(SPOILERS) Union X: Source of the Abnormality

[Sign]

Kingdom Hearts Union X Japan updated with 5 more quests today (No. 871~875). 

Watch the scene with English subtitles, translations by goldpanner!

(Brain is working away in the control room, when voices call out his name.)

???: Brain!

Brain: Ephemera! Ven!

(The two run in, with Player and Chirithy following behind.)

Brain: and… who's this?

Ephemera: Player, my friend.

More importantly, what's going on? Things are crazy outside.

Brain: I think I've managed to stop the invasion for now, but…

(Brain continues to explain as everyone approaches the table piled on with loads of books.)

Brain: Well, since your friend is here, and the structure of this world is complicated, I'll put it as simply as possible…

Before the Keyblade War— this world, Daybreak Town, projected worlds pulled by the Book of Prophecies from the future.

Like standing here and opening a pop-up book. They were all worlds from the future. Worlds that were never real in the first place weren't being pulled.

(Brain lays out some books on the table, side by side.)

Brain: So even without using the Book of Prophecies, these worlds existed joined to Daybreak Town. Only, time would be set in the past.

Ven: Huh?! Really? We could've gone to them??

Brain: They wouldn't have been easy to find, though.

(He lays more books on the table.)

Brain: The world was constantly expanding, you see. And then, after the Keyblade War—

(He scatters the books.)

Brain: These worlds that were once joined together were scattered apart. The fact that this would happen was written in the Book of Prophecies, so in order for "worlds from the future" to be projected into Daybreak Town without the Book of Prophecies, several worlds were converted to data. You know this, right?

Ephemera: Yeah.

Brain: Basically, everyone in Daybreak Town, including us, are just continuing what we did before the Keyblade War:

From the real Daybreak Town, via the data world Daybreak Town, we visit future worlds projected as data. Do you understand so far?

Ephemera: Um, yes, I'm following.

Brain: Then, a question.

(He picks up two books and raises them up, one in each hand.)

Brain: The Daybreak Town we're in right now:

Real? Or data?
Which is it?

Ephemera: Hm…

I mean, common sense would tell you it's the real one, right?

(Ven nods. Player is surprised.)

Brain: Right? But what's happening now is not so "common" at all.

Ven: Huh? Are you saying this is the data world?

Brain: I wish it were that clear…

That glitchy phenomenon. This should be the real world, but a data world phenomenon is happening here.

Ephemera: Why??

Brain: As I said before, Worlds that exist in reality are projected as entrances, or portals, in this world. But it seems this world has been connected to a world that never existed in the timeline.

Ephemera: What?? Why?

Brain: That is indeed the question… I don't know whether this was arranged in advance. We won't have enough clues unless we investigate the world that has been connected to this place.

Ephemera: That makes sense…

Brain: For now, the abnormality is occurring because we're connected to that world. It was impossible to close the connection completely, so I was only able to stabilize things for the time being…

It seems we have no choice but to go check out that world.

Ven: Huh? You mean, go in?

Brain: Yeah.

Ephemera: Okay. I'll go check it out.

Ven: What!?

Brain: I thought you'd say that. But, if something happens to you in there, Mister Leader, everyone's going to be in trouble.

Don't you think it'd be better to send one of our Dandelion members? That's how missions work, right?

(Everyone looks at Player.)

Player, pointing at themselves: !?

(Chirithy isn't having it and starts giving Brain a piece of his mind.)

Chirithy: It's way too soon to—

(He gets cut off by Ephemera, who appears to echo Chirithy's thoughts.)

Ephemera: It's way too soon, it's dangerous.

Brain: What do you think?

Player: I'll go.

Chirithy & Ephemera: What!?

Brain: It'll be fine. For now, if you can secure the route, I should be able to lock down a single entry point. If we can do that, I think we can send more members in right away.

(Ephemera runs towards Player.)

Ephemera: But that's even more reason for me to be the one to—

(Player reassures him.)

Ephemera: Player...

(Brain preps the route.)

Brain: All right then, the two of you. Go secure the route together.

(Everyone's satisfied.)

Brain: What a nice friendship. I must say, I'm jealous. 

Make sure to come back right away if there's any danger.

(A giant portal appears out of data.)

Brain: Hurry, it's still unstable.

(Ephemera and Player enter the route.)

Ephemera: It feels different from the usual passages, doesn't it?

