Quantification Overuse in vs debating

So there's been a long running trend in vs debating that I wanted to address because I think it's getting really out of hand. 

There's always been something of a difference in thought between more qualitative vs debating and more quantiative vs debating; that is to say vs debaters who care more about the types of powers characters have and those who care more about ability we have to quantify what they can do. Back during the really early days of vs debating it was really important to get people to realize that scale actually mattered. This is the time period where things like the Flash attosecond meme came from to impress on people that having super speed wasn't itself a defense against the Flash's speed, the time period where people still argued as though characters having super endurance, strength, or speed were just a binary set instead of a scale of ability, and where pretty much all abilities were thought at best in terms of counters.

This trend has continued from that point to this day and imo I think it's gone too far in the other direction to the point that people seem determined to reduce every single thing to quantification and ignore any qualitative thinking. Now it's not that sympathetic to that cause, I do constantly try and find ways to create hierarchies for different abilities so that they can be assessed but I also think people are often too strict on who is stronger/faster or what have you based on a raw numbers game.

From what I can tell most instances of quantification we have in fiction are not meant to be exact numbers; they're approximations usually with assumptions or lowballing in place to give us something to work with. But people don't treat them like that, they treat them like these numbers are really clearcut. When the numbers are really clearcut that is one thing, but...

Well to give an idea, if a character scales to being roughly even, maybe a bit weaker to a character with a baseline A feat, let's saying baseline planet. Character A uses all their might to destroy a planet and another charater, Character B fought them going all-out somewhat evenly. Meanwhile Character C gave a punch that was calced lowballed a 10% planetary without any sign of strain or difficulty. Some people will legitimately say B is 10 times stronger because the highest calced feat for C is 10% the feat B scales too, despite the fact that one is treated as something of an upper limit while the other one is if anything a casual feat. That's an example where I would pretty clearly treat them as being in the same general range. Or when two characters both scale to being massively above the same feat when so much of it is unquantifable or unknown I would not base any argument of one being stronger. Or when a mach 50 "Hypersonic" character fights a Mach 120 "Massively Hypersonic Character", it should be recognized that's a difference of like 2.4x which is well within the differences between two humans in speed and at anything but close range is a very counterable speed difference and not just "x blitzes" even if the faster character DID try and blitz at max speed off hand.

This tendency towards quantification I also think can be seen in the vogue for debating the strongest characters in fiction at the moment. Currently on vs battles wiki the view is that when comparing 2 characters of sufficient tier that it is a battle of purely power and haxes don't matter. That's to me not what it seems to me at all. For characters who transcend concepts of "power", "numbers", "infinity", "quantification" and so on, it would seem that it is the inverse; "power" doesn't matter at all and it is entirely in qualitative capabilities that they can be differentiated. 

I suppose I am writing this blog to ask the reader to keep in mind that raw numbers are not the whole story as very often the numbers are a thing we can extract from the details of the text but there are elements in the text that make the numbers more a general sense of something rather then, usually, a very specific "this character's power is at exactly this number."

Imp-verse Cosmology

 

If you regularly read the blog of a vs debater, it's probably safe to say you have imagined what it would be like if your favorite series took place in the same universe. I have also wondered that, and so this is my attempt to answer it. What if all my favorite series took place in one universe?

My goal here is to add, and not subtract. That is to say, I'm going to be trying to keep all the major events and themes of every single series intact, only giving further contextualization and new events coming from crossing differnet series over. 

Some of the series rules and cosmologies work well with each other, and some REALLY do not. That said I'm going to try and avoid just saying "it takes place in a differnet dimension/timeline" even though several of these have different dimensions and timelines, because that's the lazy way; I could just say "all these are their own dimension" and be done with it but that avoids the fun part of playing around with all these universes. Obviously this requires being a little fast and loose with things like timeline, continuity and rules which is why I strove to keep the major parts. This is less "how could all these verses actually take place at the same time" and moreso "what if all these series were written with being part of a shared universe with each other in mind."

Obviously some spoilers for all these series. With all that said, allow me to introduce you to:

The Imp-Verse Cosmology:

So this includes 32 works which might make it seem incomprehensible and while the verses are kinda oddballs, there are distinct themes and the series all build up to something. The major theme the Imp-verse cosmology has is the build towards a humanist age.

There have been 5 ages or "worlds" in the Imp-verse, which function to showcase the build towards humanity:

First World: The Age of Creation

The First World was the singular emanation of the Divine (DC Comics) whose light emanated downwards forming essence without matter (DC Comics, Commedia) called angels. One of them, the Demiurge created pure matter, and was undone for his arrogance. (DC Comics) Through auto-generation an part of absolute existence called the Galaxy Cauldron appears which created potentiality, the uncertain hybrid of matter and form (Sailor Moon, Commedia), with the fall of some of the Angels, the first world was splintered into three worlds; light, darkness, and chaos between beginning the spiritual war for all reality (DC Comics, Bayonetta) The chaos was ordered into seperate realities and planes of being by primordial deities of creations (God of War, Magic Knight Rayearth, DC Comics, Okami) The darkness does not like the chaos of being; sound and sight and sensation and so seeks to rejoin with the light so there is no longer differnentation (DC Comics, Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure)

The god emerging from the chaos, Aesir, granted humanity light and darkness within them giving them an unrivaled potential (Bayonetta) a form of supernatural "sight" beyond all others, the seventh sense known as miraculousity possessed by all people in this age (Saint Seiya, Bayonetta), the humans experiementing with their control of chaos and eventually the great wizard Wizilur creating magic by channeling the elemental worlds making them more elemental than human (Magicka, DC Comics) however realizing that such has the potential to warp the multiverse and eradicate even chaos and the human soul by combining opposites like light and darkness, Wizilur hides the truth (Magicka), nonethless wizards make them a nuisance spreading joyful violent chaos (Magicka), until they struck down Lok the chosen child invested with all the magical power and belief in the world, belief being the undercurrent of magic. (Magicka) her followers believed with great enough ferver that the magicians became the magical lords of order at the dawn of time, existing since the beginning of time. With their appearence, their ontological cosmic opposite, the lords of chaos also emerged starting a new battle of order and chaos (DC Comics), with the greatest and wisest of them awakening their Ninth Senses turning them retroactively into the gods of myth existing since the dawn of time (Saint Seiya)

Second World: The Age of Order

The Second World controlled by the mythological gods is the titan age, as opposed to the primordial age evidenced by the god Cronos overthrowing his father the primordial lord of order Uranus to wrest control of the cosmos (God of War, DC Comics) Minor Goddess Queen Serenity is called to the Galaxy Cauldron by the Divine Presence and given the ultimate power of the universe, the Silver Crystal, to guide the Presence's chosen people, humanity in their development (Sailor Moon), so she sets up numerous worlds to guide them away from Chaos, fairy worlds of bravery, hope and justice (Pretty Cure) called the guardian worlds. However the Demiurge which had hidden as subatomic potentiality appears on one of these worlds corrupting its people to be darker though they seal it away and attempt to contain it (Shamanic Princess, DC Comics), its fairies becoming darker and strictly anti-chaos, becoming perfect expressions of order, emotionless and rational called the Incubators who seek to stop chaos and the end of the universe by any means neccesary. (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

Nehelenia comes to the moon of Earth to offer to Queen Serenity as envoy that darkness and light may join together again and become one but the offer is refused and Nehelenia is sealed placing a curse on the Moon Kingdom causing the rise of the Dark Kingdom and the return of Sailor Saturn whose mission is to summon the silence and end all life in this dimension. (Sailor Moon) This is the Moon Tribe Cataclysm which causes Waka to flee with the Ark of Yamato up to the Celestial Plain, unaware that the Demon Orochi emerging alongside Metaria to stow away (Okami) Demon Orochi emerges from the ark killing much of the Celestials until the Great Goddess Amaterasu bravely drags Orochi down to the material plane. (Okami)

Meanwhile the destruction caused by Sailor Saturn lifewipes the Earth forcing the first people of the Earth to fly away in a starship finding whatever horrid planet they can to survive. The vengeful spirit of the ones who died on the Earth hides on the Earth fusing with the DNA of humanity (Tokyo Mew Mew)

Third World: The Age of Myth

The age of myth begins. Dinosaurs may coexist with humanity here, or this may be in the period at the start of the age before humanity re-evolved, though humans are sent back in time and encounter them surely with the envoy of God's feminine half being sent back and wandering the Earth to spred her message, and Freedom Force sent to the age of dinosaurs by Time Master (Freedom Force, Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, DC Comics)

Amaterasu and Orochi battle until the two both disappear from the world for a time. (Okami) Meanwhile barbarian tribes wander the Earth, threatening to plunge any civilization back into chaos, with powerful heroes of their own (God of War, Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Powerpuff Girls) This prompts desperate measures by civilizations to strike back against them. With Orochi's return, prayers call Amaterasu back to the world and the events of Okami commence. Amaterasu returns order to the world, slaying the horrific demons inhabiting the worlds, reducing them back to their spiritual incorporeal forms. The God Zeus, seeing these evils, attempts to seal them away in Pandora's Box with his daughter Athena sealing Hope inside the box as well in case they should ever escape (God of War). Great Heroes of Myth emerge and strive to aid humanity by slaying every external monster that drives them to despair including the Amazons (DC Comics, Saint Seiya, God of War) 

However despair grips the world as it appears that sealing the evils and killing monsters did not stop the malevolence of humanity, it still living within them. The Buddha is born and comes to enlightenment, realizing the temporary nature of existence and the root of all suffering, awakening the Eighth Sense for the first time since the First Age (Saint Seiya), defeating the Monkey King Sun Wukong who threatened Heaven (Saint Seiya, DC Comics)

Humans listen to the great sage, but the gods prove arrogant with the God Zeus being particularly pertured by the idea that his son may overthrow him as he did his father, and his father did before him. After consulting the oracle and learning that a marked warrior will overthrow him, sends Ares and Athena to take his son Deimos, leaving his twin Kratos to begin his path to revenge. The main events of God of War here.

