The Servant Summoning system lore is honestly a mess. You can definitely get the impression that this explanation was tacked on during the FGO development, since the previous entries implied that Cavalry Class Containers were invented by the Mages participating in the previous Grail Wars, which makes no sense since they already exist.
Not to mention, why do Bonus Class Servants exist in the first place? For example, Rulers are meant to be arbiters of the Wars because they allegedly lack any Wishes of their own and are content to resolve disputes… only, if a Grail War is a human invention, then Rulers are, too. And pardon me, but Mages inventing a Class whose sole role is to ensure nobody would cheat strains my suspense of disbelief.
And that's not talking about Moon Cancers, Fakers, Alter Egos, fucking Foreigners-
Gah.
Nevermind that. I still like how you used the plotline to summarize the Servant System for anyone who might be unfamiliar with it, so it's fine.
… kinda miffed that Taylor couldn't hold it in and spoiled the surprise, the next chapter sounds like a cool time for a dramatic reveal of Nick's identity as he faces off against a fellow alchemist.
Moon Cancers, aka Grail Cancers, are the exact sort of thing the Ruler class is meant to stop. Foreigners, as the name implies, aren't supposed to be part of the system, coming as they do from Outside Human Order. Fakers/Pretenders impersonate members of the other Classes. Alter Egos are deliberate creations, fragments split off from their origins and given independent existence. Avengers, as Id reveals, exist to locate perpetrators of injustice and terminate them with extreme prejudice. And Beasts, of course, are the exact thing that the Servant Summoning System was created to fight against; they only count as Servants because the SSS was reverse-engineered from the Beasts themselves.
It's a bit of a mess, but not as much as you think. Solomon is a candidate for grand Caster. Grand Servants are, in essence, regular servants in a more powerful container.
Other candidates are merlin, Gilgamesh, and a few others.
However, to explain Solomons plan and what's going on is a massive spoiler that I don't want to reveal because it is heartbreaking.
now wait, are you saying that the events from gold morning wouldn't have warranted a grand servant intervening? that seems unlikely since it was comparable at the very least to the singularity 7 threat, if maybe not progressed as far.
i'm hoping we'll get some more clarification on how wormverse ties into the fate universe. because if you continue down the FGO timeline you start running into the quantum timelock and pruning of adjacent worlds lore and i'm hoping to see at least an attempt at squaring worm with the aliens and parahumans and gold morning with the 'true' timeline from fate. is wormverse functionally a pruned world that could become a lostbelt?
now wait, are you saying that the events from gold morning wouldn't have warranted a grand servant intervening? that seems unlikely since it was comparable at the very least to the singularity 7 threat, if maybe not progressed as far.
It's most likely because they managed to pull a W even without a Grand. Grand Servants mostly pop up to fight a Beast. Like how Gramps was summoned to deal with Tiamat in Babylonia.
now wait, are you saying that the events from gold morning wouldn't have warranted a grand servant intervening? that seems unlikely since it was comparable at the very least to the singularity 7 threat, if maybe not progressed as far.
i'm hoping we'll get some more clarification on how wormverse ties into the fate universe. because if you continue down the FGO timeline you start running into the quantum timelock and pruning of adjacent worlds lore and i'm hoping to see at least an attempt at squaring worm with the aliens and parahumans and gold morning with the 'true' timeline from fate. is wormverse functionally a pruned world that could become a lostbelt?
It's most likely because they managed to pull a W even without a Grand. Grand Servants mostly pop up to fight a Beast. Like how Gramps was summoned to deal with Tiamat in Babylonia.
It could also be something else. The counterforce is/controlled by, iirc, alaya. And alaya is the collective will of all of humanity. Scion and the shards were taking advantage of humans and infecting them with shards, altering the way humanity views and perceives things over time. Not directly, but by manipulating them.
Grand Servants and counter guardians probably didn't show up precisely because of this. Scion effectively attacked what produced the Anti bodies that would've stopped him, potentially preventing Grand Servants or any Servants in general from showing up to stop him.
It could also be something else. The counterforce is/controlled by, iirc, alaya. And alaya is the collective will of all of humanity. Scion and the shards were taking advantage of humans and infecting them with shards, altering the way humanity views and perceives things over time. Not directly, but by manipulating them.
