Web Animation / Veritas Arc

After the end of the battle against SMG0, Mario and the gang have returned to their usual shenanigans. Mario soon runs into a problem however; the world is suffering a total shortage of spaghetti much to his dismay. His horror turns into anger when he finds out that the spaghetti is being stolen by a band of thieves, and he sets off to catch them and retrieve his favorite snack. However, what he soon finds out is that the thieves are a very familiar group of box-wearing cultists, whom have come back much more dangerous than before as the Order of the God Box...and with a new plan to resurrect the God Box itself.

Things only get worse from here.

The Veritas Arc, created by YouTuber NØ Null, is a fan-made sequel Story Arc to SMG4's Revelations Arc, and the Cosmology Saga. The story came to fruition because NØ Null wanted to address some questions that the official storyline never answered, such as the origin of the God Box as well as giving some lesser used characters such as Tari a bigger character role.

While initially coming out consistently, the arc has been stuck in hiatus ever since October of 2022, with 18 episodes that can be seen here.

As of July 22nd, 2023, No Null has announced that they are planning to reboot the series under the title “Advent Arc”.

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The VERITAS Arc contains examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion: Pretty much the core reason behind the series. NØ Null’s intention is to further expand on the few details that were left unexplained about the Cosmology Saga’s lore, as well as giving characters who hadn’t received any prominent roles in a while more time to shine. In the first episode, NØ Null expands on the God Box’s origins as well as giving them the motivation of being dedicated to helping their creator Luke attain success as a media creator online, and the lengths they’re willing to go to ensure that.
• A Dog Named "Dog": The man made of cardboard boxes that Bowser and Saiko end up imprisoned with is literally called Box Man. Appropriate, since it turns out he's just as vulnerable to water as cardboard boxes.
• BFS: Mario ends up getting one while in the mental realm of Oliver called Spaghetticalibur.
• Demoted to Extra: SMG4 himself and Meggy aren't as prominent of characters as they typically are in recent years, with the former not showing up again for over half of the series after they're captured by the Order.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Because NØ Null wasn’t originally intending to make this a true series, there are several oddities throughout the first few episodes:
  • The first two episodes are designed more akin to a theorycrafting or analysis video with bits of Garry's Mod animations for reference, with NØ Null himself narrating the story and lore beats. This gets dropped as he transitions into animating them like real SMG4 episodes.
  • The first half of the series is much more reliant on drawn still images for the original characters Oliver and Nula. They eventually receive full 3D models like everyone else.
• Eldritch Abomination: It’s a fan-series building off of the biggest eldritch being in the series, SMG0; unsurprisingly it has a few monstrous abominations:
  • The mechanical creature Mario runs into is firmly in this territory, being a massive spider-like creature with a computer screen for its face. It has the ability to distort reality to torment anyone with psychological attacks, is dangerously fast for its size, and can create clones of its enemies to confuse and misdirect others for its own goals. The fact that it's the intended vessel for the God Box itself after it's resurrected, and can nullify (to an extent) Oliver's fragment of the God Box only further adds to the danger it poses.
  • The other is the Spaghetti Monster creature foretold in Spaghetti lore to come if the world's spaghetti were ever to be gathered all in one place. It takes on the form of the most powerful creature that its enemies have seen...which in this case is a spaghetti and meatball version of SMG0. It also has a massive beef with Mario, due to the sheer number of times Mario has dry-humped plates of spaghetti in the past, and still hates him even after it decides to help him stop the God Box. Mario just ends up seeing it as the biggest meal he's ever going to have...and also tries to dry hump it later on after the being takes on a Mario form.
• Noble Demon: Oliver is shown to be this, being unwilling to strike out against those who cannot defend themselves or have nothing to do with his mission, even as he aims to stop Mario and Melony, whom he calls the False Messiah. This eventually puts him at odds with the rest of The Order of the God Box, as their increasingly questionable actions, evasiveness on the truth of the organization’s motives, and his own awareness of the cruelty of his mistress causes him to doubt them more and more, until eventually seeing the massacre of Toads and the prior reveal of the harm done to Tari and her friends drives him to oppose Nula and the Order.
• The Reveal:
  • Episode 18, where it's revealed that Box Man, the prisoner that was with Bowser and Saiko for much of the story, is friends with Smith, the real identity of the Box Club leader turned SMG-1. They both used to be fellow box enthusiasts and set up their own club in Omnia Academy with the hopes of pushing forward the science of Boxology...until Smith stumbled upon some ancient texts regarding the God Box, slowly turning into the cult leader he is today. Box Man ultimately left his friend because of this.
• Running Gag: Mario constantly losing his head. After plot armor protects him from being killed by Nula, Mario's head tends to get removed and cut off multiple times. While it doesn't cause him any harm, it does begin to get on his nerves after a point.
• Skewed Priorities: After Box Man finds out that Smith, his old friend, is the true identity of the Box Club Leader turned SMG-1, the only thing he can say about it is how he wasn't so crazy after all...but gets extremely pissed at SMG-1 for having him locked up because of the cultists who tried to worship him.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 18: Box Man reveals that the Box Club leader turned SMG Negative One (SMG-1) is called Smith, and was not only his former friend, but that he is also one of the founding members of the Box Club before Smith became obsessed with the God Box.
• Wham Line:
  • Episode 18 has a big one near the end of the episode:
    Box Man: Smith, I wouldn't have put it past you to join this organization [The Order of the God Box], but to be its founder!? What has become of you ever since we founded the Box Club?!
• The Worf Effect: Melony is easily one of the most powerful characters in the series, and manages to help decimate the soldiers under the Order of the God Box...but she proves to be no match for Oliver due to the fragment of the God Box's power he has in his artificial arm, allowing him to handily defeat her and remove the Fierce Deity Mask from her face, returning her back to being a regular watermelon for the majority of the series.