Terapagos and U-DO

To start things off, I will be talking about what we know about Terapagos. We know it's a cute little turtle that has a horrendous impact on people, perhaps driving them to madness (but at the very least, causing a huge amount of distress and confusion).
Heath, the historian from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, actually encountered Terapagos far before the start of the story (200+ years, to be exact!). While exploring Area Zero, he reached its depths, which is how the Paradox Pokemon were discovered. However, most of this was written off as complete nonsense, and Heath became very discredited despite being acclaimed before.
In the second entry, he talks of how "something altogether unknown to humankind" most likely awaits the expedition team at the depths of Area Zero (he actually claims it is currently asleep, this will be relevant later).
I believe this is specifically referring to Terapagos! It could easily be referring to the general concepts that exist within the location, but the book goes on to heavily imply that it's about this beloved little creature. Moving along, he notes that the flora and fauna of Area Zero are protected by a sort of guardian, and that there are monstrous creatures that can hardly be called Pokemon at all in the lower areas of the crater. A member of his team even suffers a mortal blow, and yes, they are specifically noted to be mortally wounded. It's scary to think about!

There are other oddities within Area Zero, such as a metal plate that seems to defy all laws of science and has a strange inscription on it... It seems impossible to dent or scratch, yet it still has words etched into it. Heath is particularly fascinated by this.
The next entry in the Scarlet/Violet book that I'll talk about is just so interesting to me that I'll copy its entire contents. Please have a look!

A Phantom Memory - "During our exploration of Area Zero's depths, I—Heath—strayed from the team and was later found unconscious. When awoken, I could only recall speaking with someone in an unfamiliar place, as if in a dream. I was found holding the page shown here. The handwriting is my own, but I have no memory of writing this."

It's interesting, right? How can that not send shivers down your spine... Well, when you consider that Terapagos is a cute little scrunkle, I suppose it might not. But still. It very well seems that Terapagos can communicate with people, but in order to do so, it does so in a dreamlike state...
Heath ends up separated from the Research team again, and this time he clearly encounters Terapagos. For clarity's sake, here is the full entry again.

A Disk Pokémon? - "While separated from the research team in the crater's depths, I found a strange...entity. Whether it was a Pokémon, or even alive at all, I know not. It bore a shell with layers of overlapping hexagons, and gleamed brighter still than gemstone. Viewed as a whole, it resembled a mysterious, brilliant disk." "I have tentatively named this creature Terapagos. I suspect that its very body is made up of the key material that causes Pokémon to shine brightly and crystallize."

Again, interesting stuff. He questions if Terapagos is alive or even a Pokemon... This gives me serious Ultra Beast vibes, but that's a talk for another day. I bring it up though because it's more of a way to say "Hey, Game Freak has gotten pretty crazy with what qualifies as a Pokemon before", but one could technically note that Terapagos has space theming in its picture from the books. You can clearly see planets and stars, which isn't an exact match to the Ultra beasts (as they are more or less beings from parallel dimensions and NOT outer space) but it's a similar concept.
Terapagos is also confirmed to be linked to the Terastal phenomenon; well, not just linked, but rather responsible for the entire thing. This is noted in the Professors' (Sada and Turo) journals from Area Zero. It's also important to note that the Professors gradually go insane from prolonged contact with Area Zero (or in my opinion, Terapagos).
The crystals from Area Zero have many effects, but being able to influence the creation of a time machine is one of the major ones. This is more of a theory on my part, but I believe Terapagos doesn't actually influence time itself. I feel that it more or less takes the desires of the people it encounters and makes them a reality. Since it met Heath briefly, it took note of his Cyclizar and created Koraidon and Miraidon based off of that. The actual existence of such a Pokemon wasn't confirmed until the Professors' unhinged desire with the past/present came to fruition, but I do believe all three influenced it.
I cannot say much more on the time machine, because it isn't the point - but I do also believe there is a slight timeloop going on with the professors and the Paradox Pokemon.
When the AIs are sent to the past/future, I think this actually makes the Paradox Pokemon a reality, and it's what brings them to Area Zero in the first place during Heath's expedition. It's a rough theory but one I subscribe to. Timeloops will be relevant later, so please keep it in mind!

The last thing I'll note is that the Terastal phenomenon has a physical effect on people. Whenever Trainers Terastallize their Pokemon, they flinch slightly, as if it is a power that is too much for a human to handle. The only two Trainers that do not flinch are the player and Geeta. Currently it is not explained why this is the case, and this is long enough as well, so I will not be explaining my theories here (for today!).

Phew, that was a lot, wasn't it? Well, stay seated because now I get to talk about some Xenosaga Lore!!

U-DO

U-DO is a confusing entity, I will start off with that. I will do my absolute best to make this explanation as simple as possible, but it's a broad topic and I may miss some finer details. Please keep in mind that there will be major spoilers for Xenosaga, so if you're trying to avoid any information about the game, I unfortunately do not suggest continuing!
U-DO canonically uses He/It, which is how I will be referring to him.