Grand Servants and counter guardians probably didn't show up precisely because of this. Scion effectively attacked what produced the Anti bodies that would've stopped him, potentially preventing Grand Servants or any Servants in general from showing up to stop him.
This would make a lot of sense as well because wormverse says the entities have done this to a massive number of other intelligent species as well. There is no way those other species wouldn't also have their own versions of Alaya. This would mean the entities had beaten Alaya like beings before which would make your exploration make a lot of sense. Would even fill in some of the oddness about the entities whole method by explaining it as a way of avoiding these defences.
now wait, are you saying that the events from gold morning wouldn't have warranted a grand servant intervening? that seems unlikely since it was comparable at the very least to the singularity 7 threat, if maybe not progressed as far.
It also could be that there was no need for a grand servant because Taylor succeeded in saving all the worlds. If Taylor had died back in Brockton Bay, maybe a grand servant would have shown up during Gold Morning then, but because Khepri was there and didn't need the help, (even if it would have been greatly appreciated,) Alaya didn't bother sending anybody.
I could have sworn more happened in the canon FGO when the Master of Chaldea went there looking for insight and stuff beyond hinting at the Grand Servants... though considering I played that section over 6 yrs ago I could easily be wrong. Also I loved Maria dunking on Anderson here, felt really right and earned.
now wait, are you saying that the events from gold morning wouldn't have warranted a grand servant intervening? that seems unlikely since it was comparable at the very least to the singularity 7 threat, if maybe not progressed as far.
i'm hoping we'll get some more clarification on how wormverse ties into the fate universe. because if you continue down the FGO timeline you start running into the quantum timelock and pruning of adjacent worlds lore and i'm hoping to see at least an attempt at squaring worm with the aliens and parahumans and gold morning with the 'true' timeline from fate. is wormverse functionally a pruned world that could become a lostbelt?
Firstly, the Entities had some kind of ability to hide from, trick, or otherwise suppress planetary defense mechanisms in this story. It's the only way they could exist in Nasu's universe given what they do to planets that very much want to continue living.
Secondly, even if the CF was fully able to act the situation hadn't deteriorated far enough for a Grand to show up. The multitude of Capes fighting Scion and keeping him busy far away from large concentrations of human life kept the casualties too far down (I know, billions dead and doomed in 48 hours is hardly what I would call low, but the CF works at a different scale) to warrant a Grand. He simply wasn't posing enough of a threat, yet. If the Capes failed there eventually would've been a Grand response from the CF, probably. If Taylor chose poorly, and went Beast at the end there also would've been a Grand deployed because Beasts are intrinsically a serious and immediate threat to mankind as far as the CF is concerned. Humanity is set to On Sight when it comes to Beasts.
Some of these had to be way too old to be what we were looking for, though. One of the scrolls I found was written in Ancient Greek, and it took a few seconds for Chaldea's translation program to convert it into something intelligible for me. I had to double check when I realized it had been written by Pythagoras, a treatise on the use of symbolism in formulcraft and its relation to Kabbalah, and I had to admit, it made too much sense that he was actually a mage all along.
Alright pay attention people this part here is important as Pythagoras doesn't show up in Fate works so we're looking at an OC Servant down the line. Also @James D. Fawkes you genuinely have me curious as to how you will portray the man regarded as the father of the branch of occultism that Magecraft is based off of by said branch itself.
Andersen deflated, but Rika was immediately on alert. "Wait, what? So then, why haven't we met one of these Grand guys yet? I've faced enough tentacle monsters, thank you very much!"
That was a good question. And unfortunately, when I gave it any thought, I was pretty sure I had the answer.
"Because despite everything," I said, "these Singularities still aren't a great enough threat to warrant it."
I thought of a golden man, firing blasts of golden light, of an army arrayed against him, fighting desperately just to survive long enough to find a way to defeat him. Of a single young woman in the middle of all of that, barely able to string any thoughts together other than whatever it took to win.
If even that hadn't brought a Grand Servant to the field, then something that could be handled without needing to sacrifice anywhere near that much wouldn't bring one out either.
"Unfortunately, Taylor has the right of it," said Da Vinci apologetically. "Everything you've encountered so far is something that ordinary Servants could handle, even if it required multiple at once to deal with. The sort of situation that would require a Grand Servant's intervention… At that point, Chaldea would essentially be relegated to sitting on the sidelines and watching. Any efforts you could put out would be ineffective."
