to lure us in order to take advantage of our power. Besides that, one of Gaster’s followers states that “one day, he vanished without a trace” which sounds like the inverse of sans and papyrus: while the two brothers suddenly appeared out of nowhere one day, Forgaster appears to have suddenly disappeared. I’m not exactly sure if him vanishing is alluding to when he returned to the Deltarune universe, or if the follower is talking about how he escaped from the failed timeline thanks to the machine.
Sans also has dialogues that sound a bit nonsensical if you only consider Undertale, especially during the hangout at MTT resort, and during his fight.
“Your journey’s almost over, huh? You must really wanna go home. Hey, I know the feeling, buddo. Though maybe sometimes it’s better to just take what’s given to you. Down here you’ve already got food, drink, friends… is what you have to do… really worth it?”
There’s the obvious fact he says he wants to “go home”, but even if we disregard that and chalk it up to sans meaning he wants to go back to the surface, he seems to be projecting a bit in this scene. Him stating that Frisk already has food and friends in the underground sound like what he’s been telling himself to cope with the fact he’s stranded in a world that’s not his own. Going off of that, the way he asks if what we have to do is really worth it could also be him implying he came here with a goal, supposedly getting the anomaly, and wonders if it’s really worth it. It’s not like he’d have a way back anyway. These doubts might also partly explain why he prioritizes the promise he made to Toriel over his desire (or his mission) to kill us, especially if the two were close in Deltarune.
As for his desire to go home, he outright confirms he’s not talking about the surface during his fight “Look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago. And getting to the surface doesn’t really appeal anymore, either” Moreover, the theme that plays during that scene is called “It’s raining somewhere else” and in Chapter 4, we got to hear a very similar track called “The place where it rained”. I’ve already showed that darkness and water are the same thing thematically, and that the world of deltarune ended with Darkness (water) falling from the sky, covering everything. Figuratively, you could say that the end of the world is represented by rain. With that in mind, the name of these two tracks can not only be interpreted differently, they also respond to each other: He knows that while he’s stuck in undertale, darkness is still falling from the sky in his home world, that’s why the track uses the present continuous, it’s raining somewhere else. And thus, the track from Deltarune not only tells us what this “somewhere else” is, it also alludes to the existence of the failed timeline, it tells us that the world of deltarune is the place where it rained. The use of past tense is significant, because it doesn’t make sense from our perspective as players, since the roaring hasn’t happened yet, but it does for someone who came from Forgaster’s failed timeline or who simply knows what happened
As for Papyrus, we have this dialogue from the Fangamer Q&A:
Considering there isn’t really any spot with green grass in the Underground, this is a huge hint because it means Papyrus may also be from Deltarune. But it poses a few problems: why does sans state his brother never saw any human? Why does he appear to be a shut-in type of person in Deltarune when his personality in Undertale is the exact opposite of that? Considering his supposed Deltarune memories seem a bit hazy, I believe what’s being implied here is that Papyrus either suffers from amnesia/cognitive issues or trauma (maybe a mix of both). The reason why I believe that lies with the fact the machine is broken. It implies it malfunctioned when it was used by Forgaster, sans and papyrus when traveling to Undertale. If the machine was built in a hurry, as the Roaring was happening, then we have a pretty good explanation for why it happened. It seems like sans was able to make it out in one piece, however Papyrus’s mind seemingly suffered from it, while Forgaster was unaccounted for. If Papyrus has trouble remembering things, then that’s something he has in common with the Forgotten man. What if this is because their memory issues have the same origin? Considering sans seems fairly depressed over his situation, I guess this would explain why he seems to purposely interrupt the Q&A: he’s preventing his brother from remembering what happened so that he won’t suffer from it. This is a solid explanation for why the Forgotten Man speaks in a way that is very similar to Gunter’s, but not quite identical: Forgaster speaks like someone who was shattered across time and space, while Gaster is just normal. This also implies that the trip from Deltarune to Undertale was the moment when Forgaster was shattered. That makes perfect sense: what machine would have the potential to shatter someone across time and space without it coming from nowhere, if not a device literally designed to travel between dimensions and timelines? Perhaps this really was what one of the Gaster followers meant when he said that “he fell in his creation”. It would have the added bonus of confirming that the idea that he fell into his own creation and the fact that he was broken refer to the same thing, which would be nice since it simplifies things for us.