Atlantis is sunk for a combination of reasons, heralding the beginning of destruction (God of War, DC Comics, Xiaolin Showdown) Kratos is seen there and his rage slowly grows to encompass the world, starting the events of Ragnarok and the death of the old gods (God of War, DC Comics). Most notably of the new gods that develops is the God of Evil Darkseid, another who bears the role of "Satan" (He who bears the rank of the great accurser, enemy of the Most High) so similar to the great darkness that they are often confused (DC Comics)

Fourth World: Modern Age (Before the Crisis)

Jesus of Nazareth is born, the son of God and a physical emanation of the Divine Presence to redeem the world. But he is betrayed by his disciple Judas who is condemned to Judecca (Commedia, DC Comics) but given the chance to serve God and redeem himself despite being the greatest sinner (DC Comics) as the Phantom Stranger.

The Roman Empire is destined to bring about the civilizing of humanity but the man who would bring it to unparalled greatness Julius Caesar is killed by Brutus and Cassius for which they are also condemned to Judecca (Commedia) but destiny works in mysterious ways for Rome didn't die, but was the inspiration for all the modern nations, his spirit lingering in the world and civilizing them even still (Axis Powers Hetalia) This civilizing process extended far beyond the reaches any expected with even nations within the metaphysical realms beginning to form distinct civilizations, even if due to their cut off state from the physical plane of reality, they locked themselves in time. (Danny Phantom) 

As might be expected the demons were not pleased by this and endeavored to return the Earth to chaos. A tiny demon called Hannibal Roy Bean granted a witch named Wuya cosmic evil power called Heylin magic to bring darkness to the world. However this was an age of civilization and great heroes. She was opposed by a grandmaster of the Xiaolin Dragons called Grandmaster Dashi, accompanied by his two acolytes Chase Young and Guan. After a long battle during which Dashi created many magical items called the Sheng Gong Wu, Dashi succeded in sealing away the witch, commanding his dragon friend Dojo to scatter them across the world to show themselves again if Wuya would once again threaten the world. (Xiaolin Showdown) Seeing that the world was under the protection of such powerful warriors, it became clear to the demons that they could not take the world by raw force. They began to train themselves to become great warriors again after the fall of their greatest warriors back during the Third Age. In the meantime they worked to subvert and manipulate instead.

Hannibal knew that Dashi's acolyte Chase was proud and sought to become the greatest warrior and began to manipulate him as soon as his master had passed into the afterlife, offering the chance to become the greatest warrior in the world in exchange for joining the side of the Heylin. After consuming the food of the netherworld, Chase was transformed into a powerful warrior of darkness and began to wander the Earth to look for the most powerful warriors, defeating them and turning them into his slaves for eternity. Although to thank Hannibal for his rebirth as an evil warrior, Chase betrayed Hannibal, sealing him away into a metaphysical prison. (Xiaolin Showdown)

The forces of Earth struggled for anyone that could stop the will of Chase Young, with even Guan failing to stop his former friend. Inspired by the powers Dashi had used in the creation of the Sheng Gong Wu, a wizard of half-british and half-chinese origins wondered if he could fuse the magics of his two national traditions. Little did anyone know at the time; the fusion of Western magic focused on the Sun and Eastern magic focused on the Moon would be the first reconcilliation of light and darkness within the human heart since Wilizur's time.  (Xiaolin Showdown, xxxHolic) Such was power beyond imagination. With this power Clow Reed saw the events of the future, and his will would shape reality without even his intent too. Clow Reed traveled the dimensions where he met the witch of dimensions Yuuko Ichihara. The strange chaotic witch unlike the witches of Clow's dimensions was an enigma even to Clow's great sight. The two journey around the multiverse. (xxxHolic)

But Yuuko was still mortal and when she perished, Clow's heart was clouded in love and he had a stray thought, a wish that she would open her eyes one last time. This will warped reality, forcing Yuuko into a purgatory of life and death, and the will took a life its own, determined to bring Yuuko back no matter what. Clow Reed recoiled at his power, and what he had done without intending and with his precognition made plans to allow Yuuko and her future allies to defeat his incarnate will, Fei Wang Reed. He also infused all his power into the 52 Clow Cards to be someday used by his descendant (xxxHolic)

Such magic being dangerous the wielders of the light magic and the wielders of the dark magic came to an understanding and formalize into two distinct traditions; that of the lumen sages, wielders of the light, and the umbra witches, wielders of the darkness. They cooperate with angels and demons respectively, seeking to preserve humanity. The sacred law is made that never shall their two be intertwined again. (Bayonetta) At such magics, the angels and demons found it easier to come to the human realm and this greatly interested those of power in the demon realm. The demons had grown in power, training themselves to rival the powers of the humans and their deities, although become just as preoccupied with taking power from each other. The demon fox bandit Kurama leads a band of bandits becoming of great reputation, his group striving to carve out a territory of the demon world for themselves. (Bayonetta, Yu Yu Hakusho)

At this time the Demon World was controlled by a Demon of an absolutely immense strength, by far the strongest of his Triumverate, Raizen. Raizen was a demon class that consumed humans for their strength but one day when he went to the human world who met a human who refused to be scared of him, a lowly magician. Raizen fell for her, and when she died, unwilling to diminish his demon pride, he gave himself a self-imposed challenge to not consume humans until the day they were reunited. (Yu Yu Hakusho) While the demon king began to weaken from his starvation, the kingdoms of man were too thrown into turmoil as demons attacked them freely and inflitrated their positions of power. One result of this is a a simple poet who had argued against the corruption he saw stirring in the church, Dante was exiled from his home in Florence for life. His physical and spiritual conditions mirroring, Dante wandered into a dark woods (Commedia) where he would find that he was being guided by three celestial women who cared about his plight, and which gave him information about the cosmology of the universe and the current plight that was important for him to return with to humanity.

Opposites do draw to each other; light and dark draw together, heaven and earth, order and chaos...and so despite divine law against a child was born of a Lumen Sage and an Umbran Witch, a young witch known as Cereza. (Bayonetta) The angels knowing that of the extent of the demon influence on the world and fearing that this human may lead to a Fifth Age controlled by demons using the power of light and darkness both called their followers to hunt relentlessly all those of the night and the dark, driving them into secret places. The Lumen Sages themselves attacked the Umbran witches. To prevent her Umbran Sister and friend from falling into the hands of the Lumen Sages, the witch Jeanne stabbed the outcast witch Cereza, sealing her for 500 years. (Bayonetta) The hunt for the witches and all who drew power from the darkness would continue regardless.

