SPOILER [Theory] Time Valley, Its Purpose, and Cosmic Magic

Hello, lately I've been looking at Time Valley and the surrounding areas and got intrigued by some of the things that I've found. I looked at most of the region's lore to formulate this theory (although, it's more of a collection of facts with speculation/theorycrafting mixed in), and I think that as you start to really look into the small snippets of lore, the mysteries surrounding this valley slowly start to unravel.

Note that, in this theory, I will be mostly disregarding the dark cultists living around the outskirts of the valley (who also spawn in the Ravine Village for some reason) and the castle with the dead Villagers and Paladins inside it (southeast of the building you get the Mysterious Gem in), as neither of these can be correlated with the Olm, which is the topic of this theory.

Now, we all know the deal with Time Valley: it was built by the Olm at an unknown time, for an unknown reason, but as they were constructing the valley, they accidentally ripped the fabric of time apart and caused the time in the area to be permanently altered, with temporal anomalies (Time Troubles) and the ghosts of long-dead Olm still wandering the area. Now, only Old Man Martyn remains to protect the area, who is possibly a descendant of the original creators of the ruins.

However, this is just the surface lore, which is already exposed to us from the beginning. As I've said before, there is more to uncover that may tell us, once and for all, why this valley was built and when it was built.

I will start by proving this fundamental point:

The Time Valley was built around the time of the Silent Expanse's destruction

Although the two common opinions are that the Time Valley was either built way before, or way after, the conquest of the Silent Expanse by Dern, I instead propose that the two events are quite close in the timeline. Why do I say this? Well, first off, let's look at the Time Valley's area discovery:

"The ruins here have been present longer than the portal. Only one person alive today understands this strange place. Time acts strangely here and it's apparent that whoever made them were not human."

From this, we know that the Time Valley was built somewhere in BP (Before Portal), not in AP, already ruling out a thousand years of history. In this manner, Old Man Martyn's line in Deja Vu that says that Asher was "stuck hundreds of years ago", when the Time Valley was being built, could prove to be quite misleading.

Second, for some reason, people seem to completely forget that Time Valley has a LOT of cosmic magic around it. Let's start with the obvious.

In the quest "Deja Vu", you have to prevent Asher from being killed from numerous hazards in a past time when the Time Valley was still being built. However, if you explore this area, you can find a sign that says: "WARNING: COSMIC EVENT INBOUND. ALL OLM EVACUATE."
The "cosmic event" in question (which would obviously be related to meteors) happens during the final part of the quest stage where you have to protect Asher. In order to stop Asher from getting flattened by the meteor, you have to load a cannonball into a cannon and blast the meteor back into Hell right where it belongs (implying the Olm already knew cosmic events of this nature were already happening, possibly from observing the same meteors fall all over Silent Expanse mountains, because why else would you have a cannon in a peaceful construction site?).

Already, this tells us that cosmic events of this nature were commonplace not only in the Silent Expanse, but in the Time Valley. Yet, that's not the only pieces of evidence I have. Within a cave in the valley, close to Tempo Town, there are a lot of "rocks" of purple and blue coloring scattered all over the cave. They look very out of place and like they don't belong to the actual geology and nature of the cave, suggesting that these are no normal rocks, but instead, meteors, just like the ones we've encountered in many other places as well. Here they are:

Spoiler: Odd rocks in Time Valley cave

https://imgur.com/a/M6oqMsW

The first image is not from the same cave as all the other screenshots, instead it's from the area where you fight the unsealed Time Trouble and then get taken to Martyn afterwards. Notice the incredible amount of seemingly out of place purple and blue colors. Furthermore, if you don't believe these are meteors, look at the fourth image: energy is seemingly radiating from this rock, embedded into the wall, in the form of stained glass and stained glass panes, very much resembling how cosmic magic is represented. Also, the presence of Time Turrets in this cave (and literally nowhere else) implies that the Olm did eventually find these meteors and placed the turrets there, either to prevent anyone from finding them, or to study them.

This is compelling evidence that something similar to the meteors falling in the Silent Expanse mountains also occurred here in the Time Valley, most likely as the same time, as never before (or after) this massive onslaught of meteors, does something similar ever happen. Most fallen meteors after this event only fall once in a blue moon, and alone, rather than in groups (such as the meteor that the wand "Pure" was carved out of, which fell 50 years ago, although item lore is item lore), while a lot of meteors fell in Time Valley.

It is also likely that this event can be connected to Gavel's Gylia Cataclysm, which occurred in 1400 BP, since it is likely that the Olm lived around that point anyway. Furthermore, the meteors in Time Valley are only purple and blue. Guess what other meteors are purple and blue? That's right, the meteors under Lake Gylia that triggered the cataclysm in the first place.
We also know from "A Wynnic Excavation" that there already were meteors in the Silent Expanse's mountains as far as 800 BP, not long after the Cataclysm, and by this point in time the Olm must've already died out (as the crystals in the discovery are only there in the first place because the Olm hid them back there after the Dernic Beast forced them into hiding in the jungle).
You could also try and connect this to the destruction of the Desert Empire, also in 1400 BP, as Hashr mentions that he found magical life outside of the Desert and that "they" taught him many things, possibly implying the Olm, but this is quite far fetched and could just as equally mean that he was taught by the Frumans, who likely also existed around that time, or just magical creatures in general.

Finally, we have the dying Olm in the "Timeless Ruin" secret discovery, who states: "The Olm cannot survive here. Time has been ripped asunder... Our only hope is... The Expans-", stating that the time in the valley was already distorted for a long while, and although this may sound like a contradiction to the theory, considering the vagueness of the dialogue and the situation the dying Olm is in (probably stuck in a time paradox just like Asher, randomly warping in and out of being dead and being alive, possibly not even knowing or remembering what happened in the Silent Expanse), this dialogue could be interpreted to mean literally anything.