Thanks to all these elements, it also becomes clear that all of the main characters from Undertale have a Deltarune counterpart, with the exception of sans, Papyrus and Gaster. In other words, Forgaster discovered a world similar to his own, but in which he didn’t exist.
“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same… Except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you… Ha, ha… the thought terrifies me”
I’m positive this is what the goner kid was talking about all along, they embody Forgaster’s feelings upon making that discovery. More generally, Goner kid seems to reflect his fear and his sadness, the more human side of a man who has otherwise been horrifyingly cold to everyone who ever crossed his path so far. This last bit is more speculative, but I wonder if their dialogue when we bring them an umbrella is meant to give us some insight into how Forgaster might have felt some fort of guilt or grief about causing the roaring “An umbrella? But it’s not raining. You know, that does make me feel a little better about this. Thank you. Please forget about me” especially since Forgaster has a strange dialogue if you answer no when he asks if you want to meet him again “WELL. I’M STARTING TO REALIZE WHY I WAS FORGOTTEN” I’m probably reaching hard here, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s implying, he was forgotten as punishment for what he did to the people in Deltarune. Food for thought, I guess.
3. I'M FORGASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST!
We’ve covered what happened to sans and papyrus, but what became of Forgaster after he was shattered? His story pretty much goes on accordingly to what the followers tell us from this point on. He ended up in the past, long before the events of Undertale. Since the anomaly had not yet arrived, the only thing left to do was setting up the baits that would allow him to lure it into Deltarune. He became the Royal scientist, most likely worked in the true Lab and eventually built the CORE. According to Alphys, it converts geothermal energy into magical electricity, and powers the entire underground. Before Forgaster built this structure, monsters seemingly had no access to electricity and used primitive light sources as revealed by one of the signs in Waterfall “Without candles or magic to guide them Home, the monsters used crystals to navigate”
The signs inside the CORE have a very similar interface to the one we see for the save file menu in chapter 1, which isn’t surprising since both were made by the same person. The way these signs are written are similar to how Gaster speaks, using vague and drawn-out expressions “Traverse the northern room, and the end will open”. Another sign reads “North, the warrior’s path, West, the sage’s path. Any path leads to The End” which is a hint on how the player can reach the last room of the CORE, you can either solve a puzzle (the sage’s path) or cross a bridge where you’ll have to fight powerful enemies in order to reach a switch (the warrior's path). The way the CORE is designed is almost an allegory for Deltarune: regardless of whether you choose to use violence or to avoid fighting, you reach the same end either way. This is further reinforced by what we see when we reach “The End” of the CORE:
A room with an effigy of the Angel on top of its entrance.
Another sign reads “I cannot fight. I cannot think. But, with patience, I will make my way through” while this initially appears like another hint for the player to help them cross the laser room, the fact this sign was made by Forgaster could also apply to his situation after being shattered. He’s the only one with battle stats but no boss fight, and the Forgotten man has cognitive issues judging from his dialogues. The second part of the quote is also interesting, because both Gaster and Forgaster keep talking about they have been waiting for a long time. I believe this sign supports the idea that Forgaster was left in a fairly bad state after his machine incident and that “making his way through” might be about making his way through Undertale specifically, setting up baits for the anomaly before returning to Deltarune. Even then, he’d still have to wait for the anomaly to arrive and find the breadcrumbs he left.
But does the CORE have anything to do with this plan? After all, it’s just a power plant, isn’t it?
