Undertale Gaster and Fallen Child Theory (Spoilers) · 4:44am Dec 27th, 2015
Again, (Spoilers if you've done 100% playthrough of the game)
So we all know about W.D. Gaster, right? Former royal scientist before Alphys, and the the being can only be found when you tampered with the game files. However we have no idea what he is and where he fits into the story. All we know is that his disappearance happened a few years before the start of the game. However, is it possible that Gaster only disappeared sometime after the first child?
Sans in the Geno run states that their reports showed the timeline being tampered with repeatedly. However the first mentioned time of timeline manipulation is when Flowey, being revived by Alphys injecting him with pure DETERMINATION, learned of his power. However, if
Alphys was around, Gaster couldn't be. This means one of two things:
Either Sans was in fact talking about someone else, or there was someone else before Flowey who could manipulate time and space.
Suppose for a second that Chara, the first human, was the original human who had the power to SAVE, way back when Gaster was still around.
It's known that being able to SAVE is linked to the amount of Determination one has, meaning that only a human with an unnatural amount of determination, or a being made with pure determination can do it.
Obviously, Flowey has had the most determination until he finds that he's been overtaken by Frisk. This imply's that the other 6 humans didn't have that power. I know this because even when Flowey didn't know he had it, when he died again, the process was automatic and he learned that he did. So even if the other humans were quickly disposed of by him, they would have simply followed the same procedures.
But again, what if Chara, the original human, had it. And when they discovered that they could now save and repeat events through their determination. Ergo Sans and Gaster began researching this after Chara began exploring their own powers. Only stopping after Gaster disappeared and Sans was unable to continue his research on his own.
After them self and Flowey there were no other humans with that amount of determination... until Frisk showed up. If we assume that Chara was only able to resurface when a being with as much Determination as their own appeared, it would make sense why Chara waited so long.
HOWEVER in a counter theory, suppose that Frisk is the reincarnation of Chara and that's why they look alike and why Frisk has the amount of determination necessary to SAVE. Frisk overrides Flowey because the power originally belonged to them, or rather, their soul.
With this is mind, lets go back to Sans' Geno fight where he mentions reports. we all assumed he was talking to either Frisk or the player, but he also mentions that he gave up trying to figure it all out a long time ago. A long time ago. Sans has been described as being lazy since the beginning of a game, before you as the player even started SAVING. So this means that he's probably talking to Chara themself because he knows that the person fighting him is not the eighth fallen human but in fact the spirit of the first.
What do you guys think. I know there's probably holes in this theory so feel free to bring them up.
If you do go ahead and scroll down to do it, because now, I have another theory for you.
Let's go back a bit. We know that the SAVE mechanic, something most often included for the player, is in fact a very important plot point in Undertale.
Of course, the save mechanic is linked to each event corresponding to a code in the file being saved independently of the players' actions. This means are some events that can be skipped because the code dictates that you already went through them.
It is also known that Sans also is able to actively detect when the player tampers with the timeline too much. For example, he calls you out when you meet him in the castle already at level 20. He even appears and calls you a hacker if you trick the game and get the impossible ending, which hints that he has even higher awareness.
If Sans can remember alternate timelines but also feel Deadpool levels of awareness in some cases, is it possible that when he talks about time and space he's really talking about the code of the game. This would mean that, to him, they're one and the same. In the end, the names "time" and "space" are just names that one man gave to them, as is everything.
Gaster supposedly fell into his creation and was "scattered across time and space." Time and space is not something normal people can step outside of and alter directly even with time travel powers. However, imagine the possibility that there was something already outside of it and able to do so. Kind of like we can with game files.
So if you imagine that time and space in Undertale equals game files to us, that means that Gaster was really scattered across the game code itself. Hence why we can only find info him when we go into the code. What we find are larger chunks of him floating about when we actively go looking. Like larger pieces of rocks in a river with bits of sand in it.
This makes Gaster a higher entity. He's stuck somewhere between being a player and a character in the game. He can see the code around him, but can't interact with it. And he's stuck there, more invisible than the ghosts around him. He's literally only able to watch.
What do you all think?
Dang, just dang. Good theory.