characters that crave power but once they have it they realize they don't know what to do with it and are actually kind of uncomfortable with having it (no reason i'm posting this on this blog) <3
hey why do some people think infinite suicide bombed like people were saying it in the chat too he literally said "i'll see you when you least expect it"
we have one thing to say off the bat. i don't think rouge is infinite. it would be fucked up and awesome but while it's possible that rouge is a ruby projection, infinite being the one behind it just doesn't make a lot of sense. the last time we saw him in forces was when he was trapped in the phantom ruby, and we haven't heard anything from him since. it would be really weird to have him suddenly out and about. if infinite was able to create phantoms from within the confines of his prison, it would make very little sense for him to wait this long.
if we're building up to infinite's return here, it would make way more sense for someone else to be using the ruby. maybe they're even gathering the astroscopic lenses in order to aid that goal.
heads up this may be a bit conspiracy-ish or matpat-y so take with a grain of salt
let's quickly go over what we know. the museum theft was committed by an unidentified red individual. the chaotix find a photo and make the observation that it looks like knuckles, though they admit it's grainy and it seemed unlikely he would be there. knuckles also doesn't seem to have any motivation to steal the lenses. it's a dead end. all they know is that someone impersonated knuckles.
mimic, right? episode 3 introduces tangle and whisper in the same chapter that they run into the thief, who impersonates the cast the same way mimic did in tangle & whisper (iirc). well here's something weird i noticed. at not one point in the episode to they mention mimic by name. they say whisper used to work with a shapeshifter, but that information is not applied to the thief. nobody ever goes "i wonder if it's the same guy." the next episode even begins with eggman, a super genius, not connecting the dots even though he's worked with mimic in the past. on top of that, the episode title is "the case of the mysterious museum misdirection." misdirection, huh? eggman even does a little freudian slip and calls the thief an illusionist instead of a shapeshifter.
there is one thing that may confirm that this was mimic though, that being the fact that nobody sees fake tangle at the same time as rouge. this would make sense if rouge was mimic, because he can't be in multiple places at once. however it would be strange for a phantom ruby projection, because in forces infinite has no trouble maintaining illusions of multiple people at a time. however it's worth noting that this was with the death egg powering his prototype phantom ruby.
i don't recall mania super well and should probably replay it soon or read a synopsis but i don't recall it ever receiving a power source in that game and i think all it could do was teleport people and enhance pre-existing objects? i'm not sure about that though so take it with a grain of salt. point is at this point the phantom ruby might be low power, and it's possible that it's just not capable of more than one proper illusion at a time.
but we can throw mimic's status as the thief solidly into doubt, my strongest piece of evidence is this.
remember in the first episode, when they found the photo of knuckles? vector said "it's awfully grainy." now this could be referring to the quality of the image itself. or. OR. maybe it just seemed that way because knuckles himself was grainy. and what do we see from ruby phantoms when they're moving? you know, doing something like fleeing a crime scene?
they get distorted.
now what if we took the assumption that the ruby is low power at this point and ran with it? the first theft is committed using an imperfect illusion of knuckles. one with distortions. after retrieving the scope, its power increases to the point where it can maintain a single perfect illusion, but not multiple, resulting in fake tangle disappearing for rouge to show up.
granted, this one moment is really all we have to imply that rouge isn't herself so it's a bit of a house of cards, but come on.
everything is circumstantial, so while we can't properly rule mimic out, there's enough here to cast doubt on his involvement.
as of right now, our suspects are mimic and a phantom ruby wielder.
onto episode 4, we get eggman calling the thief an "illusionist," as well as drawing attention to rouge twice. but i think there's more to it than that. let's look at the line. "first you thought it was knuckles, then rouge, then jet. next you say it's tails or tangle or maybe rouge again!"
that's... weird, right? obviously this is the suspect list in order. but then he separates it. "next you say." it makes it seem like he's just throwing names out, but he continues the pattern. the thief impersonated tails, then tangle, and then who showed up to save espio? if he was really just naming random names why did he say them in order of appearance? almost as if to group them together. like they're the same person, swapping identities.
and now we get to "red specter"
the file is given to espio by rouge herself (allegedly). this is so phantom ruby coded it practically solidifies it into the narrative in my eyes. however, she mentions keeping a copy for herself. it would be a bit weird for a wielder of the ruby or the ruby itself to keep data on itself. like i get wanting to know what others think of you but for a narrative it seems very specific to call out. however, it could expand on our mimic narrative.