This is what Alphys thinks, but let’s look at the other room where the Angel symbol appears:
See these pillars that appear all throughout the CORE? They’re called “spr_darknesstotem” in the game files. How could there be advanced darkness technology inside the CORE if the Gaster that built the CORE was from Undertale? Nothing in Undertale suggests Darkness technology was developed, the only exception being entry 17 but as I’ve established, this is from Deltarune. This might be the best evidence to back up the claim that “Undertale Gaster” was always from Deltarune, because if the man who built the CORE is the man who came from the other world, he would have the knowledge necessary to make these totems. But what could be the use for these totems? Well, have we ever seen something similar? A machine that uses Darkness to make something? If we had seen one, we could assume that the CORE might have a secret functionality that would be similar. And it turns out we have: the Goner maker device. It uses darkness as suggested by the IMAGE_DEPTHS background, when said image appears, we clearly hear the sound of a machine booting up, and this is the part where we create a goner. This is the actual reason Forgaster built the CORE, it wasn’t about helping monsterkind, it was about making goners that would relate the events of Forgaster’s failed timeline. They would be the bait that would help lure out the anomaly, as only a being that has the power of RESET could eventually find all of them. One more element in favor of the CORE having a secret “goner maker” feature lies with the fact all goners are grey and the infamous “COPIES ARE MONOCHROME” quote. Goners are grey, and happen to all be copies of existing NPCs (whether they’re copies of Deltarune NPCs or Undertale NPCs doesn’t matter as far as my theory goes, Forgaster could have used either of those) so that would mean the CORE acts as a copy machine. It just so happens that the area right after the CORE is New Home, which as you probably realized, is literally a grey copy of the ruins aka Home. The CORE having this copy feature would explain why that is. Since monsters no longer feared humans, they all moved out of Home, and Forgaster, as the Royal scientist, was probably tasked with helping with the construction of the new capital, and thus, used the core’s secret feature to make a copy of Home. You could even speculate that the creation of New Home was nothing but a test run for the CORE, and after it had successfully created New Home, Forgaster used it for his real objective, creating lures for the anomaly. And once that was done, he simply disappeared, not having any business left in Undertale. How Forgaster returned to Deltarune isn’t clear, but seeing how the Forgotten man can just vanish in an instant and isn’t bound by the limits between the Light and Dark worlds, I believe this is how Forgaster was able to make it back to Deltarune. This might be what being shattered across time and space means: he can travel from the beginning of one universe's timeline to the end of another universe's timeline.
As such, most remaining FUN events would then be just that, lures. The sound test room, Something Forgaster hastily stitched together with the sole purpose of making sure the anomaly hears his theme: after all, the sound test room only has 4 songs, and 3 of them are uninteresting loops, almost as if they were just filler meant to justify this room being called a sound test room, while Gaster’s theme (aka him.ogg) is the only one that somewhat sounds like actual music. Moreover, not only does the game not allow you to play any of the other songs once you’ve started “Gaster’s theme”, listening to it is also the only way out of the room, as if it won’t let you leave until you’ve heard that theme. The message you get afterwards is also pretty suspicious “Thanks for your feedback! Be seeing you soon!” as the phrasing is similar to what Gaster said before chapter 1 was dropped.
The wrong number song has been speculated to be many things, from Spamton trying to reach Gaster on the phone, to Kris making a phone prank, regardless, its function is the same as the other events I’ve talked about: teasing Deltarune.
This finally brings me to the Clam goner. We learn from her dialogue that she lives in New Home and that her neighbor has a daughter named Suzy. She states that she might be the reason we came to the underground, and that we should become friends with her, that fate will find a way. The clam goner event where she states that the time we will meet Suzy is “fast approaching” was part in the switch version a few weeks before Deltarune’s reveal implying that Susie is somehow related to Suzy. It's possible Suzy is the Undertale counterpart of Susie, but in any case, what really matters is that this girl is implied to be the reason we came to Undertale, and is associated with fate. This is important, because Susie is one of the characters Gaster lists as “VERY VERY WONDERFUL” and has been established as a character willing to defy fate, also having the unique ability to override the player’s choices. As such, what if this FUN event is Forgaster trying to push us to befriend Susie when we go to Deltarune in order to make sure we’ll be able to change the inevitable fate of the Deltarune world? After all, two entities, each having the power to change fate, working together would be very useful to someone trying to create a new future, wouldn’t it?