"So this entire time," said Andersen, wiping a hand down his face, "I could have just asked…"
And here we have IC bad information leading to bad conclusions.
In the case of Worm it is outright stated in one of the Entity Interludes that Scion and Eden intentionally isolated the Earths they were parasitizing from the rest of the multiverse with some sort of multiversal fence specifically because they had no means of figuring out what was going on and that any version of Earth that could detect them was left out of the Host Earths and unaware that anything had changed. So Alaya was basically Imped in the case of Scion's rampage until the point he would have breached that fence that cordoned the Host Earths which did not happen because what was left of the Warrior got Khepried before that.
In the case of Fate/Grand Order and this fanfic it has been already been established that Solomon has something to do with the events and that he is a Grand Caster candidate so if Alaya is not summoning Grand Servants it is because that mechanism is being suppressed in some way and only the Holy Grail summoning is working right now.
The sense I get is that Theo is definitely a candidate. Whether he ever made it is a bit of an open question, but I'm leaning towards, "It's more likely than not."
Whether it's ever going to be relevant to the narrative in this story, well, that's another question entirely. The hints already given, in the text, in my other posts, and in the anniversary "trailer" are all the more I intend to give on the subject of future story beats, especially in regards to NAET.
It could also be something else. The counterforce is/controlled by, iirc, alaya. And alaya is the collective will of all of humanity. Scion and the shards were taking advantage of humans and infecting them with shards, altering the way humanity views and perceives things over time. Not directly, but by manipulating them.
Grand Servants and counter guardians probably didn't show up precisely because of this. Scion effectively attacked what produced the Anti bodies that would've stopped him, potentially preventing Grand Servants or any Servants in general from showing up to stop him.
Also, the situation had not deteriorated enough, Taylor escalated so quickly that Alaya probably went "hold on, help is coming.....wait it has been solved?Already?! Wow, good job, come here!"
The sense I get is that Theo is definitely a candidate. Whether he ever made it is a bit of an open question, but I'm leaning towards, "It's more likely than not."
Also, the situation had not deteriorated enough, Taylor escalated so quickly that Alaya probably went "hold on, help is coming.....wait it has been solved?Already?! Wow, good job, come here!"
Also, Alaya too work by escalation, and one can argue that what happened in Worm canon was, as far as this setting is concerned, Alaya's standard Modus Operandi when it comes to solving problems while remaining on the 'low energy cost' budget: arranging for the people with the right skillsets and mentalities to be there to solve the problem, even at the risk of unpalatable prices being paid.
Servants are called after the 'arrange for the right people to be there for the job' does not work anymore, Grand Servants for BEASTs and similar threats that Servants cannot solve, Counter Guardians in killbot mode under a Scorched Earth policy when the damage has become too wide spread/too entrenched but the situation is still salvageable, and the final level is "Cut the loss and all the Branches of the Tree of Time that would end with this outcome, place a Quantum Time Lock to stop it from continuing to exist".
I could have sworn more happened in the canon FGO when the Master of Chaldea went there looking for insight and stuff beyond hinting at the Grand Servants... though considering I played that section over 6 yrs ago I could easily be wrong. Also I loved Maria dunking on Anderson here, felt really right and earned.
Also, the situation had not deteriorated enough, Taylor escalated so quickly that Alaya probably went "hold on, help is coming.....wait it has been solved?Already?! Wow, good job, come here!"
It's more likely the counter force was putting it's finger on the scales and nudging things gm was frankly a horrible mess and took something like a dozen miracles for scion to be defeated from doormakers power running out alone about a dozen people other than Taylor had to come in with hail mary clutch saves to stop things falling apart to say nothing of the fact that jailbreaking Taylor's power even worked or that it didn't kill her before scion died.
Heck taking it a step further when Dinah was trying to convince Taylor that Dinah's betrayal of her was justified she stated Taylor was always at the centre of every view of gm she had which means there was no future where she died before gm. In pure worm that can be considered to be Contessa and Ziz manipulating things but a worm cross adds in the counter force and possibly pruning as valid explanations.
I could have sworn more happened in the canon FGO when the Master of Chaldea went there looking for insight and stuff beyond hinting at the Grand Servants... though considering I played that section over 6 yrs ago I could easily be wrong. Also I loved Maria dunking on Anderson here, felt really right and earned.