This pattern would continue and spill from the spiritual war of the angels and demons into the conceptual war of the gods. Hades, the God of the Dark Underworld wished to incarnate in the world, however only a human soul of pure light could serve as host for his divine soul, which in the world of the light was found by his loyal Pandora in the young human artist Alone (Saint Seiya) To utilize the unique power of humans towards light and darkness at once, they manipulated the sensitive boy, even believing their own words, telling him that death is salvation from all suffering and that it was his destiny to save everyone (Saint Seiya) The Saints of Athena to preserve humanity waged holy war against Hades-Alone and his followers, eventually managing, at great cost to purge him with their combined light with the Pegasus Saint Tenma eventually finishing him. The two remaining saints; Aries Shion and Libra Dohko preparing themselves for the day Hades may return to the Earth. (Saint Seiya)

At the beginning of the 20th Century, more heroes of the light began to emerge inspired by the heroes of myth. Teams of "superheroes" began to emerge including the likes of the Justice Society of America began battle with the forces of crime and injustice. (DC Comics) Though it was unknown to them at the time, behind the scenes magicians and those that used the power of darkness stalked in the night, battling crime in their own particular way, not to cross paths with the "super-heroes." (DC Comics)

However not all was pleasent. After the second world war, the Third Reich came to power in Germany with the dictator Hitler become fixiated on the idea of a pure Aryan Ubermench, perhaps the ultimate extention of the light's crusade against the dark hundreds of years earlier. Thanks to the acquisition of an alien power source from a time traveling sympathizer (Freedom Force) and Hitler's aquisition of the spear of destiny, the very spear used to kill Jesus nearly 2 millenia ago (DC Comics) it became impossible for even the superhero community to defeat the Third Reich, though some brave heroes, some without even wielding powers tried to do so regardless. (Freedom Force, DC Comics) However with the defeat of the supplier of Energy X Blitzkrieg by the Time Traveling Freedom Force, and the bravery of the heroes known and unknown, Hitler's regime was defeated. With the defeat of the Hitler and the unleashing of the power of the atom, the world nations fell into a cold war between capitalism and communism.  New superhero teams began to spring up. The Justice League form to protect America's interests against the Red Menace and other threats from afar. (DC Comics) Meanwhile Mentor, a turncoat from the villainous multidimensional empire The Domain manages to bring their secret weapon; the superpower granting Energy X to the people of Earth, creating a superteam dedicated to protecting against similarly Energy X-powered individuals. (Freedom Force) They even stop the Goddess of Chaos Entropy, taking on the role Aesir once held however not before Entropy began shifting realities around, causing the Chaos Reality to come close to the main one. (Freedom Force) Gemini Saga, a Gold Saint of extraordinary power and virtue was infected by the dark spirit of his chaos counterpart and in a fit of paranoia of the gods  assassinates the pope of Athena Aries Shion and attempts to kill the newest incarnation of Athena, framing it on Sagittarius Aiolos and impersonating the pope.  Potentially triggered by this chaos in the sancutary, the servants of Poseidon and Hades begin to prepare for the resurrection of their masters. (Saint Seiya) A few years later 100 orphans under the care of Mitsumasa Kido are sent to various locations around the world to train to become saints. This begins the main events of Saint Seiya)

With the advancements in human society came greater technology to interact with the metaphysical realms beyond...which brought it with it new risks as it opened more doorways for them to return back. It was in this same year the demon bandit Kurama was finally caught by a spirit world hunter, and in a desperate gambit to escape forcibly reincarnated in the human world as a boy Shuichi Minato, an experience that would change him dramatically. Though he did it not know it at the time, his future companion Hiei was born in this time as well, a boy born to the ice maiden demons. This was considered an abomination among there people and he was dropped off a cliff to die. Such is Demon World though that such a fate could be survived and that the forsaken child would eventually come back to enact his revenge against his people. (Yu Yu Hakusho) Along with Kurama, several other beast tribes of demons began making excursions into the human world including the greedy Panther tribe under the contract of the witch Zora (Cutie Honey), taking the name of Panther Claw in the human world.

To save his dying daughter, the brilliant Dr. Kisaragi implanted her into an android body complete with his finest invention, the Airborne Element Soldifier able to create matter from thin air. But in an attempt to get the Soldifier for themselves, Panther Claw killed Dr. Kisaragi and everyone Honey loved, leaving her to use its power to go on a woman crusade againt Panther Claw. At almost the same time as Dr. Kisaragi was experimenting with life transplating itself, another group of scientists were experiementing with death. (Cutie Honey)

Learning from the technology of the Kryptonian Phantom Zone Projectors, scientists Jack, Maddie, and Vlad were experimenting with creating a portal directly into the spiritual realm, which they designed the "Ghost Zone." (DC Comics, Danny Phantom) Both Jack and Vlad had unspoken feelings for Maddie and when Jack became distracted by her while working, he accidentally put the wrong liquid into the prototypical Ghost Zone portal, which backfired into Vlad's face, scarring him. (Danny Phantom) This would give Vlad a deep resentment for Jack, feeling that Maddie and the years of his life he lost should have been his. However his exposure to the ghost zone energy gave him superpowers which he used to build a fortune planning his revenge. (Danny Phantom) He was delayed in his plans as he was forced to evade a detective on his tail. Tracking him was the great spirit detective of the spirit world, Shinobu Sensui. (Yu Yu Hakusho) Sensui was in charge of solving paranormal crimes and may have eventually caught Vlad if it were not for getting sidetracked on a mission that would break his perception, showing him the worst of humanity. As the Chapter Black tape came to light, a tape showing the worst of humanity that can rob even a noble soul like Sensui's of its hope, word of spread fast. (Yu Yu Hakusho) Darkseid had informants in Underworld and wondered if this Chapter Black Tape meant if one of his minions attempts to find information pertaining to the Anti-Life Equation proved successful and came to Earth personally to collect it. (DC Comics)

While the heroes of Earth were able to fend off Darkseid's emanation, barely, Darkseid was connected as he who shares rank of "Satan" with the Great Darkness, so close were the two that Darkseid was sometimes referred to as the Great Darkness itself. The original darkness, the great evil beast came to Earth alongside with Darkseid. 

The Crisis (All of this is DC Comics)

The Gods, Angels and Demons joined forces to try and stop this force of absolute darkness and were totally unsuccesful. The Great Evil Beast seeks to understand its purpose and finds the answers of Etrigan and Dr. Fate unconvincing.

At the same time, connected on a lower plane of reality; the Anti-Monitor, the enemy of the matter universes, emanation of the enemy of existence begins its assault on reality. On all planes of reality, existence was threatened. The superheroes and even supervillains put up a desperate war again Anti-Monitor. Anti-Monitor goes back in time to the dawn of the multiverse to remake it in his image. The superheroes follow him only for him to reveal that this was part of his plan before drawining their power, taking the power of the absolute light, the creator of the first world.

Meanwhile on a higher plane of reality, the Swamp Thing, a representative of the flora life, walks peacefully into the Great Evil Beast and tells him that evil is the decay of good that becomes the fertile soil from which new good can grow from. 

The Great Evil Beast accepts this answer and when The Presence's hand reaches out towards the Great Evil Beast, instead of battling and annihilating all existence they grasp each other forming the Taijitu. 

At the same time the Anti-Monitor's hand is grasped by the Spectre's backed by the power of all the magicians of the Earth, those who use the power of darkness. For the first time for hundreds of years, and arguably since the beginning of time, the light and the dark were reconciled. 

The Anti-Monitor, unexpecting this, fled back to his own dimension but when he tried one last assault he was defeated by a combined attack from Superman, the leader of the super-heroes and the symbol of light, and a blast from Darkseid the great darkness himself

Fourth World: Modern Age (After the Crisis)

The resultant reality was far more chaotic than the reality before the crisis was. There was more of a mixing of good and evil, with few things being wholly good or bad anymore, and greater chaos anymore. This was the will of the darkness as it had sent it's envoy Nehelenia to say long ago. (Sailor Moon

As a result of the resultant chaos, the universe caused Hotaru Tomoe to be born, the incarnation of Sailor Saturn to release the silence again. However before she awoke fire threatened to take the young girl's life. Her father Professor Tomoe a brillaint scientist discraced for his immoral experients recalled a similar operation being performed by the late Professor Kisaragi some years hence and set out to reconstruct Hotaru's body with cybernetics. (Sailor Moon, Cutie Honey) But an incarnation of Chaos, sensing the enormous dormant power in the area around Hotaru's body coming from her Sailor Crystal suggested to maintain their bodies for all time with daimon seeds, something the mad doctor, eager for vengeance along with preserving his daughter's life, agreed too. The alien overlord Pharaoh 90, lord of the alternate space the Tau Dimension planned to implant the three humans present with the seeds of his trusted daimon generals to serve as an invasion force. (Sailor Moon)

But as one conspiracy was formed, another was found out. Around the same time the young Pegasus Saint, Seiya, along with his companions Shiryu, Hyoga, Ikki, and Shun discovered Gemini Saga's treachery, and began their assault on Sanctuary to restore Athena to her proper position. (Saint Seiya)

This is where basically all the modern events of most of the series takes place so I'll probably leave the connections to a seperate section, and maybe a seperate blog, but this is where most of the events happen.

Future:

As the Fifth Age begins to come, humans become far stronger, with the Earth being turned to a Utopia under the reign of Neo-Queen Serenity (Sailor Moon, DC Comics) and with colonies across the stars (Metroid). With the fall of Sailor Galaxia, the other galaxies are left with a massive power vacuum for supervillains or just those with ambition, with the Star Nomad Race traversing the cosmos to spread joy and friendship (Wander over Yonder, Metroid)

The main events of Metroid take place here, with Phazite likely being equivocated to being the same as the malefic Black Crystal given their similar properties (Metroid, Sailor Moon), especially as it turned Nemesis to a copy of Phaaze just as the Leviathan did in the prime trilogy. Likewise the events of Crystal Tokyo from Sailor Moon take place here.

