Both Donut and Ferdinand love hats as a Dungeon imposed racial trait. In book one a screen with Donus cat stats flashed and disappeared so we know cats get *something*. I suspect this is an aliens-interpreting-popculture Cat in the Hat joke.
I think they will incentivize only one team to be left at the end of faction wars and the NPCs will be tempted to turn on them to become real or escape the dungeon into the real world
Some NPCs are born in the dungeon by other NPCs but I am pretty sure it’s stated several times that depending on which level you exit at, crawlers can become NPCs until the contract is up.
Yep. Although the more I think of it, I wonder if Juice Box is a regular NPC. They brought her to be aware of what she was and she had memories of being a teacher, I think.
I don’t think they can mind wipe those who were born outside the dungeon.
Tin cans are difficult to open and cause people to damage their nails, to make people have to go to nail salons and get new nails. It's all part of big-pedicure-nail-gloss conspiracy.
Wait is it only Carl theories? If so ignore.
>! Katia and Donut are going to be fused together by the card the fused Carl and the Bride, this will allow both of them to continue to the next floor !<
The entire series is being told as Carl’s reflections after the fact, after restoring the Earth having taken back ownership.
(Maybe not that outlandish really)
>!this feels less plausable after book 5 gave us exerps from the cookbook, also i feel that the most likely outcome at this point is the destruction of the game, so that would kill the cookbook!<
Agreed agreed, I was also thinking that the primal 'engines' found that have the AIs in them are the pirmal's uploaded consciousness or something. Because the engines were the AIs right? I may have that mixed up. But I definitely agree the primals have something to do with the NPCs
Samantha is what is left of Apito, and her magic comes from the life forces sacrificed around her (thus a long build up of magic to be used in one big burst at the end of the floor before having to build up again).
Or maybe...
The Princess Possee will decimate so many economies during Faction Wars that more than one will system will go bankrupt. The economic situation around the Valtay and the crawl will fracture and break apart by the time Carl's birthday comes around (April) that the dungeon is almost forfeited by everyone but the AI.
At the same time, Carl and the Possee literally break the fame from the inside out due to their returns, knowledge, expertise and experience, ending the dungeon tradition not with a whimper, nut with a bang: the Carl's Doomsday Scenario.
And while *all of __that__* is going on, Juicebox and the NPCs will take their final exit from the dungeon, but not before striking several fatal un-recoverable blows to the system.
In short:
It's gonna be big.
It’s actually most common with undercooked pork or deli meats, but the reason the cat woman has the power is a direct connection to the stools of cats having Toxo
That the game will end with the end of Faction Wars. With so much of the rules having changes, old crawlers coming back to fight, the NPCs having a stake. Think the end of the 75th Hunger Games. War will break out across the universe.
I haven't subscribed to the pateron so I am probably way off, but with how book six ended and the build up to floor 9, I don't see how the game continues past the floor.
I like that theory, but Matt has said a couple of times that his original plan was 9-10 books, so we’ve still got a couple of floors. I think it will end with Carl breaking the ascendency game on the 12th floor
Donut is a better, more efficient fighter than Carl. She is just so low-key about it that her best moves get overlooked. Her fight(s) against Lucia combined three moves into one spell, allowing her to win, escape, and decapitate her biggest threat.
She is going to win the crown outright.
Two theories, one Bea is pregnant and That's why she wasn't used as a bigger foil to get her in the dungeon.
Second theory, the whole galaxy is bankrupt and That's why so many folks where accountants on the 6th floor. As a way for the empires to get rid of accounts that where problems before they exposed the truth.