Honestly it's a weird thing where what makes sense meets early FGO writing. In canon London, everybody in Chaldea was either unaware of Grand Servants (nearly everyone) or keeping it secret because revealing it would draw too much attention (Roman). But too much of the latter half of Part 2 is based on Marisbury knowing about all this stuff and working it into his Grand Order plans, so logically Chaldea should've known already and not needed Sherlock and Andersen's help to figure this out. But they didn't, so the only explanation I could have for that is that everyone who knew died at the start of the Grand Order with that explosion in the beginning of the story.
Frankly, I can't even say that canon Olga would've known about Grand Servants like in this fic because frankly? Marisbury kept so many secrets from Olga that she hardly knew about what she was doing and what she needed to know as Director. She had no clue about Mash until she took over as Director, she had no idea about the Seraphix experiments, heck she had no idea about the Siriuslight. That was the entire thing about Olga - despite doing her best, she ultimately failed to be who she wanted because nearly everyone sabotaged her, including her mentor and her father.
So I can't really enjoy this scene that's lambasting Andersen because it kind of misses the point of why the original scene even happened. That in canon, Chaldea was so behind on what they needed to know that outsiders needed to explain to them the very basis of their own Summoning System. I get why this was written, it fixes a plothole by having Chaldea know this already instead of needing it to be explained to them, but I feel like it's been done a bit more harshly than it needed to be.
The sense I get is that Theo is definitely a candidate. Whether he ever made it is a bit of an open question, but I'm leaning towards, "It's more likely than not."
Whether it's ever going to be relevant to the narrative in this story, well, that's another question entirely. The hints already given, in the text, in my other posts, and in the anniversary "trailer" are all the more I intend to give on the subject of future story beats, especially in regards to NAET.
Thank you for your response. Frankly, that's more than enough for me.
About characters being on the throne, if you don't mind a bit of unsolicited advice, there are two points I believe you should consider.
The first is that you are the Author. There are plenty of servants in Fate that probably shouldn't be on the throne at all yet are. Whether from history, fiction, or parahumans you can use them if you feel like it. You don't necessarily have to give an explanation. This and Chaldeas summoning system give you a lot of freedom to explore who does and doesn't show up. This doesn't necessarily mean go wild, but if there's someone from history or someplace else you want to use there isn't much to say you can't.
The second is this and I think may be a bit more helpful. I brought it up before, but I want to mention it again. High Servants and Combined servants are a thing.
There isnt much difference between them, but the result is the same. If a heroic spirits legend is just shy of allowing them to manifest, the throne has, especially in the case of chaldea, filled in the pieces with other Heroic spirits.
Well I think more helpful with parahumans, as this is something of taken to hear when creating parahuman servants myself, you can use it for other characters. Nemo us a combined/high servant with Triton. Sitonai is a high servant with multiple parts. Hessian Lobo uses Hessian, Lobo and a third spirit.
If you have someone you want to show up but feel they cannot, there are options for you. Pseudo servants is one, but combined and high Servants are another.
There are ways to get the results that you want to happen into the story. Just get creative!
now wait, are you saying that the events from gold morning wouldn't have warranted a grand servant intervening? that seems unlikely since it was comparable at the very least to the singularity 7 threat, if maybe not progressed as far.
i'm hoping we'll get some more clarification on how wormverse ties into the fate universe. because if you continue down the FGO timeline you start running into the quantum timelock and pruning of adjacent worlds lore and i'm hoping to see at least an attempt at squaring worm with the aliens and parahumans and gold morning with the 'true' timeline from fate. is wormverse functionally a pruned world that could become a lostbelt?
as others have said, it was simply not needed, at most you could argue that the low energy 'put the right people in the right spot' thing the counter force does was in play, had taylor lost or something, then things would be different
as for what kinda world earth bet would be in fate, well a lostbelt requires it to have been pruned yet stick around, probably with one of those trees, but earth bet can still be recovered, things are not lost and stagnant just yet, it still has hope, thus is not pruned just yet, but they are evacuating it due to the hazards present and the portals that are connected to other worlds, tying them together, so at worst, earth bet is deemed lost and pruned, but then recovered because people are still around with access to it in some manner similar to the british lostbelt, hence lostworld is most likely if it absolutely has to be one of the fate types. More likely tho, it's just allowed to stick around.
i think you're remembering things wrong, she said that taylor would be in the center of gold morning, in every timeline where she survives that long.