As humanity closes in on reaching divine status, the gods attempt to strike down them, with a war in heaven commencing to "purify the cosmos of humans." This gods hateful of humanity are the dark stars emanated by the newly reborn Sailor Chaos (Sailor Moon) which destroy everything Usagi has ever known, reducing the cosmos. Sailor Chaos, the "Heavenly God" succeeds in reducing reality to a wall of flame, but the Earthly Gods combine and fuse with the world tree Yggdrasil to preserve a small patch of humanity in the void of the cosmos (Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Yggdrasil referenced in DC Comics, God of War, Saint Seiya) 

The Shinju gives select humans bits of divine power to protect itself, turning them into heroes that can seal away any weapon or force of the Heavenly Gods, as it prepares to bring humans to godhod, an eternal peaceful unchanging existence. However at the final battle as the Shinju prepares to take the human Yuna into itself performing divine-human apotheosis called Shinkon, the spirits of every hero from every prior generation appears before it pleading with it. Projecting itself back into the past, it sees its past self state she would prefer to fight forever, to live a life of suffering with light and dark then experience the infinite void, and instead Shinju allows itself to be absorbed into Yuna turning her into the human god (Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Sailor Moon) Divine Yuna declares that she will live the path of a human and punches which destroys the Heavenly Gods, restoring reality. (Yuki Yuna is a Hero) This commences the Fifth Age, the age of humanity as its own gods.

What I like about this is that there is an overarching theme running through the whole thing; the value of the human experience, the rise of the human will over time as it is eventually reconciled with divinity. I think the themes, the imagery, the worldview that define me and my taste in fiction is illustrated in this cosmology.

Some General Ideas:

This was originally gonna be a MUCH longer blog, with scans, and gifs, and quotes from all 32 series showing each point using clever contrast to make it seem like they're describing the same things, as well as way more things in the Fourth Age including descriptions of the plots of each series, interactions between them, and individual character interactions that hypothetically would have happened I would have thought interesting. That said I ran out of time, and to be honest, energy. If you want more of the Imp-verse feel free to say but here are some interesting connections I found between the verses or ideas I had for how they could be connected

• The first nation to develop life was probably Midgard, developing a violent, chaotic comedic persona in response to the chaos of the early universe (Magicka, Axis Powers Hetalia)
• Energy X due to it's hilarious mutatious nature probably was distilled into Chemical X, used to make the Powerpuff Girls, and maybe eventually infected down to a microscopic level turning into the rapidly mutating and oddly colorful X Parasite (Freedom Force, The Powerpuff Girls, Metroid)
• Uncle Sam probably gets his power directly from Alfred himself (DC Comics, Axis Powers Hetalia)
• The Unknown maybe a section of the dreaming where the mind prepares for the Underworld, given its heavily archetypal nature and how Dream has prior shown the ability to give one the hope to perserve in the face of the other Endless like Death and Despair like with Joshua Norton (Over the Garden Wall, DC Comics)
• Undertale is strongly implied to take place in an unknown future. I would put it during the Fifth World, explaining why humans and their souls are so powerful. The Seven Human Magicians who sealed the monsters could very well be the Seven Heroes of humanity who prior used seals against "monsterous beings". Mew Mew Kissy Cutie could be an in-universe fictionalized account of Tokyo Mew Mew (Undertale, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Tokyo Mew Mew)
• The fairies system are named as such in imitation of the fairies of the time before the divine war that gave other magical girls their powers (Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Pretty Cure)
• Drosselmeyer gained metafictional powers in part due to the usage of an advanced metafictional machine. Perhaps this is a discarded tool of the metafictional guardians the Monitors and was later found by the Narrator who began to experiment with it. (Princess Tutu, DC Comics, The Stanley Parable)
• The wars of gods regularly transcend time (DC Comics, Saint Seiya, God of War), it's possible that the nameless "Other Gods" who attempted to take over and was defeated by a Judgement was a lesser emanation of the "Heavenly Gods" (Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Yuki Yuna is a Hero)
• While the Heylin Magic clearly comes from the great darkness, Xiaolin Magic is very likely connected to the Elemental Realms (Xiaolin Showdown, DC Comics)
• Star Nomads were probably the species that first discovered the Blue Spectrum of Hope, much in the same way as the Guardians of the Universe discovered the Green Light of Hope. Why Wander does not use a Blue Lantern Ring may be another mystery of the Star Nomads (Wander over Yonder, DC Comics)
• After Superman died, the world was turned dark with crime and villainy spiking everywhere. It may be this spike in crime that caused Professor Utonium to try and create the three perfect little girls to bring cheer to the world and accidentally creating the Powerpuff Girls (The Powerpuff Girls, DC Comics)
• When Usagi awoke to her identity as Princess Serenity and revitalized the Earth, it's likely this is what began Superman's process of Kryptonian self-replication after his "death" as the timeline matches up too perfectly. It may also be what reawoke Deep Blue along with the planet who called to the first people to return (Sailor Moon, DC Comics, Tokyo Mew Mew)
  
• The prayers of humanity rising up to Heaven to restore Amaterasu's power fits really well with how belief, prayer, and magic are all connected in DC (Okami, DC Comics)
• When conceptual beings like Gods, or spiritual beings like angels or demons die it's very consistent that they are reduced to an incorporeal essence to reform a new body, possess a new body, or transform entirely (DC Comics, Saint Seiya, God of War, Okami, Sailor Moon)
• Fei Wang Reed attempted to use the combination of light and darkness to reshape reality and change its laws to his whim, a power not just suggested but outright stated in various other series (xxxHolic, Cardcaptor Sakura, Bayonetta, Magicka)
• Stars are a common motif across many of these verses, typically signifing divine order imposed upon the chaos (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Commedia, DC Comics, Pretty Cure, more)
• The Essence of Divine Art suggests it created a garden within the emotions of a flower. Swamp Thing indeed shows that flora have internal personal cosmos connected to the Green (The Stanley Parable, DC Comics)
• The Guardians used a special nullifying magic to attempt to keep the Demiurge dormant. If the Incubators originated on that world as fairies made darker by the Throne's presence, then the isolation zone they use against Kami Madoka may be a hyper advanced form of the same sealing (Shamanic Princess, Puella Magi Madoka Magica)
• After the defeat of Panther Claw in the 90s by Cutie Honey via the genetic fusion with her "twin" Misty Honey, Ryou may have learned how to manipulate and fuse genetics from her (Cutie Honey, Tokyo Mew Mew)
• After Akuma Homura created a false reality to guard Madoka within, she gained the role of "Satan" and as such likely had some awareness of the many other evils within the cosmos. I don't wanna say anything that might contradict the new film, but this may explain some of her actions (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, DC Comics)
• The Demons have been implied to be manipulating people to kill off enemies across history which is likely connected to the persecution of magical girls across time, including in the days of the "false and lying gods" (DC Comics, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Commedia)
• Ouran High School is the hardest series for me to connect as it is the only one of my favorite series that seems to have no supernatural elements. That said I think it would be interesting if the reason Kyoya's father's company started to fail is if it was the company that Kaiba took the money from to complete his father's challenge. Given that this was a company that "treated its employees like family", it would make an interesting contrast given how Kyoya was actually treated by his family. (Ouran High School, Yu-Gi-Oh!)
• Fright Knight as the spirit of Halloween is likely a creature of the realm of Nightmare in the Sphere in the Gods, this would give Pariah Dark an even greater sense of scope if the threat of his reign extends even past Underworld (Danny Phantom, DC Comics)
• Spirit World probably is an organization attempting to bring order to the Ghost Zone, Phantom Zone and its appointed investigators probably run into magicians and the Halfa (Yu Yu Hakusho, Danny Phantom, DC Comics)
• The Afterlife is implied to be the same directly between Commedia and Bayonetta. (Bayonetta, Commedia)
• sans has developed an awareness of hypertime which is why he like Joker and Harley can manipulate the medium he's in (Undertale, DC Comics)
• It is noted that in ancient times, humans summoned demons to fight for them against other humans or nations. (Yu Yu Hakusho) This is directly seen (Yu-Gi-Oh!)
• Pan as a god is said to be a higher dimensional being (Freedom Force), something also seen with the new gods (DC Comics)
• Gods are limited by what they are unlike the boundless potential of humans (Saint Seiya, DC Comics, Freedom Force, arguably more)
• Cephiro is a world made before the main dimension and is a world where will controls all, the light glow coming from it's will emanation possibly becoming the glow that would be weaponized by the Green Lantern Core (Magic Knight Rayearth, DC Comics)
• Undyne as a true hero, on the verse of death, her senses overloaded through sheer willpower unlocked the Seventh Sense allowing her to come back from near death and accomplish miracles (Undertale, Saint Seiya)
• Yuuko's warehouse collects the great magic relics, particularly when they are no longer needed in this world, brought ot the present day from their future due to time shenangans. This would likely include the future incarnations of the Millennium Items and the Sheng Gong Wu (xxxHolic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Xiaolin Showdown)
• Sailor Pluto was stationed and forbidden to leave the Time Door to prevent something like what happend with Homura and when Neo-Queen Serenity lifted her from the taboos, it caused the increase of chaotic time travel seen in that time period and onwards and allowed Homura to rewind time over and over (Sailor Moon, Puella Magi Madoka Magica)
• After their complete undoing in the Third Age from Kratos, the Olympians come to realize they must be born among the mortals over and over to properly learn empathy for them, starting this practice in the Fourth World (God of War, Saint Seiya)
• In Saint Seiya they speak of the Hypermyth, the myth about the creation of myths, the story of how the Gods came to be which works really well with the DC idea of the Monitors, the metafictional race of guardians who live in the world of hyper-stories entering stories as gods to interact with them (Saint Seiya, DC Comics)