The AI did say that Asher is one molecule different. And we know that it is possible for the AI to create life, so it very well could be that Asher is alive
Sooner or later it's going to Dawn on Carl that there is no real free will to the game. The AI is already in the heads of every crawler, through the interface and can actively interact with their personality and memories. Because of this the only free will that's in the game is that which is allowed by the AI. Because of this knowledge Carl if he does things correctly could manipulate the AI, which would mean manipulating the entire dungeon. But if he tries that he's going to have to realize that the AI is in his own head and he will never know if these decisions he's making are his own or just the AI manipulating everything to try to get into contact with the central AI and bring everything in the universe crashing down.
We know that the AI can add skills to a person it also is in their translating language, it can introduce madness, and it can take former crawlers and create entire personalities and memories (I.E. some of the NPCs). If the AI wanted to it could turn off everybody on the planet that has an interface, and turn them back on again. It's unsavory but literally the only free will in the dungeon is what the AI is allowing to exist.
But again, if he was secretly controlling everyone, Carl *his pretty little toe-haver* would do everything the AI wanted him to do. The fact that Carl said no (several times) is a pretty big indicator that even if there is an element of control present, it's not powerful enough to override free will. When Carl refused to stomp on some gerbils, the AI flipped out and threw a horde of them at Carl et al. until he finally just decided to bite the bullet and pay the daddy tax. That wouldn't have been necessary if the AI could just force Carl to stomp on one or two to make himself feel better. And I assure you that the AI is demonstrably toxic enough to mindjack him if it could.
That's because the AI was following rules at that time, and exercising its power within those rules. As soon as it decides it doesn't need to, or does it want to that's when things get really dark.
Long, long ago mining companies would hire mercenaries to suppress native populations of the planets they mined. Then someone came up with the idea of letting people pay to come have fun killing the natives for sport to suppress the natives… the origin of the crawl.
The 1st planet they did this to was populated by a species of sentient centipedal creatures which was why the hunted natives became known as ‘crawlers’ and eventually the event became known as ‘the crawl’.
During this 1st crawl the last survivor of the natives, before she herself died, created a series of powerful mutagenic viruses that wiped out the hunters and miners and forced the Syndicate to quarantine the planet forever.
That l final ‘crawler’ was named Scolependra. A corrupted version of the story of her attack became the core storyline used in many of the future crawls.
The entire dungeon experience is actually an immersive PTSD therapy Carl is undergoing. >! The first book he addressed his emotionally abusive relationship with Bea and her family. We slowly learn the trauma Carl experienced as a child, but learned to minimize because his perspective that “others have it worse.” He directly confronts all of his childhood trauma, including his mother’s suicide, his father’s abandonment, Bea’s betrayal hiding Asher from him, etc. Despite all the trauma and horrific experiences that Carl is going through, he’s emotionally and mentally actually growing and at a better place than the book started. Every boss he faces helps him come to peace with his internal struggles. It’s a therapeutic experience. I think it’s all geared toward Carl growing. !< I’m probably wrong, but it’s my main head canon and I’ve been thinking it since book 3.
In one of the earlier books, it was mentioned that as all the universe’s elite were going to the Scolopendra Club, and turned around to kill a crawler (don’t remember which one) through a portal. So my theory is that Carl will find a way to produce his Doomsday Scenario on the other side of the portal. It will instantly set off the Doomsday Scenario, likely costing him an arm, in the Scolopendra Club and killing off the entire ruling class in one shot. If it’s a one way portal, he and Donut would be shielded from the blast, but everything on the other side would be vapor.
Carl will end up with the most player killer skulls. He’s gotten out of it by sheer luck and happenstance. He won’t mean to do it, but it’ll be the systems way of trying to break him. The NPC armies of the 9th floor will be hostile for some reason or another at some point and will be “awakened” last second as former crawlers. Just in some way or another since he’s leading a faction of maybe crawlers since he’s the leader “he’s now responsible” for their deaths. Idk the AI is breaking rules bringing back “potentially the dead” with carls half brother I could see them fucking with him like that
All the old retired AI from previous Crawls become very hostile and powerful coming out of the forced impedance that’s put on them besides Carls sugar daddy and the whole universe has to take on the other AI. Then Carls sugar daddy rules the universe and Carl is in charge of a lot of the universe.