her survival was not guaranteed, it was fully possible for her to just slip and die, or die in a battle in the 2 year in between period. just that in all instances where she lives she'll be in midst of things fighting with her all
now wait, are you saying that the events from gold morning wouldn't have warranted a grand servant intervening? that seems unlikely since it was comparable at the very least to the singularity 7 threat, if maybe not progressed as far.
i'm hoping we'll get some more clarification on how wormverse ties into the fate universe. because if you continue down the FGO timeline you start running into the quantum timelock and pruning of adjacent worlds lore and i'm hoping to see at least an attempt at squaring worm with the aliens and parahumans and gold morning with the 'true' timeline from fate. is wormverse functionally a pruned world that could become a lostbelt?
I mean, entities exist in a universe that has the Velber, the original Olympians and the Types, plus whatever else we don't even know about.
Chances are that after 3000+ cycles and all observations in between these cycli entities just know how to deal with planetary consciousnesses. Just like how any competent virus knows how to subvert the immune system long enough to reproduce. Half of the pair that landed on earth was specialised in countering those big threats. Chances are the counterforce literally couldn't summon anything in any of the worlds that had been infected.
Ryuugi had a lot of things to say about that back when he was still writing Gold. It's possible that the remnants of the Firmanent and the still active shards are the only thing still pinning those timelines to existence. Maybe in the long term Shards will assimilate in the human order or into Gaia the way the Greek and the Aztec pantheon did a long time ago.
It could also be something else. The counterforce is/controlled by, iirc, alaya. And alaya is the collective will of all of humanity. Scion and the shards were taking advantage of humans and infecting them with shards, altering the way humanity views and perceives things over time. Not directly, but by manipulating them.
Grand Servants and counter guardians probably didn't show up precisely because of this. Scion effectively attacked what produced the Anti bodies that would've stopped him, potentially preventing Grand Servants or any Servants in general from showing up to stop him.
It also could be that there was no need for a grand servant because Taylor succeeded in saving all the worlds. If Taylor had died back in Brockton Bay, maybe a grand servant would have shown up during Gold Morning then, but because Khepri was there and didn't need the help, (even if it would have been greatly appreciated,) Alaya didn't bother sending anybody.
Also, the situation had not deteriorated enough, Taylor escalated so quickly that Alaya probably went "hold on, help is coming.....wait it has been solved?Already?! Wow, good job, come here!"
Pretty much all of this
The Counter Force didn't send anyone to help...because humanity already had it handled. as many people died, humanity DID pull off that win without the help of any Servants
and to me that's why- even if you want to disregard everything else she did- Taylor ended up on the Throne herself.
Like, OP has already stated that depending on how well you're known and how much you've done capes have absolutely ended up on the Throne, and to me Taylor had enough of both under her belt to have already qualified.
But during the apocalypse, she led the charge. whether you want to consider her Taylor, Skitter, Weaver, or Khepri, she was the one that led the charge, directed the army, killed the monster, and saved humanity.
...actually, bit of a side tangent, but this is something that's been on my mind for awhile
So in the realm of us talking about Servant Taylor, something about her story occurs to me
Even if you want to argue against Taylor's ability to kill gods (which, I mean, at least in this story other Servants have already hinted this is in her repertoire), even if you discount that, a lot of Taylor's career and a significant part of her reputation is built on her talent for winning fights she has no right winning, and killing enemies that have reputations for being nigh-unto unstoppable
Lung
Mannequin
Siberian
The Nine in general, for that matter
The Butcher
Coil (for fuck's sakes, as far as the people involved knew they were fighting fate itself with this motherfucker. We as the audience know better; they don't)
Alexandria
Hell, fighting the Endbringers was a feat unto itself. Outside a core of veterans, you generally didn't fight an Endbringer unless it came to YOUR city, and even on a good day the average odds of you dying are 1 in 4, and injury much higher. Taylor, once she got going, fought in every. Single. Endbringer fight. Until the end of the world. This is known, this is documented, this was televised. She fought virtually undefeatable monsters every two months for two years as a regular gig.
This is what her reputation is built on: winning fights that by all rights and reason she shouldn't be able to
And if you don't want to take my word for it, you don't have to. Go read Sierra's interlude, when Skitter shows up to save her, Charlotte, and the kids from the ABB washouts.