Chirithy: Maybe we're already in the new world?

(They proceed along but quickly run into Heartless.)

Chirithy: Wah!! They're here too??

Ephemera: Let's push on!

(Ephemera and Player continue along the route to the new world, until another Darkling obstructs their path.)

Darkling: Y o u a r e d i f f e r e n t…

Player: Another one?

Ephemera: Here it comes!

(Player and Ephemera beat back the Darkling, but it runs out into the new world.)

Ephemera: Let's go after it!

(The two chase after the Darkling and find themselves in a new world.)

Ephemera: This is…

(Camera pans back to reveal Game Central Station, from Wreck-It-Ralph.)

 

[MelodicEnigma]

That first scene is so in-depth and all, but I'm too distracted by that lucky emblem lol

 

[Sign]

I've updated the OP with goldpanner's translations! Video will come later today

 

[Ballad of Caius]

HOoooooooooooooooooo, 'kay... A clouple of thoughts:

these worlds existed joined to Daybreak Town.

Sooo... the Old World was never really one big world with every single one connected to each other, but rather Daybreak Town was connected to these other worlds?

Brain: That is indeed the question… I don't even know whether this was arranged in advance. We won't have enough clues unless we investigate the world that has been connected to this place.

If the worlds were connected to Daybreak Town because of the Book of Prophecies, because of the Master of Masters, and the MoM knew that tragedy would happen, so he data-fied the future projections of the worlds joined to Daybreak, does this mean that he knew that, perhaps, a traitor, or in the words of Luxu, a "virus" would try to ruin his plans, so he data-fied a world from the future, Game Central Station, in order to try and correct the meddling of the virus/traitor? I can imagine him programming a correcting procedure once someone that isn't him try to tamper with the Control Room.

Either that, or he knew this was going to happen, and in whatever Worldline he ended up in some point of the future, he sent Game Central Station to the past. Or what if he was the party that gave Ansem the Tron programming?

 

[ShardofTruth]

Thanks for the translation, it's still super confusing.

The only thing that still makes sense to me is how the Book of Prophecies pulls worlds from the future to the real Daybreak Town, which are projected there. These worlds are connected through the portals we always see but exist in the same plane as Daybreak Town. Also the worlds grow somehow, or the connected Daybreak Town grows by connecting to more worlds or something like that. This was explained earlier by Ephemer and fits the single world description of the age of fairy tales.

The Keyblade War scattered these worlds so they can't be reached anymore. Instead a data simulation of the pre-Keyblade War Daybreak Town including the connected worlds was created. Now another world (WIR) is connected to the seemingly real Daybreak Town, which results in doubts if it is the really the original Daybreak Town, simply because of the data world phenomena.
So far so confusing.

What I don't get are these passages.

Brain: So even without using the Book of Prophecies, these worlds existed joined to Daybreak Town. Only, time would be set in the past.

I don't get this at all. Is the Book of Prophecies not needed anymore after initially pulling the worlds? Are these worlds now "anchored" in the past or is their "world history" set back to the start? Everglow's translation makes this about the Daybreak Town from the past, which doesn't make much sense either. Especially Ven's question that you could go there. Go where? To the past? To the past of the worlds? To Daybreak Town's past?

Worlds that were never real in the first place weren't being pulled.

In other words: World that are not described in the Book of Prophecies can't be pulled by it. That makes sense, so the way the WIR world is connecting to Daybreak Town should be happening if it is the real Daybreak Town/they used the real Book of Prophecies/whatever.
What bugs me about this explanation is how Enchained Dominion was specifically not pulled to trap Maleficent in a data world that was created without the Book of Prophecies. How did this even work?

 

[Sephiroth0812]

One thing I noticed about the Darklings is that they don't demand Lux anymore, they're just shouting "Y o u a r e d i f f e r e n t " every time they show up.
Do they mean Player (whose memories have been altered) by that or are they referring to the state of the worlds?

It's also funny that Blaine/Brain is casually talking about the Keyblade War while one of the regular Dandelions is in the room, foregoing the tenet that regular Dandelions should not even know it happened. Ephemer and Ven too don't bat an eye.

 

[Hirokey123]

So that makes the third translation I've read for this and I THINK all three together more or less paint a pretty clear picture.