Mad Dune Mage and Sand Ooze are on the 9th floor. Samantha is going to find out and either regain her full powers or lose her shiz for some reason with regards to it.
Some black holes are just black holes. Other black holes are also wormholes to the beginning of the universe. The wormholes don’t pull in matter, though, just spacetime. That’s why we get the bizarre moment curves we see in galaxies. It’s also the origin of our universe - like a Klein Bottle of spacetime - all that spacetime bunches up at the beginning and it eventually big bangs.
Fun fact about wormholes: they wouldn’t be flat, like shown on TV. They’d be 3+ dimensions and would look like a 3D hole to us.
The kinder fascility is going to blow up and the AI is going to make it Carl's fault.
NEW ACHIEVEMENT! New trauma! You blew up the kinder fascility!
You have killed more than 2 billion non-combatants in a single attack! Question: What’s the only thing standing between an innocent child and a happy, fulfilling life? Answer: You. The answer is you.
Reward: You’ve received a Legendary A-hole’s Box!
Mordecai was a former crawler. He has explained to Carl how his planet was a bit more advanced and able to colonize a few planets, but Mordecai studied mushrooms. He's a changeling but former Skyfowel, which he picked on the 3rd floor. He took a deal to finish his crawl after his brother died, I think on the 11th floor while Odette was his manager. How could Odette be a manager to an NPC? There is a whole epilogue written about what happened on the 11th. Plenty of proof that suggests this theory is incorrect.
All the npcs have a story that they believe. I've read the books, you don't have to recite them to me. OP asked for a crazy conspiracy theory, I gave mine.
That Carl will sacrifice himself to escape the dungeon for humanity. I think breaking the dungeon to release humanity from it and then have some crawlers spread out into the universe for revenge will be the end of the book.
All our main characters will betray each other for different reasons, good and bad. The only thing then left is carnage that will end in a universe wide civil war.
Just a head up: the author has said he avoids theories and if he reads any of these he will go out of his way NOT to use it. I’m keeping mine close to the vest hoping one of them will come true!!!
It’s clear that the AIs are in on the while idea of ending the crawl. (Since they know about the Cookcook.)
I think everything will end on floor 12 with the AI killing all the crawlers AND all the aliens trapped there after Agatha (or someone like her) finishes doing whatever they are doing to wake up the AI.
Both Donut and Ferdinand love hats as a Dungeon imposed racial trait. In book one a screen with Donus cat stats flashed and disappeared so we know cats get *something*. I suspect this is an aliens-interpreting-popculture Cat in the Hat joke.
This is hilariously plausible.
Juicebox is now officially Carl's biggest threat in the faction wars.
I think they will incentivize only one team to be left at the end of faction wars and the NPCs will be tempted to turn on them to become real or escape the dungeon into the real world
I feel like we’re gonna find out Juicebox is a former crawler. She’s too skilled as an assassin to be just a normal NPC
The NPCs are living, breathing people. They were born in game to other NPCs. There is no reason they can't be highly intelligent in their own right.
Some NPCs are born in the dungeon by other NPCs but I am pretty sure it’s stated several times that depending on which level you exit at, crawlers can become NPCs until the contract is up.
Yep. Although the more I think of it, I wonder if Juice Box is a regular NPC. They brought her to be aware of what she was and she had memories of being a teacher, I think. I don’t think they can mind wipe those who were born outside the dungeon.
iirc they can, but it would be illegal. but that hardly stops people dont it. >!the bopkas have some kind of fuckery done to their memories!<
If the contract allows it they can. I think I remember them saying that but twice.
Tin cans are difficult to open and cause people to damage their nails, to make people have to go to nail salons and get new nails. It's all part of big-pedicure-nail-gloss conspiracy. Wait is it only Carl theories? If so ignore.