Like, we as the audience are always inside Taylor's head. We know what she thinks of herself and her capabilities, we know how she considers her accomplishments, how she doesn't think she's doing enough.
But the Throne cares what people who aren't Taylor think, and this is what people on the outside see about Taylor/Skitter/Weaver/Khepri
Sierra talks about how surreal it is to talk about 'handling' the Nine. She outright says that the Nine are horror movie monsters made real, that you don't beat them, they never stay dead.
Skitter? In her flat, droning monotone buzz?
"Burnscar's dead. Crawler's dead. Mannequin is probably dead. Cherish and Shatterbird wish they were dead. Found Siberian's weakness, that's going public. What's left of the Nine fled."
We meme on them constantly in this community, but to the people of Earth Bet North America? These are the bogeymen. And Skitter just made them flee with their tails between their legs.
This is the first time we actually see Skitter in action from the outside, and even from someone who likes Skitter, who trusts her…Skitter is eerie, alien, and ruthless.
Sierra goes on to say- and this is someone who knows Taylor, who has seen behind the curtain and under the mask- that the more she learns about Skitter, the better she understands her…the more Skitter scares her. that despite the unknown and the disgusting being the things we should fear most, uncovering the deeper layers of who Skitter is only reveals her to be more dangerous
And again, this is coming from someone who knows Skitter and has a decent insight into her character. To someone who doesn't have that context? She already IS a monster. Sierra's description expressly says that she can't actually tell where the swarm, the nest of insects, stops and the girl begins, and isn't that just the creepiest?
…hell, if you read it that way, even all the way back then
Taylor's description in that Interlude, the way she is characterized…she already sounds like an Assassin
So I can't really enjoy this scene that's lambasting Andersen because it kind of misses the point of why the original scene even happened. That in canon, Chaldea was so behind on what they needed to know that outsiders needed to explain to them the very basis of their own Summoning System. I get why this was written, it fixes a plothole by having Chaldea know this already instead of needing it to be explained to them, but I feel like it's been done a bit more harshly than it needed to be.
i mean, as a few others have pointed out Andersen would have wanted to get the confirmation with his own eyes. For all he knows Chaldea could be lying- to him, to its Masters, or both- and he wants to make sure he knows what he's being told is the truth. Marie telling him,'yeah, that's what i said' shouldn't really do anything, because now he has confirmation.
So i agree, but this also puts cards on the table because even if Marie (and Roman and da Vinci) knows that...the Masters don't. their Servants probably don't. and Andersen doesn't. so it everyone on teh same playing field so everyone knows what's going on. if that creates an argument because someone was lying or obfuscating, then that needed to happen; if it doesn't, then at least everyone is ong the same page
and on a related note, this also needed to happen because those notes, if i remember correctly, are what lets Andersen- and through him Chaldea and its Master(s)- start picking apart what's going on with Solomon and what's so wrong with that situation
because that's not information they have yet
and even though Marie is alive and here...yeah, she knows that, but she's also not thinking about it in any kind of way. that's...just how things are for her. this sets it up so other people can ask questions, and thus Marie has to re-examine everything she knows about the situation
although as others have pointed out...yeah, i feel like there were other elements Andersen picked up on here that aren't getting mentioned.
about to re-watch that bit, if anything comes up i'll be back
My own take on the Gold Morning, if we assume that it's part of the Fate multiverse and summoning Servants is in fact possible on Earth Bet is that Alaya didn't summon a Grand Servant to deal with Scion because there was a Beast candidate already dealing with the situation.
It's like, two potentially huge problems are fighting each other to the death. Why would Alaya need to do anything before it ends if she can just nudge things to finish off the survivor?
In fact, there's a very similar situation in Lostbelt 7, and Alaya does pretty much the same thing. Well, she does summon Grand Servants at first, but once they are defeated offscreen, decides not to throw good money after bad and just let the inhabitants of the Lostbelt to kill each other off together with Chaldea.
The theory is similar to what pretty much else everyone else said, only I think Alaya also considered Taylor to be a problem on par with Scion, so obviously she wouldn't help her.
You know, for that extra "apathetic authority figure who wouldn't even give Taylor the time of her day" Worm crossover element.
There's another thing I want to discuss that has been brought up before. That being Taylor as a beast.