There's more, but I feel like this is a good sampling of the connections. It's really amazing to me that despite there being so many verses here, and while there are some irreconcile contradictions like the 3+ different ways Atlantis apparently sunk, it actually flows pretty well. The themes that are central to my enjoyment are central to this mega-verse as you might imagine, and its cosmology is formed in the themes I find interesting; the relation of god and human, the chaos of human emotion and experience compared to the purity of light and dark, the contrast of eternal existence vs temporal-ness and so on. It is a verse with a clear central story to tell; the humanist story, the ascension of humanity across the ages, its development, and its reconcillation with its makers. I hope you found it interesting.

Enlightenment in fiction

Because my last blog was about the Throne of Yord, a character who can defeat and be defeated by characters that seem paradoxical due to its specific weakness to enlightened characters, I wanted to make a blog explaining enlightenment and how it seems like it should work in a versus context to me.

Enlightenment is a theological or spiritual idea that our consciousness are usually bound to a lower state of reality and that we are not fully aware of everything happening around us. We are like people asleep. Enlightenment is defined in a spiritual context as "full comprehension of a situation." Different religions and religious traditions define it differently but even within secular philosophies the idea is sometimes brought up, although usually more as analogy than a literal state of being.

As enlightenment pertains to ones mental faculties, it may seem connected to intelligence however that seems to depend on how broadly one defines intelligence. It seems that enlightenment is more of an extension of wisdom or even ones senses than ones knowledge. Someone being conventionally unintelligent but enlightened is a trope, while in certain contexts of the words even an all-knowing character may be unenlightened. A character may know every fact in the multiverse and still not comprehend any of its meaning, an example of this would be someone like Brainiac from DC who gathered all information from the multiverse and still could not be freed of the chaos within himself. Conversely someone like Saitama from One-Punch Man seems simple-minded but is strongly implied in design, personality, and story to have attained enlightenment.

In a versus context enlightenment seems by definition to suggest the character would have enhanced wisdom, that being not being restrained by personality defects like impulsivity, vengefulness, arrogance, temptation and so on, as well as potentially percieving events happening on higher planes of reality. In fiction it can often give other powers as well; most often things like flight, energy/light projection, telepathy, higher plane existence, etc. but such is not necessary.

So how to tell if a character is enlightened? Well the most obvious way is if the verse itself tells you. If someone or something in a verse says x character is enlightened; then assuming the statement is a credible one (not for instance said by someone trying to decieve that person) then that should be an indication. Obviously a verse can have whatever criteria for enlightenment it so chooses. 

But what if the verse doesn't say its criteria? Well that's when it gets a lot more subjective. These are the criteria I would suggest to look for and why. Generally having multiple of them is a sign the character has attained enlightenment

1: The character is depicted with the halo, which is the traditional artistic depiction of a person being either enlightened, holy, or both.

2: The character demonstrates immense wisdom and insight, especially if in spiritual matters. As an enlightened character is heavily connected with wisdom, one who shows great judgement and discernment, and overcomes ones own personality defects is a sign of enlightenment.

3: The character can directly percieve the highest plane of reality in the verse (assuming it has multiple planes of reality.) Such seems to be identical with the definition of enlightenment. This is especially true if its metafictional/absolute awareness, which would be a form of awareness that would be maximal in all of fiction, and/or if the awareness is something "attained" by the character by a shift in perception, rather than just a natural ability of the character.

4: The character demonstrates or gains supernatural powers purely from their wisdom or a change in their perception of the world. Generally speaking a change in ones perception would not grant one superpowers unless the verse gives a special reason for this to be the case. As such to gain such powers may be seen as a sign the character has attained a special awareness.

5: The character has trained through or undergone a process similar to a real world religious practice meant to give enlightenment, as this can be seen as the author giving a reference to real world enlightenment beliefs.  

You may wish to also consider if there is contradicting evidence; whether the character acts in unenlightened ways such as being bound by negative emotion, or if there exists phenomena that the enlightened can not percieve, although I am unsure about this as it seems like the verse could just have a quirky view of enlightenment and that shouldn't be held against it per se. 

How they compare: The Throne of Yord (Shamanic Princess)

 

Before the world there was a truer existence, the Throne of Yord. Attempting to alleviate its loneliness and understand the strange sensation of "otherness" that it knew would relieve it's loneliness it caused the worlds to be formed, allowing it to be lulled into a deep sleep to understand this world in it's dreams.

The dormant self of the Throne of Yord was discovered by the world of sorcerers, Guardian World. Not fully understanding it but knowing it's existence was crucial to the maintence of the world and magic, set out to keep it a sleep and contented, and created a hierarchy dedicated to protecting it and keeping it from being taken. While their efforts were admirable, nothing could prevent the Demiurge's attempt to understand the world.

The Throne of Yord's raw power is beyond compare to anything else in the Shamanic Princess-verse. It's power was neccesary to maintain the human world and the guardian world. It is not made clear whether that these mean planets or universes and while logically maintaining worlds in differnet dimensions and existing without concept of "other" suggests things on the universal sense, even at a conservative estimate the Throne of Yord is casually 2x planetary for maintaining worlds. It is also stated that the Throne of Yord is the origin of all power, which could likely include the great cosmic events like supernova, black hole formations and even the birth or death of universes.

Speed is seemingly mostly irrelevant to Throne of Yord as the Throne of Yord does not exist in a particular place, even if the sorcerers of guardian world attempted to make it so, and the versions of it appearing in dreams are the same entity as it's physical self, showing it is at least a mental plane being, and likely far greater form of existence as it predates living beings whatsoever. For a more conservative speed estimate, as part of it's nature as being at one with everything, the Throne of Yord would be at one with the fastest cosmic phenomena such as the propogation of photons at c through a vacuum. 

By far the Throne of Yord's strongest power is something so strong that it arguably makes it the strongest magical girl character though some in the genre can defeat it via exploiting it's weaknesses. The Throne of Yord is a transdual entity, meaning it transcends the concept of "duality" or "two-ness." Things like "alive or dead" "truth or falsehood" or "real or dream" do not apply to the Throne of Yord. There is no seperate thing from Yord, for that is a twoness that does not apply, it is at one with all. To fight the Throne of Yord thus is indistinguishable from battling all of reality including oneself. To kill it, erase it, or otherwise render it inert is conventionally impossible as such are concepts that it exists beyond.

Beyond that the Throne of Yord does have other abilities although none so impressive. It is stated to be the origin of all power and all magic, meaning it should easily scale to every ability in the verse, only made more evident by its ability to "become" anyone; either a duplicate, or literally to inhabit that being as it does to Sara, not possessing them, but simply being them as it is at one with all things. 

Every sorcerer in the series has the ability to travel between guardian world to the human world, likely an inter-dimensional movement feat, with the Throne of Yord able to create city-sized portals between worlds. Sorcerers have shown time manipulation, able to freeze time on at least a city-sized scale, and tank it without affect. Sorcerers also can summon intangible monsters to fight for them and are implied to be able to create souls as when Graham was brought to the Guardian World, he was stated to not have a soul yet.

The Throne of Yord should be able to replicate the magic of the Neutralizers who can nullify magic and worked together to keep the Throne of Yord's power dormant. The Throne of Yord directly showed brainwashing and at one point it's stated it was the one who sent the servant races to the Guardian World, though the method is unknown. The Throne of Yord also has general purpose reality-warping creating a stony fortress, warping it into a forest dimension and back, and creating all power and magic.