So, now we have a time in which the Time Valley was likely built: around the same time as the destruction of the Silent Expanse, which in of itself is around 1400 BP, same time as the Gylia Cataclysm. However, now we need a motive: why was the Valley built?
Well, since as I already said the Valley and the Silent Expanse's destruction are very close in the timeline, this should become quite clear.

I find it likely that the Olm, once they saw Dern conquering their home, wanted to try and revert (or at least, try to prevent) the conflict from happening in the first place. By building the Valley and the Door of Time (which can take you back to any point in time as long as you have an artifact from that time), the Olm would try to use it to go back in time or manipulate time to make sure that everything goes back to normal, and that the invasion of Dern, while not fully prevented, could be predicted and repelled. However, due to the immense scale of this planned operation, the Olm eventually messed up and ended up twisting time and "ripping it asunder", as the Olm in the Timeless Ruin puts it, dooming the Time Valley and turning it into a wasteland forever. And who knows, maybe some Olm did survive the whole ordeal and ended up joining the other escaping Olm in the Ancient City in the Dernel Jungle.

TL;DR: Around 1400 BP, while swarms of meteors were endlessly crashing into Wynn and Gavel, the Silent Expanse was invaded by Dern. The Time Valley was built around this time to try and revert the invasion, or try to prevent it from happening, but the Olm messed up and instead tore time asunder, leaving very few survivors.

Thanks for reading!

 

Very cool, but you forgot one key detail:

Spoiler: deeznuts

They look pretty similar, no? Same 2 pixel eyes and mouth, similar skin-tone... thus proving that Time Valley is actually connected to Undertale.

Now: this may trigger a revelation. Sans. Sans undertale. Sans undertale from sans Undertale can control time. It's all connected.
Sans undertale is behind this.

Now consider the blue rocks. What else is blue? Sans' eye in the sans bossfight. He wears a blue coat. The meteors are created by the skeleton himself.
The old Time Valley quest was suspended flowers. Flowey from Undertale.
Then we have the Temple of Time. Long walkway, with pillars. What else is a long walkway with pillars? The area in which the Sans bossfight is triggered.

All these point to the fact that Time Valley is actually in its state due to san sundertale. But what does this have to do with the Olm?

You see:



Sans. Sans Undertale. The funny skeleton from the funny game.
You see: sans is Dern. Sans wiped out Time Valley. It all makes sense, doesn't it? Dern Beast is represented by The Eye. Who else is known for having a special eye?

But what motive would Sans have?
We will never know.

 

seems legit

 

ah i see

 

There also seem to be green ones in Time Valley, but those could just be rocks

If you choose to believe the lore of Lunar Spine as canon, it states that the wand was made from a meteor that was unearthed during the excavation of the Nether Portal, which is further proof that meteors were falling all over the world

Strangely, it's implied that Gavel is still getting hit by meteors occasionally and according to Mehme's texts, he thinks someone or something somewhere is doing it. His assumption that aliens exist is correct considering that Wybels exist and have likely come from very far away (the ones on the moon were from a crashed spaceship) so it's weird. I did consider that it was the Dern beast using meteors to weaken its targets however:

• Why would it have attacked Gavel 400 years before the Equinox?
• Why would it stop its attack on Wynn after the Olm were gone? Would it have assumed that the Corruption was strong enough?
• Why would it have continued to bombard Gavel when that could prove unhelpful to the Decay?

 

Cosmic magic isn't like any other magic that can be found in this world, and it might even have the power to ward off Darkness (considering how Dern never made it past the SE mountains and that Gylia Plains aren't decayed), so I do think that it is literally from out of this world and created/mastered by someone "out there"

So, I will ride on the assumption that the meteors were sent to Wynn and Gavel not by the Dern Beast or Orphion, but either by some alien civilization or some space wizard (though I find the first more likely). Why were the meteors sent down in the first place? I can think of two motives:

1. The meteor senders wanted to destroy Wynn for reasons unknown, maybe they thought Light, Dark and Corruption were threats
2. The meteor senders wanted to use the meteors to "contain" the Darkness to a few certain areas, assuming cosmic magic can ward off Darkness, again because they saw it as a threat.

And who knows, maybe they too could see the future using the same technology the Olm used. We just don't know, because there is only one mention of the "people who cast the magic on the meteors" ever.

I should write an unified megatheory about cosmic magic one day.

 

Very well thought out theory and very well written thread, brother. Much respect.

 

Another theory I considered is that the meteors are being sent by Wybels from their home planet in some weird attempt to rescue them from our planet, and are inadvertently helping us deter the Darkness

 

That is certainly possible, though most lore people I know frown at the idea of Wybels being the creators of cosmic magic. IIRC the cosmic magic (which they probably used as their fuel source) somewhat "dumbed" them down into household pets, though they still retain some of their intelligence. Again I can see the possibility there. If we had an actual timeline for when the Wybels' ship crashed into Wynn, then that would be helpful, but alas we don't. We don't even know if the Wybels are immortal or if they have a lifespan

 

yeah no this is pretty much correct

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absolutely amazing theory lol can't say much on the topic but I enjoyed reading it

 

what if the olm knew they couldn't win in their time so they travelled to the future (now the present) to help us defeat dern

 

Could be, though we don't see any Olm in the present besides the ones in the Ancient City in the jungle

 

(and it should be noted that the mentioned olm have gone insane and are likely just the inhabitants of the ruins)