4. ANOTHER DELTARUNE
We have finally reached the last section of this massive theory. With everything set up to draw the anomaly’s attention, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, no longer being “Gaster” but the Forgotten man. Because he’s been shattered, it appears that he can navigate through time in any and all directions.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, people have pointed out that Forgaster’s dialogues imply he’s experiencing time in reverse. In case you’re not convinced by the idea, let’s look at the main pieces of evidence. First off, Forgaster’s schedule. If you pay attention, he’s actually giving you a recipe for making donuts in reverse “I GO TO SELL THE DONUTS, I TOSS THE LEFTOVERS IN THE DUMPSTER, I LET IT COOL ON THE WINDOWSILL, I HARVEST THE WHEAT”
If we read this dialogue in reverse, it suddenly makes more sense: he starts by harvesting the wheat, lets the donuts cool, throws the dough scraps into the trash, and finally goes to the bakery sale.
Towards the end of his speech in chapter 3, he also says “COUNT BACKWARDS TO 100”
This is an odd choice of words, since we would normally say "from 100." If Forgaster experiences time backwards, though, the phrasing could be intentional: he sees 100 as the point he’s moving toward rather than the point he’s are moving away from, meaning that the sequence we see as normal (1 to 100) is perceived by him as moving in reverse.
And lastly, in his valentine letter, Forgaster begins with “HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR WAS IT THE OLD YEAR?” If he were experiencing time normally, he wouldn’t be confused about this. The only situation in which it would make sense for him to doubt the order of the new year and the old year is if he were experiencing time in reverse.
So Forgaster can experience time both in reverse, as I’ve just demonstrated, but he can also follow the normal flow of time: in his schedule, the days are in order, and the events of the failed timeline he describes through the passing of seasons is also normal. The fact his Lightworld appearances and the number of coins he puts in chapter 4’s water fountain both depend on whether or not you got the eggs in the previous chapters which means he’s at least aware of how things happened in what would be his “future” from his perspective. Alternatively, this could be explained by the fact that he can not only experience time in reverse, but also appear at any point in time. This idea would explain why, besides his dialogues showing that he is in reverse, he also says things that are completely mixed up. Look at the story he tells us “WELL, THE WORLD CHANGED. SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED. THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER? DINAUSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE”.
The correct order would be THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER, DINOSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE, SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED, meaning Forgaster’s story doesn’t follow any order at all, which he points out himself “IS IT MIXED UP?”
All in all, Forgaster’s time shenanigans are perfectly summed up by his sentence in the valentine letter: “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT. NOT NECESSARLY IN THAT ORDER. OR, IN ANY ORDER AT ALL.”
He can go anywhere, anytime. This is definitive proof that the Forgotten man IS the Gaster that was shattered across time and space, while the one in the goner maker is normal.
So, what is he trying to do? Considering both Forgaster and Gaster are “waiting” for Deltarune, I believe they share the same goal: to create a NEW FUTURE with us, the anomaly.
Because there is no anomaly in the Deltarune universe, all timelines converge to the same point. This means that even if the timeline we see in the game isn’t the one Forgaster experienced, things aren’t going to be any different. In this new timeline, Gaster has made the same researches on Darkness, the shelter Incident happened all the same, the knight was still created. As such, the fate of this world has already been decided. This is where Forgaster truly factors in. Because he’s experienced it all before, he knows who to contact if he wants to change things: the Gaster from this timeline. He would have the means to do so thanks to his shattered state. Forgaster most likely informed gaster of everything that happened in the failed timeline. This is the true origin of the prophecy, it wasn’t made by Gaster, but by Forgaster which is why it was “foretold by time and space” why the Prophecy text is identical to how the Forgotten man speaks and why it is so specific, why everything it says will come to pass.