The Throne of Yord has also showed numerous more minor points including darkness manipulation and creating dark lightning that it could use to move people as well as forging weapons of darkness and levitation. It also mentions at one point that its will is the same as fate, though it's unclear whether this is just a way of saying it controls everything or its will is literally fate.

The Throne of Yord is cosmically intelligent, with Tiara describing its intelligence as "knowing all", a thing to expect given it's transduality though knowing all is not the same as understanding all for even with all the intelligence of being, it couldn't reconcile itself with otherness.

In terms of weaknesses, the Throne of Yord has a few. The Throne of Yord's power can be nullified which was how the Guardians attempted to keep it dormant, though it's made clear this was moreso because it allowed them too. Furthermore, any enlightened being, a being with full awareness of reality, can forcibly merge with and defeat the Throne of Yord. Tiara did this by coming to awareness that dualities are false dichotomies, fractured perspectives of a single underlying reality just as a marble falling into water and it's reflecting falling the opposite way are in fact the same phenomena. However, it is also implied that this was only possible because the Throne of Yord allowed it, with all the events of the series being its manipulation to resolve its loneliness. Both of these weaknesses arive from the psychological weakness of the Throne of Yord; it does not care about winning a fight, it merely wishes to find an existence outside its' own, so overwhelmed with the sense of loneliness is it. It is made clear that the Throne of Yord could have crushed Tiara at any time, but it was not trying to kill her, it was trying to understand from her. Unless bloodlusted it will probably not try to kill an enemy with its full power, but instead adopt similar tactics of trying to mimic it or inhabit it's dreams to try to understand.

Name: The Throne of Yord

Origin: Shamanic Princess

Powers and Abilities: Transduality, Higher Plane Existence, Creation, Reality-Warping, Inter-dimensional and planar movement, Duplication, Power/Body Mimicry, Power Nullification, Summoning, Time Freezing, Darkness and Lightning Manipulation, Levitation, Likely Soul Manipulation, Possibly Fate Manipulation, Resistance to Time Manipulation

Weaknesses: Fixiated on understanding others instead of winning, Power Nullification, Enlightened Enemies

Destructive Capacity: At least planet level, possibly far higher

Range: Planetary+ and Inter-Dimensional

Speed: At least Lightspeed, possibly far higher, exists in multiple places and planes of being at once

Durability: Inapplicable, transcends life/death, truth/false, or real/dream and so can not be conventionally killed or erased

Stamina: Likely Inapplicable

Standard Equipment: Nothing notable

Intelligence: Is said to know all

So how well would the Throne of Yord do in other verses?

In the Marvel Universe, the Throne of Yord would only be at about the level of the High Metas in terms of power using a conservative estimate of its feats as they have feats of things like the Thing reversing a machine that would going to destroy the Earth and light-timing feats. That said its transduality means it would hit far outside its power range.

There are plenty of beings in the verse that use their psychic powers to communicate with the Throne of Yord in their dreams and while such could gather information it would likely be quickly forbidden for being risky without much benefit as it could kill them there without much ability to affect it. 

There are enlightened beings who would very clearly be able to stop it including the Ancient One, mentor of Dr. Strange, and Contemplator one of the Elders of the universe. Arguably Gwenpool could possibly beat the Throne of Yord having awoken to her nature as a comic book character, and Mister Fantastic may be able to beat it by nullifying its power via the Ultimate Nullifier. That said while there are entities in the verse that can beat it, it would likely be an immense immediate threat due to the scarcity of such beings and its ability to mimic powers and inhabit beings. It would take up to the cosmic cube level entities that you get to a tier comfortably outside the reach of the Throne of Yord due to how common enlightenment and power nullification is. 

In the DC Universe, the Throne of Yord would be far below planetary guardians or villains having power only relative to a teenage kryptonian and speed even below that. That said similar to Marvel, due to his transduality and power mimicry he would be an immense threat far beyond his power tier, being essentially able to pull Amazo's strategy on mega steriods.

I think DC is arguably more equipped to fight the Throne of Yord as there seems to be more enlightened entities, as DC has more psychological/spiritual based powers as opposed to the more sci-fi approach of Marvel. Most of the people highly connected to the elemental realms, or the green, red, or clear can likely stop the Throne of Yord. Aquaman can use his connection to the clear to defeat the Throne of Yord, and Swamp Thing and Animal Man have both shown enlightenment through connection to the green and the red with Animal Man even coming to awareness of his metafictional nature and manipulating it. Superman has also been implied to have attained enlightenment due to his training in Torquasm Vo and his natural moral goodness and super senses which allow him to understand reality on its deepest level. 

DC also has the weakest characters I know I think could win via exploiting the Throne of Yord's enlightenment weakness. Harley Quinn could potentially do it as she is aware of her nature as a fictional being even reading what will happen in future issues and restoring the DC multiverse by making a story and using the metafictional nature of hypertime. The Joker also could likely do it for similar reasons, being aware of his fictional nature and able to physically turn the pages of the book he's in, although the Joker merging with the Throne of Yord is a horrific idea to contemplate.

In the Princess Tutu-verse, the Throne of Yord would quickly threaten to solo it easily, being orders of magnitude more powerful and faster then anything in the verse. That said if it messed around there are 2 people that could fight it.

Drosselmeyer is a ghost with metafictional powers and is implied to be able to be enlightened. Hypothetically he could beat the Throne of Yord however he's bound by his own character weakness to pursue as tragic a story as possible, and would likely try to exploit the Throne of Yord's suffering in solitude for artistic reasons, and if the two are messing around I think it's far more likely the Throne of Yord will get bored and just kill Drosselmeyer first as it's far less patient, has interdimensional inter-planar abilities and ability to affect souls, and far greater power.

However Fakir in awakening to his own storyteller powers also reached enlightenment and is a far more serious dedicated person, devoted to protecting his loved ones, and it's likely he could save the verse from the Throne of Yord, especially if the Throne of Yord is distracted by Princess Tutu, the embodiment of hope, something he has never felt.

In the Puella Magi-verse, the Throne of Yord would fit weirdly powerwise as everyone in the verse is either much stronger or much weaker in power to my recollection, stronger then moon level entities then Max Power Walpurgisnacht who can stop the rotation of the Earth but far weaker then the Madoka Robot who was relative in sizes to Gas Giants.

It's a bit unclear who in the Puella Magi-verse would be classified as "enlightened" though presumably at least the top tiers of the verse are being able to see all, which presumably would quality for reaching full awareness, although even ignoring that the Incubators should hypothetically be able to trap it the Isolation Zone as they planned to do to Kami Madoka, something similar to what the Neutralizers did to the Throne of Yord only millions to billions of years more advanced in magitech capability. Likewise, Homura should be able to stop it via power-stealing even in her Puella Magi state if it's not bloodlusted and in her Akuma form if it is.

Her vs the Mutated Wraith from the Wraith Arc would be interesting depending on whether you think the Wraith would be able to mimic transduality as both would hypothetically mimic and absorb all the abilities of the other. Hypothetically the Throne of Yord should win unless it messes around long enough for the Wraith to defeat it via similar mechanisms as Homura or the Incubators.

In the Lovecraft Mythos, the Throne of Yord would be most comparable in stature to one of the Great Old Ones, having more power then the likes of Cthulhu but having worse speed feats. It's arguable whether a Great Old One could defeat the Throne of Yord as they can telepathically know all happening in the universe however such is also true of the Throne and is not the same as Enlightenment as it is not seeing the deeper layers of reality with Cthulhu for instance only spying those outside space and time dimly. 

Supplementary material in the Cthulhu Mythos has the Buddha being a human who attained Enlightenment and reaching the layer of the lowest Outer Gods, suggesting that is about the level needed to destroy the Throne of Yord (unless power null is used), although the beings between the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods like the Elder Gods are probably also outside the Throne of Yord's ability to affect.

As the Demiurge, the Throne of Yord would actually fit quite comfortably within the Lovecraft Mythos, the progenitor of the reality of material existence that the Star-Spawned traveled to from a deeper more fundamental noncorporeal reality, sleeping in the way of the Great Old Ones and Azathoth the great dreamer, giving to the material worlds it's substance as Azathoth gives to the cosmos their frail laws. The Throne of Yord is thus formed of the archetype of Azathoth in the same way as all scientists and sorcerers formed from the archetype of Yog-Sothoth. Thus overall the Throne of Yord would be to the physical universe what Azathoth is to the whole of the cosmos. 

In the Touhou Project-verse, the Throne of Yord would not be very strong in raw power only really being above low tiers in power, but despite the verse's complex esoteric powers, the Throne of Yord would be quite dangerous to many in the verse, due to its ability to mimic powers and difficulty to be affected. 