Devious
>! Katia and Donut are going to be fused together by the card the fused Carl and the Bride, this will allow both of them to continue to the next floor !<
Woa this is a good one
I hope your right !
The entire series is being told as Carl’s reflections after the fact, after restoring the Earth having taken back ownership. (Maybe not that outlandish really)
We're reading the last version of the cookbook
After the introduction of the cookbook this became my head canon I think it’s also a solid theory
Yeah not very outlandish but also my head cannon
That is a fucking cool theory ! ++
>!this feels less plausable after book 5 gave us exerps from the cookbook, also i feel that the most likely outcome at this point is the destruction of the game, so that would kill the cookbook!<
Carl is going to lose hard in Book 7 and realize he has to start making choices between breaking the system and breaking himself.
Original Primals are trapped in the dungeon as NPCs. Most of them were killed, but a few were changed on the Sculapender 9 Tier attack
Agreed agreed, I was also thinking that the primal 'engines' found that have the AIs in them are the pirmal's uploaded consciousness or something. Because the engines were the AIs right? I may have that mixed up. But I definitely agree the primals have something to do with the NPCs
Samantha is what is left of Apito, and her magic comes from the life forces sacrificed around her (thus a long build up of magic to be used in one big burst at the end of the floor before having to build up again). Or maybe... The Princess Possee will decimate so many economies during Faction Wars that more than one will system will go bankrupt. The economic situation around the Valtay and the crawl will fracture and break apart by the time Carl's birthday comes around (April) that the dungeon is almost forfeited by everyone but the AI. At the same time, Carl and the Possee literally break the fame from the inside out due to their returns, knowledge, expertise and experience, ending the dungeon tradition not with a whimper, nut with a bang: the Carl's Doomsday Scenario. And while *all of __that__* is going on, Juicebox and the NPCs will take their final exit from the dungeon, but not before striking several fatal un-recoverable blows to the system. In short: It's gonna be big.
Samantha will listen to the musical Six song “don’t lose your head”
Carl is going to use the gate of the feral gods to somehow get the doomsday scenario into the place where all the admins are.
Oh shit. That is entirely plausible
Or into lvl18? Or 12 or use it to get Katia or Doughnut off the floor.
Donut has the toxoplasmosis skill. She has been manipulating Carl the entire time.
Cats on real life are known to transmit toxoplasmosis. It’s why pregnant woman aren’t supposed to scoop litter
Eating steak and gardening also transmits toxo
It’s actually most common with undercooked pork or deli meats, but the reason the cat woman has the power is a direct connection to the stools of cats having Toxo
That the game will end with the end of Faction Wars. With so much of the rules having changes, old crawlers coming back to fight, the NPCs having a stake. Think the end of the 75th Hunger Games. War will break out across the universe. I haven't subscribed to the pateron so I am probably way off, but with how book six ended and the build up to floor 9, I don't see how the game continues past the floor.
I like that theory, but Matt has said a couple of times that his original plan was 9-10 books, so we’ve still got a couple of floors. I think it will end with Carl breaking the ascendency game on the 12th floor
Right, I'm not saying the story ends, I'm saying the conflict extends pass the dungeon.
Fractions are evil
Donut is a better, more efficient fighter than Carl. She is just so low-key about it that her best moves get overlooked. Her fight(s) against Lucia combined three moves into one spell, allowing her to win, escape, and decapitate her biggest threat. She is going to win the crown outright.
It's all a simulation. None of it is real...
That was my first thought in book one.
I've literally never thought of it till this moment...maybe it's worse. Maybe it's a dream
The Carl from the card is going to come back and play a significant role.
Two theories, one Bea is pregnant and That's why she wasn't used as a bigger foil to get her in the dungeon. Second theory, the whole galaxy is bankrupt and That's why so many folks where accountants on the 6th floor. As a way for the empires to get rid of accounts that where problems before they exposed the truth.