To Gaster, this is his chance to change one key parameter in his experiment. Thanks to Forgaster, Since he knows that the current model ends in failure, adding the Anomaly as a variable would be a very interesting experience. Thanks to the breadcrumbs Forgaster left in Undertale, Gaster was able to lure us into Deltarune, using the SURVEY_PROGRAM to connect us to this world. Forgaster is the reason Gaster knows we’ve been searching for him, and the knowledge that his experiments will go wrong is the reason he’s been looking for us. By connecting this anomaly to Deltarune, and by combining its power with Susie’s hope, Gaster has the chance to conduct the most ambitious experiment he’s ever imagined and turn his biggest failure into an absolute triumph over fate itself. In his own words “HOW LUCKY WE ARE TO NEED EACH OTHER IN THIS WAY”
This finally explains why Gaster’s theme in undertale was called “him” while the gaster theme in Deltarune is called “ANOTHER HIM”: “him” was a piece left by the Gaster who came from the failed timeline, it’s Forgaster’s theme, while ANOTHER HIM is the theme of the Gaster from the game’s timeline.
As such, I have a hard time believing Forgaster is going against Gaster, I believe he’s doing the same thing as Gaster, following the scientific method, changing specific parameters to modify the outcome of the experiment. This is why Forgaster is giving EGGs to Kris. They are the one Forgaster wants to help, and that’s why he’s asking help from us. We are the ones taking Kris to these egg rooms. He’s probably trying to help them remember the Incident and overcome their fear. Considering he’s experienced the failed timeline, it’s likely that he’s doing this because Kris never overcame their trauma in the original timeline, which might have been played a role in the heroes’ failure.
As for the shadow crystals, while their origin is hard to pinpoint, it’s clear now that the visions they show are what will happen in the future. This is why they don’t change the prophecy text; the two show the same thing.
Let’s look at all the shadow crystal visions to demonstrate this.
“You thought you saw toys strewn on the floor”: This predicted that the Card castle fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw through your hand”: This is predicting that Kris will lose their hand
“You thought you saw the computer lab”: This predicted that the computer room’s fountain would be sealed
“You thought you saw Susie glaring at you, coldly...” This probably predicts what Susie’s reaction will be when she finds out that Kris has been working with the Knight and hiding many things from her. As she puts it “there’s nothing that pisses me off more than people who don’t tell you the whole deal”
“You thought you saw the television get smashed to pieces”: This is literally just an alternate version of “THE LORD OF SCREENS, CLEAVED RED BY BLADE”
“You thought you saw the lobby of the church”: This predicted that the fountains inside the church would be sealed
“You thought you saw Undyne frozen in ice”: this one is unused for now, so it should be taken with a grain of salt, still, it may predict the “police sacrifice” we heard about
Finally, we have “You thought you saw Noelle close against you, whispering” this one feel like it’s predicting something that hasn’t happened yet. As such we can only speculate for now. Some say it’s from the couch scene in the weird route, but Noelle isn’t whispering during that scene, if anything we are the ones directly whispering inside her mind. This might just imply that Kris and Noelle’s relationship will become a focal point later on. Considering their shared history with the shelter Incident, their relationship might be the single most important one moving forward.
This would also explain why the Darkners who used these crystals went crazy: the knowledge of a failed timeline, and of an entire universe marching toward an unavoidable eternal night that no one can escape, no matter what they do, seems like enough reason to go off the deep end.
CONCLUSION
We have finally reached the end of this theory. I can only apologize for how long this turned out to be, so let me recap sum up the take-home message of the entire thing.
Asriel, Kris, Noelle and Dess explored the forest seven years before the events of Deltarune, Dess and Kris entered the Shelter using Carol’s code
On the same night, Gaster created the first dark fountain in the shelter, creating a dark world, and turning the ice-e pizza box, he retrieved a few weeks before into a malevolent Darkner that would act as its servant, the tail of hell
Entry 17 is a cutscene/recording of gaster taking notes on the fountain, before being interrupted by Kris and Dess who are the two persons he’s talking to at the end of entry 17
Gaster tries to use them for his next experiments, and Kris ends up accidentally killing Dess in the confusion
Gaster tempers with Kris’ soul, and inject Dess’ with Darkness, before letting Kris escape, supposedly after the two made a Faustian deal
Toriel finds Kris holding a knife, potentially covered in blood, as Dess apparently disappeared. She decides to hide the truth from everyone and keep this a secret so that Kris will not get into serious trouble
Asgore becomes obsessed with finding Dess, eventually leading to arguments with Toriel who ends up divorcing him, while the Holiday and Dreemurr families, especially Toriel and Carol, grow distant
UNUSED are follow-up entries to entry 17, transcripts of Dess’ thoughts written down by Gaster as her mind slowly breaks because of the darkness.