we have mimic as one of our suspects, but we don't actually have a motivation for him. or i guess his employer because he doesn't usually work on his own. but now we have a possibly fake rouge stealing files about something that sounds like a code name for the phantom ruby. maybe he's trying to find it for someone, and the astroscopic lenses are for after he does.
so now we have two possible narratives.
the phantom ruby is already in play, creating illusions of characters one at a time due to low power. its wielder is using the lenses to increase its power.
the thief is mimic looking for the phantom ruby as well as the lenses for an employer that plans to combine them.
either way we're in solid phantom ruby territory. there is just nothing else "red specter" (red being a synonym of ruby and specter being a synonym of phantom) could be without introducing something entirely new.
at the end of episode 4 vector makes another hint towards rouge having something to do with it but once again it's important to mention that the only evidence we have that isn't conjecture is that she appeared when fake tangle disappeared.
episode 5 is downtime. i'm sure there's stuff there but for now we'll skip it.
moving on to episode 6, there's something i've seen a couple people point out about the location of the eggman base, that being its location. specifically it's at the end of a box canyon in the desert. from what i've seen, many have taken this to mean that it's the same location eggman found the phantom ruby. which... yes. it 100% is.
we get a very clear view of the location in the rise of infinite. everything aside from the tumbleweeds mentioned in the show is here. what elevates this from coincidental to 100% intentional though is that it's specifically referred to as a "box canyon." the same type of formation as is depicted in the rise of infinite. they could've just said canyon, but they made it extremely specific. it makes sense that it was abandoned as well, because it was attacked by the jackal squad. if it was supposed to be a secret base, abandoning it once its location has been compromised seems logical.
the only discrepancy is the shape of the door, which is described in the show as round while in the comic it's rectangular
however we do not get a full view of the entrance, so maybe it's a rectangular door in a round plate.
the last piece of evidence is the name of the file sage finds in the eggnet in relation to red specter. "phantom."
once again, a file on eggman's network being named phantom can ONLY be referring to the phantom ruby. and to then link it to red specter is NOT giving the audience breadcrumbs, it's beating us over the head with it. charmy even makes a comment afterwards that he tries not to think. they're saying not to think too hard about it because the answer is RIGHT. THERE. vector even says he knows who the thief is just from this information.
up until this point i've been saying things like "a phantom ruby wielder" due to my initial claim that it would be strange for infinite to be out already. however, this is a detective story, isn't it? don't detective stories always have wild things happen off screen to be revealed by the perp in a big tell-all monolog? now i wonder if we have anyone who's known for something like that? a smug asshole who would be the perfect option to do a reveal monolog mirroring vector's story?
we then cut to rouge, who espio claims to have been appearing out of nowhere. nowhere. even mimic would have to come from somewhere.
now let's return to our conflicting theories
mimic is trying to find the phantom ruby - a few things line up for this, but having the phantom ruby not already be in play after all this just seems anticlimactic. the only thing that makes more sense under this interpretation is why rouge stole data on the phantom ruby.
the other theory is that infinite has broken out of the phantom ruby and is gathering the astroscopic lenses in order to gain power now that he doesn't have eggman backing him. maybe he stole the red specter file (stated to be an incident report) to learn what transpired after he was trapped in the ruby. or maybe it had a description of how it worked, and he stole it since he didn't have eggman to be the brains. he's been impersonating rouge to keep tabs on the chaotix's investigation, and feeding them information so they serve as a distraction while he goes after the real prize.
IN OTHER WORDS WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK THIS IS IT WE'RE SO BACK LET'S GOOOOOO.
i know we said it definitely wasn't one thing at the start and then ended it by saying it was that thing but it's called clickbait baybee mimic is a misdirect rouge isn't rouge the photo was grainy because of phantom ruby distortion and infy is back let's gooooooooooo
okay to be clear going into it i hadn't even thought of the "dramatic reveal monolog" but more and more things started falling into place and some of them might be reading into things but vector knowing the perpetrator right from "red phantom" rather than just the perpetrator's goals just can't be viewed in any other way.
i may need to listen through it again once it concludes because i do have some questions i don't know will be answered. for example professor victoria. maybe she accidentally freed infinite and is trying to gather the lenses before he can? i know this isn't her first appearance but i just can't remember where she appeared before. i think it was on a screen in a city but was it the comics or official art or a game? there are connections that i'm just not remembering. was she on tailstube? i think she appeared on a billboard or something and then mentioned on tailstube but i just can't think of anything else. i need to look into that she might be the key to everything.