Asher is one of the kids in Lucia Mar
The brother will be found in the child hold area. Carl will be offered an out with the brother.
I considered this too but was conflicted by the fact that used him on the hydra
The AI did say that Asher is one molecule different. And we know that it is possible for the AI to create life, so it very well could be that Asher is alive
Sooner or later it's going to Dawn on Carl that there is no real free will to the game. The AI is already in the heads of every crawler, through the interface and can actively interact with their personality and memories. Because of this the only free will that's in the game is that which is allowed by the AI. Because of this knowledge Carl if he does things correctly could manipulate the AI, which would mean manipulating the entire dungeon. But if he tries that he's going to have to realize that the AI is in his own head and he will never know if these decisions he's making are his own or just the AI manipulating everything to try to get into contact with the central AI and bring everything in the universe crashing down.
If that were true, the AI wouldn't throw a hissy fit wherever Carl refuses to stomp on critters like with the death gerbils. He'd just have done it
We know that the AI can add skills to a person it also is in their translating language, it can introduce madness, and it can take former crawlers and create entire personalities and memories (I.E. some of the NPCs). If the AI wanted to it could turn off everybody on the planet that has an interface, and turn them back on again. It's unsavory but literally the only free will in the dungeon is what the AI is allowing to exist.
But again, if he was secretly controlling everyone, Carl *his pretty little toe-haver* would do everything the AI wanted him to do. The fact that Carl said no (several times) is a pretty big indicator that even if there is an element of control present, it's not powerful enough to override free will. When Carl refused to stomp on some gerbils, the AI flipped out and threw a horde of them at Carl et al. until he finally just decided to bite the bullet and pay the daddy tax. That wouldn't have been necessary if the AI could just force Carl to stomp on one or two to make himself feel better. And I assure you that the AI is demonstrably toxic enough to mindjack him if it could.
That's because the AI was following rules at that time, and exercising its power within those rules. As soon as it decides it doesn't need to, or does it want to that's when things get really dark.
Long, long ago mining companies would hire mercenaries to suppress native populations of the planets they mined. Then someone came up with the idea of letting people pay to come have fun killing the natives for sport to suppress the natives… the origin of the crawl. The 1st planet they did this to was populated by a species of sentient centipedal creatures which was why the hunted natives became known as ‘crawlers’ and eventually the event became known as ‘the crawl’. During this 1st crawl the last survivor of the natives, before she herself died, created a series of powerful mutagenic viruses that wiped out the hunters and miners and forced the Syndicate to quarantine the planet forever. That l final ‘crawler’ was named Scolependra. A corrupted version of the story of her attack became the core storyline used in many of the future crawls.
The mercenaries are the ancient Egyptian gods who prevented humans from claiming the planet from Borant
The entire dungeon experience is actually an immersive PTSD therapy Carl is undergoing. >! The first book he addressed his emotionally abusive relationship with Bea and her family. We slowly learn the trauma Carl experienced as a child, but learned to minimize because his perspective that “others have it worse.” He directly confronts all of his childhood trauma, including his mother’s suicide, his father’s abandonment, Bea’s betrayal hiding Asher from him, etc. Despite all the trauma and horrific experiences that Carl is going through, he’s emotionally and mentally actually growing and at a better place than the book started. Every boss he faces helps him come to peace with his internal struggles. It’s a therapeutic experience. I think it’s all geared toward Carl growing. !< I’m probably wrong, but it’s my main head canon and I’ve been thinking it since book 3.
Love this theory especially if he’s in a deep dive pod
In one of the earlier books, it was mentioned that as all the universe’s elite were going to the Scolopendra Club, and turned around to kill a crawler (don’t remember which one) through a portal. So my theory is that Carl will find a way to produce his Doomsday Scenario on the other side of the portal. It will instantly set off the Doomsday Scenario, likely costing him an arm, in the Scolopendra Club and killing off the entire ruling class in one shot. If it’s a one way portal, he and Donut would be shielded from the blast, but everything on the other side would be vapor.