Dess is reborn as a Dark Amalgamate, a powerful creatures subjugated by Gaster that helps him with his dark fountain experiments
These experiments eventually cause the Roaring, causing all of gaster’s work to go to waste
Having observed an alternate universe where an anomaly capable of changing fate resides, Gaster builds a space-time machine with sans’ help in order to travel to Undertale, capture the anomaly and use its powers to prevent the Roaring
During the trip, the machine malfunctioned, causing Gaster to shatter across space and time, while sans and papyrus get stranded in Undertale’s present with no way back, while gaster becomes Forgaster and lands in Undertale’s past
Forgaster becomes the royal scientist, uses his position and his Darkness technology to build the CORE, a power plant that doubles as a GONER MAKER. Using it, he’s able to create New Home, and set up all the FUN events that the anomaly will eventually come across when it arrives in the Underground
Having finished his work in the Undertale universe, Forgaster returns to the Deltarune universe, in a new timeline where things are set to repeat identically to the failed timeline and contacts the gaster from this timeline
Forgaster recounts what happened in the failed timeline to Gaster, thus creating the Prophecy
In order to change fate, Gaster creates the SURVEY_PROGRAM and uses the anomaly’s curiosity to connect it to Deltarune, with the objective of creating a new future, his own story for this world: HIS Deltarune. To achieve this, he contacts specific Darkners with high-potential and gives them Shadow Crystals, in order to make them realize what is really going on, in hopes that this will help change fate. He allows the anomaly to keep trying to win against his knight, not because it has a chance of defeating it – the knight is Gaster’s perfected weapon, the anomaly cannot win, period – but because it and Susie can achieve something that might cause a butterfly effect that could change fate: retrieving the blackshard, a weapon that can take down darkness. Meanwhile Forgaster is helping Kris with overcoming their fear, in preparation for what is coming.
As a closing thought, I want to address a question you may be asking yourself after reading all this: if Gaster and Forgaster know that their experiments led to the world’s destruction, why do they continue creating yet another experiment, therefore putting another timeline at risk?
Because Gaster isn’t Sans. He isn’t about accepting what is given to him. He is driven to perform endless experiments in order to gain ever more knowledge, to reach Absolute Truth. And isn’t that, in his eyes, what True Freedom is? As such, he will never give up his experiments, no matter what.
And this is where we realize who Sans was really talking about during his Genocide fight:
“I know your type. You’re very determined, aren’t you? You’ll never give up, even if there’s absolutely NO benefit to persevering whatsoever. No matter what, you’ll just keep going. Not out of any desire for good or evil, but simply because you think you can. And because you can, you have to.”
In this moment, Sans saw Gaster in us: two beings filled with determination to satisfy their curiosity, regardless of morality, simply because they have the power to. If Undertale taught us that “to will is to be able,” then Gaster’s philosophy suggests that “to be able is to be obliged.”
SOURCES
UT/DR text dump: hushbugger dot github dot io
Most screenshots were captured in-game, or taken from the Undertale and Deltarune wiki :
Thank you so much for reading through the entire theory. It means a lot. Getting this out before Chapter 5's launch was a real pain. I'm looking forward to how Chapter 5 will impact this model. I'm expecting to learn more about Toriel, Asgore and Carol. The final egg room will most certainly be fascinating, and will probably make or break the second part of this theory if it reveals the Forgotten man. You may have noticed she was almost completely ignored, this is intended, as I feel we still lack information about her motives, so we can't do anything but speculate. The way I see it, it's ok to do this with ellusive characters like Gaster, part 2 is mostly just that to be honest. But when it comes to more mundane characters like Carol, I don't find it as appealing, it's basically the same as making predictions about the next chapters, while I wanted to provide a good basis regarding what happened before the story.
Once I’ve gone through Chapter 5 and had time to refine my ideas, I might come back with a V3 !
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