It starts out with explaining things we already know which is that originally there was a real Daybreak Town and the MoM/Foretellers essentially made a bunch of subworlds within this one world. A lot like how Pooh's world exists in Twilight Town or Tron's exists in RG. In this case the subworlds were the projections summoned from the book of prophecies. After the keyblade war happened the whole world we disconnected and that was that.

Post keyblade war all the dandelions were sent to a new world, a new daybreak town. Because the MoM knew they wouldn't have someone who understands how to manifest the contents of the book of prophecies he had to take special measures. He created digital copies of all worlds he summoned from the book, and as we know two other worlds Enchanted Dominion and Cinderella's castle that weren't summoned from the book. In the case of ED he specifically avoided summoning it because he didn't want Maleficent to have a gateway into the past. THEN he linked up all these to a digital daybreak town as well, basically it's a KH2 case where we had a real twilight town with a digital one connected to it, or a Coded case where we had a real Mickey's castle connected to a digital Mickey's castle.

Now everyone simply assumed that they were standing in the real Daybreak Town but it turns out the current evidence supports the idea they have been inside of the Digital Daybreak town. Which begs the question then who or what is in the REAL Daybreak Town among other things. But on top of then a world that's not part of time (other translations have said outside of time) has connected to this one and they don't know what. The connection is causing problems in their world and so they need to go investigate it.

My guess is that given all this stuff happen only AFTER "Darkness" told Maleficent there is a way to return to her own time and wants to get her back to her own time, that "Darkness" is responsible for this. I bet the idea is that there exists worlds that are not part of the normal flow of time. From a world like that I imagine looking in from the outside the timeline is just a bunch of indiscriminate points to choose from. So travel to world outside of time THEN you use that is a waystation to travel back into time, but this time get to choose your destination with some restrictions I imagine and probably a heavy cost.

This might actually explain what the deal with KH3's secret ending is then as well.

 

[Sign]

I don't get this at all. Is the Book of Prophecies not needed anymore after initially pulling the worlds? Are these worlds now "anchored" in the past or is their "world history" set back to the start? Everglow's translation makes this about the Daybreak Town from the past, which doesn't make much sense either. Especially Ven's question that you could go there. Go where? To the past? To the past of the worlds? To Daybreak Town's past?

Ven is referring to the versions of the worlds that already existed in this era. For example, the Book of Prophecies projected a future version of Agrabah, but Agrabah itself already existed, albeit it's present time period is long before Aladdin came around.

Brain says that Wreck-It-Ralph's world doesn't exist in the timeline, which to me suggests that like Space Paranoids, it was created rather than naturally existing.

 

[Sign]

 

[Th Key of Destny]

I suppose this confirms that the Daybreak Town of Union Cross is made of data, but I do wonder if the whole theme of Dream Worlds will ever come back up. In back cover Ava literally says that the world they are travelling to will seem familiar, but it is made out of dreams and dreaming seemed to play an important role in the early story of Chi, I wonder if that concept has been more or less abandoned now in favour of data worlds? Thanks again for the translations KHI team and Goldpanner

 

[ShardofTruth]

Thanks for the updated videos Sign and your explanation, that makes a lot of sense.

Regarding Castle of Dreams: That's also bugging me. Because it didn't appear in KHX and that scene with Darkness it's often assumed that it's also a Data-only world like Enchanted Dominion. We see it in Strelitzia's flashback though, which has to happen pre-Keyblade War in the Book of Prophecy worlds.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

I've never been this confused about a Kingdom Hearts plot point since time travel was implemented. It's almost as if Nomura loves using convaluted storytelling as a signature trait for the franchise.

 

[Sign]

Reuploaded with a minor tweak: Where Brain says "the worlds were constantly expanding" should be singular, referring to more worlds coming into existence and expanding the larger world entity that encompasses them.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

So that makes the third translation I've read for this and I THINK all three together more or less paint a pretty clear picture.

It starts out with explaining things we already know which is that originally there was a real Daybreak Town and the MoM/Foretellers essentially made a bunch of subworlds within this one world. A lot like how Pooh's world exists in Twilight Town or Tron's exists in RG. In this case the subworlds were the projections summoned from the book of prophecies. After the keyblade war happened the whole world we disconnected and that was that.