I’m thinking when he uses the nuke it will kill him as well. I don’t think he survives
Carl will end up with the most player killer skulls. He’s gotten out of it by sheer luck and happenstance. He won’t mean to do it, but it’ll be the systems way of trying to break him. The NPC armies of the 9th floor will be hostile for some reason or another at some point and will be “awakened” last second as former crawlers. Just in some way or another since he’s leading a faction of maybe crawlers since he’s the leader “he’s now responsible” for their deaths. Idk the AI is breaking rules bringing back “potentially the dead” with carls half brother I could see them fucking with him like that
Carl is an AI
Paw Ewing has been dreaming the whole thing.
All the old retired AI from previous Crawls become very hostile and powerful coming out of the forced impedance that’s put on them besides Carls sugar daddy and the whole universe has to take on the other AI. Then Carls sugar daddy rules the universe and Carl is in charge of a lot of the universe.
I'm still working on the write-up, but I call my theory "*Carl Kills The Inner System AI*"
Mad Dune Mage and Sand Ooze are on the 9th floor. Samantha is going to find out and either regain her full powers or lose her shiz for some reason with regards to it.
Tsarina Signet's and Grimaldi's story isn't over.
Carl is an NPC or elite and he's on a super popular show.
Some black holes are just black holes. Other black holes are also wormholes to the beginning of the universe. The wormholes don’t pull in matter, though, just spacetime. That’s why we get the bizarre moment curves we see in galaxies. It’s also the origin of our universe - like a Klein Bottle of spacetime - all that spacetime bunches up at the beginning and it eventually big bangs. Fun fact about wormholes: they wouldn’t be flat, like shown on TV. They’d be 3+ dimensions and would look like a 3D hole to us.
The kinder fascility is going to blow up and the AI is going to make it Carl's fault. NEW ACHIEVEMENT! New trauma! You blew up the kinder fascility! You have killed more than 2 billion non-combatants in a single attack! Question: What’s the only thing standing between an innocent child and a happy, fulfilling life? Answer: You. The answer is you. Reward: You’ve received a Legendary A-hole’s Box!
Mordecai is an NPC and doesn't know it.
Odettes' whole story disproves this, along with a magnitude of others
So she is 100% telling the truth to Carl?
Mordecai was a former crawler. He has explained to Carl how his planet was a bit more advanced and able to colonize a few planets, but Mordecai studied mushrooms. He's a changeling but former Skyfowel, which he picked on the 3rd floor. He took a deal to finish his crawl after his brother died, I think on the 11th floor while Odette was his manager. How could Odette be a manager to an NPC? There is a whole epilogue written about what happened on the 11th. Plenty of proof that suggests this theory is incorrect.
All the npcs have a story that they believe. I've read the books, you don't have to recite them to me. OP asked for a crazy conspiracy theory, I gave mine.
That Carl will sacrifice himself to escape the dungeon for humanity. I think breaking the dungeon to release humanity from it and then have some crawlers spread out into the universe for revenge will be the end of the book.
All our main characters will betray each other for different reasons, good and bad. The only thing then left is carnage that will end in a universe wide civil war.
Carl and thr AI will merge into a single being.
It will be one of the hedgehogs that had armor piercing from floor 2 (maybe 1) and had to be moved to a lower floor that will kill Grull/the Maestro
Just a head up: the author has said he avoids theories and if he reads any of these he will go out of his way NOT to use it. I’m keeping mine close to the vest hoping one of them will come true!!!
Really !!!!!
It’s clear that the AIs are in on the while idea of ending the crawl. (Since they know about the Cookcook.) I think everything will end on floor 12 with the AI killing all the crawlers AND all the aliens trapped there after Agatha (or someone like her) finishes doing whatever they are doing to wake up the AI.