#asteralium rules jamaa

[counterfeitphantoms]

What's your interpretation of the Phantom Queen?

Evil? Satan? Any good? Why does she want Jamaa?

I'd look on the wikia, but I am not sure how accurate that is, and the lore of AJ is never in one place. Wish someone made a doc or just a really long thread to reference.

good call on the wiki, there's a lot of flat out incorrect/non-updated info on that 😭 (though @/Asteralium is working on a project to consolidate the lore all in one place!) . my thoughts under the cut because it is a LOT...

BUT if we're talking my interpretation of the canon queen, I believe she flat out IS just evil, flat out. Lesser Phantoms (Common types), on the other hand, likely aren't pure evil and have some form of agency over what they would like to do, and we've seen some even flat out go to Jamaas side with play-wilds phantoms (playable ones) and classics pet phantoms (which is stated they just want to be loved) Along that same vein I think kings generally are pretty evil, not sure of their capacity to really WANT anything else except for what the queen wants to some vague degree (though the king in the books is... odd, he seems VERY set on revenge and he seems to believe he should be the one rightfully ruling over Jamaa)

But back to the queen. hmm. I think her ultimate goal is just to consume more and more land/resources, for no particular reason other than to continue spreading and consuming. She doesn't have some tragic backstory or overarching reason for doing what she does; she just wants MORE, constantly, no matter the cost or harm it may cause. It falls in-line with phantoms pollution theme really well, I think! Since phantoms have recently been established as an evil force thats consistent across all dimensions (play wild and classic are canonically different worlds now, but the phantoms in both are the exact same phantoms that can just hop from world to world using portals); I think they ultimately just want to bring in more and more Jamaas' into their own world (the phantom dimension we see a lot of in playwild, and some in classic) just to assimilate them, thus adding onto their own world as a result!

The Phantom Dimension I think is… expansive, insanely so. It's a large sprawling network of corrupted lands that have become so twisted that nothing except phantoms can live inside of it (think: the phantom badlands in AJC, where phantoms pollute land for their own taking, making it inhospitable to literally anything else); I dont think the alphas (or animals, as a whole) can really begin to grasp what the ultimate endgoal of phantoms really IS. They certainly don't fully know about the Phantom Queen- maybe of her existence, but not her full reach/what her real gameplan even is; though, maybe AJCS greely does considering recently he's been becoming more and more aware of another world besides his own existing & all that! (on the other hand, play wilds alphas dont even KNOW that there's at least 4 kings, and still believe there's only one at the moment, so they absolutely aren't aware of the queen even a little)

Ultimately I think. PQ will never really be satisfied. there'll never be a point where shes just like. okay, pack it up guys we're done here. I think if she manages to assimilate classic or play wilds world, she'll just move onto another Jamaa, then another. She has little care for the destruction she's leaving behind, and absolutely barely even considers animals something worth acknowledging