Post keyblade war all the dandelions were sent to a new world, a new daybreak town. Because the MoM knew they wouldn't have someone who understands how to manifest the contents of the book of prophecies he had to take special measures. He created digital copies of all worlds he summoned from the book, and as we know two other worlds Enchanted Dominion and Cinderella's castle that weren't summoned from the book. In the case of ED he specifically avoided summoning it because he didn't want Maleficent to have a gateway into the past. THEN he linked up all these to a digital daybreak town as well, basically it's a KH2 case where we had a real twilight town with a digital one connected to it, or a Coded case where we had a real Mickey's castle connected to a digital Mickey's castle.

Now everyone simply assumed that they were standing in the real Daybreak Town but it turns out the current evidence supports the idea they have been inside of the Digital Daybreak town. Which begs the question then who or what is in the REAL Daybreak Town among other things. But on top of then a world that's not part of time (other translations have said outside of time) has connected to this one and they don't know what. The connection is causing problems in their world and so they need to go investigate it.

My guess is that given all this stuff happen only AFTER "Darkness" told Maleficent there is a way to return to her own time and wants to get her back to her own time, that "Darkness" is responsible for this. I bet the idea is that there exists worlds that are not part of the normal flow of time. From a world like that I imagine looking in from the outside the timeline is just a bunch of indiscriminate points to choose from. So travel to world outside of time THEN you use that is a waystation to travel back into time, but this time get to choose your destination with some restrictions I imagine and probably a heavy cost.

This might actually explain what the deal with KH3's secret ending is then as well.

So this is probably where the MoM is? In a world indiscriminate of time, waiting for the perfect point to make his return? And maybe this is where Sora ende up being in?

 

[Hirokey123]

That's my guess.

 

[Sign]

Tried to throw together a graphic to explain everything as simply as possible, any critiques/corrections are welcome.

Edit: Revised pic

Spoiler Show

Our translation went with Game Central Station "not existing in the timeline" because it seems more likely to be a conclusion Brain would be able to reach, as that world wasn't around before the war and there's probably no mention of it in the Book of Prophecies? Which (like Hirokey has already mentioned) may suggest that it was only recently created by an unaccounted party and this is the first known record of it.

But overall, I feel like the concept of worlds that are unaffected by time seems to be a perfect fit for data worlds? Like, all that matters is that a route has been established to them.

Say for example, Brain's route to Game Central Station is cut off, leaving Ephemera and Player stranded. Sometime in the future, a new route to that world is created. Since it's data and hasn't been touched since, all of its contents remained unchanging. Ephemera and Player would be able to escape through that new route and emerge at a different point of time than when they entered.

Just a theory anyways.

 

[Deleted member]

Possibly related, KH3's glossary entry for Datascapes also added the lore that "Inside a datascape, time can be made to loop infinitely, and the impossible becomes possible."

 

[ShardofTruth]

Nice infograph Sign, that makes a lot of sense.

 

[FudgemintGuardian]

Tried to throw together a graphic to explain everything as simply as possible, any critiques/corrections are welcome.

Obviously not 100% sure about Castle of Dreams but, as Shard already mentioned, it being in Strelitzia's flashbacks indicates that it existed before the Keyblade War. And the more I think about it, the more I see no reason for Brain to even bother mentioning the world expansion if there wasn't some existing example of it? Whereas CoD just being a data world like Enchanted Dominion doesn't really serve a purpose. At least, that's what makes sense to me lol

Spoiler Show

Our translation went with Game Central Station "not existing in the timeline" because it seems more likely to be a conclusion Brain would be able to reach, as that world wasn't around before the war and there's probably no mention of it in the Book of Prophecies? Which (like Hirokey has already mentioned) may suggest that it was only recently created by an unaccounted party and this is the first known record of it.

But overall, I feel like the concept of worlds that are unaffected by time seems to be a perfect fit for data worlds? Like, all that matters is that a route has been established to them.

Thank you so much for this graphic. It really helps a lot!

Say for example, Brain's route to Game Central Station is cut off, leaving Ephemera and Player stranded. Sometime in the future, a new route to that world is created. Since it's data and hasn't been touched since, all of its contents remained unchanging. Ephemera and Player would be able to escape through that new route and emerge at a different point of time than when they entered.

So could this be how everyone is brought to present time then?

 

[Sign]

Thank you so much for this graphic. It really helps a lot!

So could this be how everyone is brought to present time then?

It's just a late-night idea xD For all I know, there's a glaring plot point I'm overlooking that blows a whole in the entire thing.