While the great sages or the Shrine Maiden Reimu would be able to defeat it via their enlightenment and powerful abilities most of the verse would have to be lucky with magical containment spheres to beat it. However the verse does have another counter to it; that being Koishi. 

For all it's awareness and power extending to all things in the cosmos, the Throne of Yord does have memories and does have to notice things and Koishi is a Satori who closed her 3rd eye seperating her from the universe, making her impossible to notice or detect. This means even being at one with all things in the universe does not mean the Throne of Yord would be able to notice her. Beyond this Koishi is not just enlightened, she is said by a Buddhist Saint to embody enlightenment itself, meaning she would not just be able to beat the Throne of Yord, her present would literally allow anyone else she deems to be able to defeat it. Koishi is actually the perfect counter to the Throne of Yord.

Levels of scaling difficulty

 Some verses are harder to scale than other verses. This is an attempted categorization of verse difficulty to scale. This is a categorization out of 5 points based primarily on 3 factors:

1: Length: Obviously a series gets harder the longer it goes just do to how much information one needs to know to scale it properly.

2: Directness: How direct and obvious is the scaling? Are the feats just blatant and in your face, or it subtle obscure details both for how strong characters are and how they relate?

3: Abstractness: How abstract of ideas does the verse use? Are the abilities of the verse pretty standard or is it crazy higher plane mystical jargon everywhere.

There's hypothetically a fourth factor which is the availability of the series; how easy is to actually find and watch/read/play etc. but I felt that's not really a fair factor so this assumes you can actually find it perfectly fine.

1/5: Very Easy: Very easy is for series where none of the 3 factors are problems. It's something you can view all the way through pretty easily in a few hours and which you need to view once, MAYBE twice to get all the information you need from it. Being an expert for this series is kind of a meaningless title as anyone can become an expert in this series very quickly. None of the series on my favorites list are this low because only a few are short enough, and they tend to have abstract concepts but going into my favorite films list if you were trying to scale something like Princess Mononoke or the Iron Giant, it would be this level of difficulty. Just watch the films once and take notes and you'll be a scaling expert for the series. In general this isn't the difficulty level of series, this is the difficulty level of the thousands of single shot installments (singular films, books, games etc.) of short to normal length without any underlying scaling system or complex concepts.

2/5: Easy: Easy difficulty means the series is either easier then normal in at least two of the three categories or is really easy in one; either it's very short, it's very simple, or it's very direct. An easy series is a series that's unusually easy to scale and while it's not as easy as the 1/5, it still would only take one maybe a couple of days to become an expert at it. Experts of this are more commendable therefore because it shows some effort was put in, but if you want to become an expert of any 2/5 series, it's not gonna be that difficult. Examples from my favorite series would include things like Tokyo Mew Mew or the Powerpuff Girls. Both verses have relatively simple scaling with only a few "tiers", pretty direct in-your-face feats, and not too many abstract concepts (PPG having more then TMM.) Series where there's basically no powers but are long-running are usually here from length, I think. It's not hard to do, it just takes a while.

3/5: Average: Normal difficulty to scale. This is for when 0-1 of the three factors are easier or harder then normal and none to any huge degree. This is when being an expert on a verse starts to become notable, and it's a notable time investment if you want to become an expert in the verse. Examples from my favorite series would include things like Freedom Force or Magic Knight Rayearth. Both verses are of fairly average lengths (FF being 2 normal sized tactical RPGs and MKR being a relatively normal sized anime), both have some tricky bits to their scaling but are mostly easy, and both are mostly pretty normal in terms of powers used but with some more abstract stuff near the endings of their arcs. This is the difficulty for most things that are relatively average in difficulty to scale; mostly straightfoward to scale with a few complications here and there. 

4/5: Hard: Harder then normal to scale, these verses have multiple factors making them harder then normal or at least 1 factor that's pretty extreme whether that's being really long, having lots of details and complications, or being very abstract and esoteric. Generally one relies on experts of this verse if you want to use it, as the verse's time commitment to understand is outside the scope of most vs debaters. The verse might not neccesarily be that long, but it means this takes a longer time then normal to understand. Examples of this from my favorite series include Sailor Moon and God of War. Sailor Moon is not terribly long as a series, main series being 60 acts, but it's full of tiny details and complicated powers and abstract ideas and the scaling is very much not in one's face half the time. God of War is a bit longer given that it's a multimedia franchise with novelizations and comics, and while it's scaling is usually a lot more blatant then SM, it still has many more abstract feats and ideas in it. 

5/5: Very Hard: Series that are very hard to scale are series that are difficult in all regards being generally massive multimedia franchises with difficult scaling and very out there ideas. A distinctive feature of this difficulty is these are series that are difficult enough that some vs debaters focus strictly on scaling these series just so that the information within can be used by others. Examples of these from my favorite series include Saint Seiya and the Clamp-verse in general. Both are massive franchises that require one to watch multiple anime, read multiple manga, and go through supplemenary material to fully understand, have a ton abstract ideas and concepts, and are complicated in their scaling. Very hard series are series that even hardcore fans may not be experts in.

Marvel and DC would probably the hardest series in abstract to scale due to the unmatched amount of content both franchises have, the vast number of concepts including everything you can imagine, and the complications in scaling from numerous writers. That said those verses are made easier then they would otherwise be due to just how many people are constantly scaling them.

Ranking the Sailor Moon Heroes' intelligence

 I saw a screenrant article ranking the Sailor Moon "main characters'" intelligence and it it's a blog I've wanted to make for a while so I'm gonna be responding to it while giving a more accurate list. The article doesn't specify whether they are talking about the manga or the anime, much like a lot of screenrant articles, but the Minako section makes me think they're talking about the manga which is my area of focus regardless. I'm going to be addressing the elephant in the room at the end because the number 1 is...um....well you'll see

So ranking the Senshi in order of intelligence:

11: Chibiusa

The article puts Chibiusa at the bottom and yeah this is correct. She's mentally the youngest senshi and doesn't have any particularly have any intelligence feats to think she'd be any higher. That said the section for her does the reccuring trend in this article which is to try and associate things that aren't intelligence with intelligence. 

The article says "she decides to time travel without truly thinking about the consequences or forming a coherent plan." Firstly, she did have a plan. The Silver Crystal of the future wasn't working so get the Silver Crystal of the past (present). Secondarly impulsivity and immaturity are not intelligence. But third and most importantly THE CRYSTAL PALACE WAS BEING BOMBED AND GASSED. Chibiusa in the second arc is roughly 5 mentally and the only home she's ever known is being bombed from above, while her parents are frozen in crystal; the fact that she ran away into the past is not just sensible it honestly speaks to her bravery and mental fortitude. Early in the second arc Chibiusa becomes terrified at the sight of shards of the black crystal reminding her of the future. This is not some kind of intelligence anti-feat.

10: Usagi

So if this was judged by emotional intelligence, Usagi would obviously be number 1 being able to understand even the motives of conceptual darkness like Chaos. That said in general intelligence Usagi is supposed to be a completely average girl. She struggles in school, although her school is implied to be a hard one and it's partially from her poor study habits. She's above Chibiusa because the two are both roughly average in intelligence for their intelligence but Usagi is not just a decade older mentally, she also has past life awareness and has the knowledged gained as Princess Serenity.

This is not including her Queen Serenity self, as the article seems to be written only about their present day selves but as Sailor Cosmos Usagi is arguably the smartest character in the series.

9: Makoto

The article puts the Guardian Senshi way too high and everyone else way to low in comparison. The section for Makoto says things that either aren't intelligence (she can take care of herself and "analyze threats" because she fights bullies) or are just outright false. It claims that while Usagi and Minako have anime arcs where they struggle in school, Makoto always excels which is just false. In both the anime and the manga Makoto is shown struggling with school, if I recall correctly more then Minako in the anime.

Makoto like Usagi is relatively average in terms of intelligence and is a pretty fair comparison. There's an argument to suggest that Usagi is smarter then Makoto however I think there's MORE arguments for Makoto being smarter. The argument for Usagi being smarter is that in her doing poorly in school is at least partialy due to her poor study habits rather then intelligence and in the short story "The Melancholy of Makoto", Ami seems more concerned about Makoto getting into High School then Usagi suggesting she thinks Usagi is more likely. That said that short story is written from Makoto's perspective so it's possible she's just noticing Ami lecturing Usagi as much, and Makoto's lack of success in school is also not entirely due to her intelligence but due to her avoidant behavior where when she has to do schoolwork she instead procrastinates by doing cooking and cleaning. 