Beasts, otherwise known as Evils of Humanity, are beings born through the actions of man kind. As long as humanity and the goods it brings exist, so to will its evils. It's sins. They do not hate humanity either, that is a major factor, they are born because of humanity. "Evil born of man kinds folly" as king Hassan said.
In essence, a beast is a being that loves humanity, yet that love conversely causes them to destroy humanity to acheive their goal.
Anyone who has read Worm and understands where this argument leads.
Taylor, while she was Khepri, was exactly that. She cared about humanity and its survival more than anything, yet in the process sacrificed countless people to assure its survival. It's the very type of destructive love that marks the Beasts of humanity.
However, there are a few problems with this.
[Now, keep in mind, wildbow wasn't writing Taylor to be a beast but what I say is true, generally, in regards to what we know of Hereafter/Fate canon. If there was an intention to change things, Jane's D Fawkes could say so. I'm just acting based on the fact that to our knowledge these details haven't been altered.]
Beast's have a massive amount of power. Now was Taylor strong? Yes, certainly. But much of that strength had to come from others. Not saying that rules her out from candidacy, but beasts are physically and magically powerful entirely on their own. Something that Taylor didn't have.
The Beasts also have a Beasts Crown. Horns or something on their head marking them as a Beast. Now, Taylor had something like this with door makers portals, but this brings up the same problem, they aren't hers. It doesn't belong to her, not fully, and taking doormaker out of her range would prevent it from appearing. It wasn't an actual Beast crown. The crown isn't just a part ofbtheir body, it's a mark of power and destroying it shouldn't destroy their power either, see beast 2.
Lastly, all beasts in fate canon do not appear to have a true human form. Or, more accurately, their true form isnt human. We see this with Beast IV: L when she ascends to Beasthood. Her appearance/True form is completely altered.
If Taylor was a Beast during Gold Morning, then she wouldve had these features. But she didnt. So Taylor is not a full fledged Beast.
She was, however, a juvenile Beast. In essence, a bring that has some of the characteristics and aspects of a Beast, but not the power or Beasts Crown that denotes that power.
Comsidering what we know, Taylor was a Juvenile Beast during Gold morning and was stopped from ascending to full Beasthood by Contessa destroying her connection to her shard.
Taylor was a Juvenile Beast/Beast candidate but likely isn't any more. She doesn't have the same power, nor the same form of destructive love that she did as Khepri.
This is likely what it the trailer Gilgamesh is talking about when he says how fitting it is that Taylor is there at the end, as she was a Beast. And Beasts purposes are to destroy humanity. The other proof that I think exists for this theory is her connection with Fou, she's the only one perturbed by him and thinks he's hiding something. She is basically the only person that sets the other on edge. One is a Beast, the other was a Juvenile Beast.
Now, heres the question, will Taylor return to juvenile Beasthood or even ascend to full Beasthood? I dont know, but I doubt it. Certainly something is up with Taylor and her shard, but Taylor becoming a Beast/returning to that state pits her against Chaldea. Sure, she might control them to stop their enrmy but she's slso killing her friends. Not to mention, how to explain how she got to that level of power again? Its not an easy question to answer.
I think Taylor being a Juvenile Beast in the past may be brought up, but Taylor returning to that state and becoming a full Beast? I think that's off the table.
That's all very interesting theorycrafting. However, I'd like to posit an alternative theory; Queen Administrator was what became a Beast, since during Gold Morning, she and Taylor had mentally merged to the point that neither could distinguish the other from themselves anymore. And since this merger was also brought about by a human being in Panacea, it would qualify as being born from human actions and, through connection with Taylor, having that utterly destructive love of humanity not just through Taylor, but also in adoring the inventiveness of this host species.
This would also address the points against a Beast's existence of lacking a Beast's incredible power and Beast Crown; the Shards are colony organisms, so in a very real way when Taylor was bodyjacking parahumans and their powers, those Shards and their powers could be said to have become a part of Queen Administrator, nevermind QA's own considerable power. So it would go with the array of portals over Khepri's head.
And then, ultimately, the Beast that was Khepri was stopped by human efforts, as Taylor wrested back full control for a moment and went through a portal into the forest where Contessa would find her and sever the bond, when QA as Khepri was ready to go subjugate all of humanity after mistaking a block party for a riot (again, that destructive love).
Taylor isn't a Beast Candidate or Juvenile Beast anymore, since she cannot become Khepri again.
