WMG / Unnatural Selection

The ending will be Everyone Lives.

The story has gone through pains to prevent anyone from getting Killed Off for Real (even Glitcher's suicide didn't remove him from the story in any meaningful capacity!), and going by previous logs, Alison has a Freak Out if she's unable to save absolutely everyone. If this is the final loop and the story is shooting for a Happy Ending, well, no ending will be a Happy Ending for Alison except for Everyone Lives.

Someone will be Killed Off for Real, resulting in a Bittersweet Ending.

...Unless the story isn't shooting for a Happy Ending and Lagotrope is planning for an ending where Alison is forced to sacrifice some people to end the contest. Seriously, Rend Ghost, Glitcher's suicide, everything's been reversible. There is very little tension at this point over if people will be permanently lost, which is the perfect environment for a cruel DM to up the ante.

Unnatural Selection takes place in the Polokoaverse, and the contest is taking place within ends with becoming Polokoa's CAI.

Read this. Polokoa's CAI had another CAI growing inside it that had to be periodically wiped out. Sounds familiar, no? The "cure" could very well be the CAI's instant win button described in some of the logs. According to Polokoa, the CAI started operating on itself, finding a way to extract the younger CAI from itself and implant it into her. This could be where the Corruptor's from; perhaps he was created by the CAI itself as part of the extraction plan. The Ghost too, maybe — or perhaps that could be Polokoa herself.

Also, assuming Shopkeep's appearance wasn't a joke, there's not really any other way to explain it unless we open the can of clones.

Confirmed in Polokoa Quest (but not in the series proper where Polokoa doesn't exist), via The Multiverse: The "UnSe CAI is Salikai base CAI" theory (which was only confirmed very late^note confirmed in Polo Quest thread 6, hinted at previously in various non-canon works in the Asteroidverse) is canon in Polokoa Quest, and the "growing inside" CAI becomes Polokoa's (which stops the contest). All instances of Polokoa, including Rokolo, took their CAI from their own timeline's Unnatural Selection instance, each with their own Alison◊.

On the same time, it's also Jossed from Polo's point of view: The UnSe instance we're following is hers, and Polo passed the divergence point in the timeline where she was supposed to become Polokoa.

Glitcher is not coming back.

Heroic Sacrifice plus Really Dead Montage plus his code itself getting dispersed, completely unlike any death we've encountered prior? Turning that into yet another Death Is Cheap retraction would turn the entire story into a complete farce. The contestants will have to learn to cope with true death this time.

(Word of God has said that the story is approaching a close, which reinforces this: there will probably not be time to resurrect him, and he will probably not be important for the remaining challenges.)

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