“They say Aha once climbed to the highest bough of the Tree of Existence. Gazing out, THEY saw stars turning coldly like machines, and the meaning of everything yielded to nihility... Only the cry of a newborn made THEM burst into laughter.
Mr. Sunday, answer me: why did Aha laugh?”
Yao Guang poses an invaluable question:
Why laugh? why fund humor in something so unfortunate- why laugh at anything at all?
Sunday claims its “because THEY finally saw an audience arrive at this long-empty stage we call the universe.”
Elation is one step away from ‘Nihility’. The reality is that the universe is cruel and cold, where every individual, everything, is machine and heartless.
(Hsr also associates ‘Machine’ with ‘Nihility’, thus implying artificial life is not comparable to life. a controversial implication given the fact they feature artificial life so much. However, it also presents each individual as a sort of cog, something meaningless without the wider universe- thus endorsing harmony/universality)
Sunday presents elation as a path that requires an ‘audience’ to exist. Naturally, this reflects the “Wishpower” in Planarcadia. Why make a joke without someone to laugh at it?
Essentially, Elation, from what is presented in Planarcadia, is a path that exists for it’s followers as much as AHA. Elations existence is a series of inputs and outputs- mirroring a game, a machine.