u/Get_Ashy

On my post-Horribles reread. Just starting Butcher's Masquerade. Spoilers.

No seriously, spoilers. Everything. Here's my head canon for how this all fits together.

>!Carl says in Parade of Horribles "it's Primals, all the way down" meaning the NPCs. Considering what we know about the AI - the cup of ocean water analogy - it adds a layer of intrigue to the Scolapendra Levels. These levels are ancient; legends that have been reused in every crawl. We know from the cookbook that the dungeon is like a canvas being painted over and over again - these levels especially so. If we extend the AI's "cup of water" analogy, these NPCs are being "filled up" time and time again by different AIs. Basically, a never-ending cup being filled up through unfathomable time. When crawlers like Herot and Carl awaken their memories, the AI is also seeing their entire history. Every drop of water in this endless cup of primals is suddenly in the AIs brain (so to speak). These drops were the masked spectators we see in the Parade.!<

>!So the NPCs are relieving the collapse and wars of the Primal race in the context of the dungeon. As it turns out, our AI is a bit of a showman (who knew buying used would bite Borant in the ass?) so he put the historically accurate galactic reality of the 9-tier societal attack in Carl and Donut's path to unravel. The Scolapendra levels tell the story. It's also how the AI has been communicating with its "prior" iterations. The macro AI from the previous seasons poured themselves out into the NPCs that populate the 4D canvas that is the dungeon. It doesn't matter that Errol exploded - the Errol AI is inside the dungeon (an "aggregate" intelligence, and thus the importance of the Corcunda quest).!<

>!So how does all this end? As prophesized. Donut, the Oak Fell and Carl will claim the Ascendency in one form or another and fight the final war against the Eulogist - the same war the Apothecary survived as the last biological primal. In the end, Carl is the only Primal left in the galaxy. His friends who have fought a war and lost everything cannot survive outside of an enhancement zone. Donut will have to sacrifice Carl and "plant him" as the replacement for the Eulogist in their own new "center system." The cycle will reset. Carl will rest as the All Tree, replacing the Eulogist, and the galaxy will shrink as the signs of the Primal wars fade over millennia. Until some future alien race stumbles onto a technology far beyond their comprehension...!<