Win, lose or...?

Win, Lose or…?  Theories on the Multiple Lost Silver Endings

In seeing the many untold parts of Lost Silver, the last part, in which you battle the Unowns in a glitchy battle, interests me the most. The fact that you're able to finally interact with the Pokemon who are controlling your fate (considering they are the 'final boss' of the game supports that they are probably masterminds behind your situation), and in a battle setting, brings many possibilities to the table to how the story actually ends. When you win, does Gold actually escape his death? If you lose, how could it possibly get worse? What might happen?

However, we need to bring up a fact not many know about. When dabridge uploaded his list of the parts to dA, someone asked if it was even possible to win the battle. Dabridge answered with 'Yes, according to the author it is possible to come out with different alternative endings. It's not even limited to "Lose" and "Win"'.

So this opens up even MORE possibilities. What could you do other then win or lose? How many endings could there even be? And how could they freak out the author enough to refrain from explaining it when he's already told us so much?

Let's start with the most obvious possibility. We are told the battle is glitchy. If the variations on the missingno trick have taught us anything, we know that more often then not glitchy battles just freeze. This is probably the most likely option, due to the simple fact the nature of the battle is glitchy, but towards the storyline as well. Gold, after everything, is being given one last stand, but with the Unowns having controlled everything thus far, it's designed to be pretty futile. The fact you've gone through all they had to offer, and remembered all that led you to this point has earned their respect enough to return your name and title, but it doesn't mean they want to let you go so easily, if at all. The illusion of having one last 'way out' and it being crushed is far worse then knowing the reality of being trapped, after all.

Now let's look at the information we know about the game mechanics. We know in Pokemon battles you've got a few options. 'FIGHT', 'PACK', 'PKMN' and 'RUN'.

For the FIGHT option you send out you're Pokemon and, well, fight. At the time of battle, you've got 6 Unowns, I, M, D, E, A and D. However, in the game so far Unowns haven't been able to fight for you, so there's a strong possibility you can't use then this time either. So, as we've seen in games and creepypastas such as Cursed Black, you, as Gold, may be the one having to fight. 'Struggle' seems to often come up as an attack in these situations, but that kicks the possibility of 'winning' the battle out the window pretty hard. Since you've become a ghost, another possibility is being able to access some ghost-type moves. If this is the case, you could probably use Nightmare, since that move is quite relevant to the storyline, between Hurry and the Houndoom of part 4 both having it. Hidden Power might be another possible move, with the moves relation to Unown and you finding all the hidden extras of Lost Silver.

If Gold is the one fighting the Unown pack, it REALLY depends on what sort of attacks he could use as to how the rest of the fight could turn out. This would normally leave just the 'Win' or 'Lose' endings if he just has standard fighting attacks. However, if he's got some odd attacks, perhaps something like Roar (which might just be plausible, if we relate it to him screaming out in anger at the Unown), we could get other options.

IF something like this could happen, and you can switch up the Unowns in the pack you are battling, depending what letters they are you could potentially write something out by the order you make them faint. If you destroy them all this way, writing out a message, you could possibly unlock another ending. Since this is a very left field speculation, it's hard to conclude just WHAT sort of ending could be unlocked this way, if it's even related to any ending at all.

However, the fact that Gold has no other Pokemon, and he himself is declaring 'I'm Dead', could mean he has those 6 Unowns under his control. With this theory we open a few more (albeit related) possibilities. If Unowns are fighting Unowns, depending who faints in what order, even if it's a mix of yours and the enemies, you could spell even more out depending who faints. Though, the most solid idea for spelling out something with them would be to let all your Unowns faint, in the order 'DEADIM'.

This order is deduced because of the similar way you unlock Part 4 of Lost Silver by rearranging HEDIED to DIEDHE after Hurry dies. You are brought far into the past, finding out about the Unowns as well as the Houndoom that seems to be Hurry's father. By spelling DEADIM you may be sent back even further, perhaps into your past before your adventure, or even before you are born, learning some key fact to why this is happening. If you came back to the battle from this flashback perhaps it teaches you the 'true' way to win or gives you an item to help you (like how you get the [][] in Part 4 which is used to put Where? to sleep in Hidden).

With this we come to the PACK option. As mentioned, there may be a way to find another item within the battle to combat the Unown. Another option is the [][] item you used before. If your able to keep it after using it on Where? (which I'm sorry, I can't confirm, I can't play Hidden to check) there's the option of using it again on the Unown pack. If you can put them to sleep, and have that option of using Nightmare mentioned above, the convoluted dreams of the Unown could be revealed to you. I can't say I'd even have the grounds or WANT to speculate what those dreams are, but it seems a horrifying enough prospect to freak out the author enough not to want to talk about it.

If you could just put them to sleep though, it could potentially stop their powers, and maybe you find yourself waking up or breaking out of a hallucination. These results seem too positive to actually be a possibility though.

The PKMN selection is next. Since you've joined Hurry, Please!, Celebi and (probably) Houndoom in death, you might be allowed to use them in battle. Another far-fetched idea, but it could potentially open a good 'revenge' ending option.

And finally we have the RUN option, which I think would have 3 possible outcomes. Either the game won't let you run away at all, running away could lead to an automatic 'lose' scenario, or you'd be forced to restart the whole of the Lost Silver game, but it would be a bit more…bombastic.

This conclusion comes from the fact we know the Unown don't like it when you refuse them. When ordered at the sign to TURN BACK NOW, and you pick 'No', the Unown say 'Too Bad' and become red, a colour of anger. They then force you to relive the events just prior to the game. Even if though we've not played it before the Unown's made us, it's probably worse then it was the first time Gold experienced it. No one has eyes, even him, though they return once you get to the games start again, for example. The world that was blacked off to prevent you from going off Mt. Silver existed at some point for Gold to get there…Its likely that while all the events in Hidden happened, they weren't as bad as Hidden portrayed it the first go around. So, it seems likely the Unown would get mad you refused to fight them, so they'd make you redo everything you just did, like before. And then, just to rub it in your face, make it even worse then the first time.

So, with all those options explored that leaves us with what might happen if you simply win or lose. Due to the nature of the Unown, unless you unlock some sort of 'real' way to win and just beat them all up, I think you'll get spiralled even further into their trap. Get some ending worse then death, perhaps. As mentioned, the Unown have been control of everything so far, so, unless you outsmart them in some way, you thinking you could win would play into their hands.

To lose would probably simply return you to the graveyard, maybe with a bit more visuals (like, with being able to access a look at a few graves containing your Pokemon), but basically, just give you the dying message again. You lost your chance at anything else, thus, wouldn't be rewarded with many, if any, extras. You went and unlocked all the parts for nothing.

And these are just some speculations I believe could be how Lost Silver ends, given what we know so far. The more we learn, the more these theories probably won't hold up, but even so, I hope one day, we'll get the full story behind Lost Silver. Until then…