Conversely there's a few arguments for Makoto being smarter then Usagi. Makoto is shown to be very skilled in horticulture and cooking. This is probably more so talents, knowledge in a particular field, but all else being equal if general intelligence is an average than it may bring her average up. We know that Usagi's first past life was Princess Serenity since the Silver Crystal was entrusted to Queen Serenity but Makoto may have had numerous past lives. Finally the best argument for Makoto being smarter is in Ami's first love, which is from neither of their perspectives there is a gag where Ami is asked what her ideal man is and she answers "Albert Einstein." The senshi, Makoto included, all give a reaction of disbelief save for Usagi who asks "Who's Albert Einstein?" This seems to me to be the most direct comparison of intelligence and it strongly favors Makoto. I should note at one point we see Makoto score a 50 and Usagi score a 35 in Melancholy of Makoto, however this isn't stated specifically to be the same test so it may not indiciate an intelligence comparison, although on a narrative level it does seem that way since the context is Makoto's scores improving a little while Usagi's are not. 

8-7: Rei and Minako

This is not a tie, I will say which one I put higher, but they're SO close I wanted to empathize you could reasonably put either higher. The article in Rei's section only really notes that she's a psychic which relates to her intelligence because it means "she has a good head on her shoulders" and in Minako's section basically says she has a good strategic mind and she's a lot smarter in the manga which supports my thinking is about the manga.

Rei and Minako are thematic opposites and a study in contrast. While Minako does poorly in school, unlike Usagi and Makoto this has absolutely nothing to do with her school being hard and everything to do with Minako being lazy and just not doing the work. Minako is regularly shown as being very tactically clever and good at improvisation often tricking members of the Dark Agency which are fighters of a cutthrough system. Minako archetypally is the gifted child that is an underachiever and she clearly regularly demonstrates that she doesn't want to put in more effort then the minimum.

Rei in contrast is book smart. We don't know how smart Rei is naturally because she's a perfectionist whose always training; body, mind, and soul. She attends an elite private school and given her personality it's likely not because her father wants her too but just to maximize her potential. This level of formal intelligence can be seen when Ami quotes Shakespeare to try and make the others study more and Rei casually responds with a quote from Francis Bacon without even looking up from her book. Rei clearly has a masterful level of formal education for her age; she archetypally is the student who gets elite scores at an elite school not from natural giftedness but purely through hard work.

Comparing the two is difficult because the different means of getting intelligence means they excel in different areas. If the two were to come into a mental confrontation Rei is far likely to make a better plan then Minako but Minako is much likely to adapt and improvise to something unexpected better. I personally would put Minako higher in the short story about them Minako seems to get the edge on Rei more, but that's open to interpretation.

6: Hotaru

Hotaru and Mamoru are the characters the article did the most dirty. The article basically says that it's about Hotaru rather then Sailor Saturn (seemingly misinterpreting how the Saturn spirit works), and that Hotaru is a little girl and "naive." In act 44 we learn about the young Hotaru who has apparently read all the books in Michiru's study already and can quote Vergil, Blake and Einstein from memory including entire poems by Vergil. All this in six months despite her being a toddler at the time. Hotaru's a genius level intellect by adult standards, let alone the standards of her age.

This isn't even going into the psychic level of awareness she has. In the manga, Hotaru's character is supposed to be like the creepy child in a horror movie that knows more then she should. She's got just outright better feats of intelligence then Rei or Minako and also attended Mugen Academy, which was a school comprised of only genius level intellects. Now, in fairness, Mugen was run by Professor Tomoe, her then father at the time, so her getting may not really be due to her intelligence but there's no indication she struggled academically there.

5: Mamoru

As mentioned Mamoru and Hotaru were the characters the article most downplayed. The article goes on a bizarre tangent about how in most series the single male character in a cast of female characters would be the smart one but SM is progressive because he's outranked by the vast majority of the Senshi, mixing is misconceptions that Mamoru is just a distraction in combat. All of these are downright wrong; outside of ecchi series if a series had a singular male character who was the smart one in the last few decades people would immediatly blast it for being sexist. If anything the problem now is the inverse where women are treated as inherently intelligent and men inherently stupid, something which is sexist in its own right and unfair to both sexes, something SM does NOT do but the article seems to think it does.

Going over Mamoru's intelligence; Mamoru goes to a school with a 90 point differential, a school so elite that it's beyond any school in the real world before being accepted to Harvard College on scholarship. Mamoru uses crowd sourcing before the term is thought up in the real world to find the Silver Crystal at a rate more efficient then the Dark Kingdom, a literal magical kingdom of people devoted to finding it. Mamoru not only regularly shows tactical and clever thinking but is also treated as somewhat relative to the Outer Senshi and is probably peak human intelligence at the very least for his age. Comparing him to Hotaru; I think he's probably smarter as Hotaru seems to be roughly genius level intelligence while Mamoru is moreso peak human level.

Again not taking into account King Endymion's intelligence which would be above everyone on this list outside Usagi's future self. 

4: Haruka

The article puts both Haruka and Michiru at 7, below the Guardian Senshi which is pretty off not even taking into the fact that the article does not even try to rank between the two.

The Outer Senshi are introduced as older sister type figures to the Guardian Senshi, more powerful, more experience, more intelligent, and more serious then them. Haruka is a world class racecar driver who easily attends Mugen Academy, an academy for geniuses. She and Michiru were able to decieve Viluy and the other professors of Mugen Academy for an extended period of time, the professors of Mugen Academy being perfect daimon with intelligences a hundred times that of a human and Viluy being able to create type 1 level technology like a holographic simulation of a galaxy and nanobots that can destroy a body entirely. Because of this I think Haruka and Michiru are probably low level superhuman intellects, which puts them above Mamoru's intelligence feats. If you don't think decieiving Viluy should mean they're superhuman in intellect then Mamoru might be above them but they'd still be above Hotaru as they as her parents and intellectual guides who were impressed at her development but never expressed that her intelligence eclipsed them.

3: Michiru

Michiru has virtually the same feats as Haruka but is probably at least a bit smarter. A world class artist AND musician, Michiru is not only talented in numerous regards, she also spends more times in studies having many books in her study.

2: Setsuna

Setsuna's intelligence is praised by King Endymion for she has the intelligence of the ages, living across the ages. Setsuna is known for her incredible wisdom and experience eclipsing the other Outer Senshi by a wide margin. Early on even Ami though her intelligence was no match for her claiming Setsuna was a person who knows everything, Ami being a character capable of tracking someone through dimensions and creating inter-dimensional communicators. 

1: Ami

While early on Setsuna is arguably smarter then Ami, a key part of the early Dream Arc is the Guardian Senshi developing to be able to stand besides the Outer Senshi. Ami even early in the series has type 1 intelligence feats and directly decieving Viluy to her face who outright calls Ami the "genius girl" suggesting that she may view Ami's intelligence as impressive. These are intelligence feats that clearly surpass the feats of everyone else on this list and is before her intellectual development.

During Act 40, we learn of Ami's history. Hre mother is a rationalist workaholic working as a doctor, and her father a flighty artistic type that abandoned them when she was young. With her father's disappearence, it was though her creative and artistic self left with him, mkaing her cling to her intelligence, her rational and scientific side just as she clung to her mother, afraid of her leaving too, afraid that people only valued her for her intelligence and if that ever left she'd be alone. Upon realizing that the reason she studied so hard, why she had trained her intelligence was because of her emotions, her love for her friends, she was able to unite the rational and creative sides of her and unlocked a new level of intelligence for herself putting her as clearly the smartest character on this list....

except the article only puts her at 2. Who do they put as one.

Elephant in the Room Time: Luna and Artemis

So the article puts Luna and Artemis, which I'd struggle to think are main characters in any version, as the smartest, smarter then Ami. 

So I could legit sorta understand if the argument was they make these magical technological items for the Senshi to use. I don't think that argument works because they use magic to make them so the level of intelligence required is pretty unknown but at most they should be 2, probably 3, as in Act 3 Ami was able to creates a plan to use Henshin to teleport to Usagi in another dimension before Luna can despite having no memories of her past life as the time showing directly that she's smarter.

But the article doesn't use that argument, it basically says Luna and Artemis because they act as advisors for the Senshi and have knowledge of Moon Kingdom history. While it's true Luna and Artemis do advise the Senshi early on, and that's something of an intelligence feat, this is less true as the series goes on and knowledge of the Moon Kingdom is not unique to them after the Senshi have their memories awoken.

So how smart are Luna and Artemis and where would they place? Well they do know the ancient language and consequently are able to use Moon Kingdom technology although the intelligence needed to do this are unknown. They can seemingly hack into normal video games to put Senshi items as toys to be won by the Senshi and are smart enough that their advise is helpful to the Senshi early on, with Artemis in particular being relative to an early Minako despite her natural cleverness. I'd probably put them between Makoto and Minako/Rei. Between them, it's sorta implied Artemis is smarter then Luna and is actually her superior in rank which is why Artemis retained his full memory while Luna's memory was partially sealed, but there isn't any big gap between them.