U-DO is many things, yet it is also one thing... An all encompassing entity that is also just some guy in the end (there are other existences like him, but it is the only one we actually get to know of). But enough of me dodging the topic (I'm a bit nervous writing this! Oh my!), simply put, it's a higher dimensional being that is watching the Lower Domain (see: our world) of Xenosaga. He dwells in the Upper Domain, which is noted to be impossible to observe by anyone from the Lower Domain, which means that canonically, no one has the words to describe it. It's not something that can be understood by feeble little humans, but luckily we have supplementary material to at least give us a clue.
The Lower and Upper Domains are linked together, and with the collapse of one, the eventual destruction of the other would occur. U-DO's own observation of the Lower Domain is what allows humanity to take a slight peek into his world, but with U-DO's interference comes big consequences. Since it cannot be interpreted by anything living in the Lower Domain, anyone that encounters him will be struck with an inescapable fear. This fear will eventually consume them (if they are even left alive). Some even stop existing immediately upon contact, which is more or less a worst case scenario (but a typical one, nonetheless... meeting U-DO and surviving to tell the tale is not commonplace).

U-DO is not malicious, but since it exists as an uninterpretable entity, humanity can only fill in the blanks as to what he is. For example, he is aware that the universe is being destroyed, but a human that encounters him will only see the carnage surrounding the end of the universe and assume that U-DO is responsible for this. All U-DO really wants is to observe the Lower Domain and figure out why some wills reject the collective unconsciousness (TL;DR - where the wills of humans go after dying. Those who have a large amount of hatred within themselves tend to not go here, and instead they exist as entirely different entities that actively are malicious towards humanity. As time flows, more people will reject the collective unconsciousness and this is what leads to the destruction of the universe), it does not wish to cause any harm whatsoever. Continuing on with the impacts of U-DO, it also can cause space-time distortions, such as black holes (two of which are named "The Abyss" in Xenosaga).
One of the most interesting parts of U-DO's existence is the fact that it can take a form in the Lower Domain in order to observe humanity. He has two "eyes", one which is referred to as Abel (he takes the form of a 10 year old boy) and the other which is Abel's Ark (a wordless entity that best resembles a giant spaceship but is also said to be alive). Both of these are his proxies, and both of them allow it to interact with and perceive the Lower Domain. During events such as Jesus Christ's crucifixion, Abel's Ark appeared, and Abel himself was noted to have existed on Earth since around 20XX. U-DO itself is a timeless being as old as the universe itself (or at least, implications say so), but his proxies tend to manifest themselves during major turning points in humanity's history.

In Xenosaga's story, U-DO can only be interacted with via extreme measures, most of which are experimental. Some people, such as our lovely protagonist Shion Uzuki, are naturally able to communicate with him though. This method of communication is quite taxing, and when Shion communicates with U-DO in the Upper Domain, she completely blacks out. Her memories of communicating with him are hazy, naturally, and U-DO asks Shion some very perplexing questions. Of course this is due to its nature of wishing to just understand the Lower Domain, and Shion answers his questions as best she can. During these scenarios, Shion isn't fully aware of what's happening, and she almost acts as if she's melding with the conversations and not completely in her right mind. With everything I've discussed this makes perfect sense... Communication with a being so powerful to those in the Lower Domain just is like that, and Shion stays as strong as she can! If this is sounding familiar, then good, I hopefully have your attention for the next part of this. Again, there's so much I could discuss about U-DO, but hopefully this covers the basics. Sorry if your head is spinning!

COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS

So what the heck was this all about?! Well I'd like to point out the obvious similarities now and what I think it is, or at least what I think some of its story will be about.
U-DO, and especially Abel, are blorbos to me. They're just little guys who happen to inflict madness upon anyone they encounter. Terapagos is also like this to me. Their powers are very similar. Heath falls unconscious and communicates with Terapagos, just as Shion faints and has conversations with U-DO. They both have the power to impact the world around them, but their powers are a bit too much and cause anomalies. It isn't their intention to harm (I've seen people talk about how Terapagos is malicious. I highly disagree. I think it wants to connect with the world, just like U-DO does, but it's unsure how to go about it and its powers inflict harm by default), but they both impose madness on anyone that encounters them for a prolonged period of time.
Multiple groups of people are researching them, but their existences are shrouded in mystery and no one fully understands them - just because of how alien their concepts are to anyone in the mortal plane. Some people take more forceful methods, but even then one must wonder if they truly fully understand the complexity of what they're dealing with. They're both not entities that can be grasped or controlled by human hands. Although this part is a little silly, I also think Terapagos and Abel have a cuteness factor to them. Abel appears as an innocent 10 year old boy, but the truth is that it's none other than the higher dimensional being known as U-DO! And then Terapagos is a small, sparkly-eyed creature that at a first glance, seems very innocent and harmless. While it may be innocent, it's causing all sorts of issues in Paldea by simply existing (perhaps this is why it stays tucked away in the crater...? Damage control...?). Basically, you'd never guess at first that they're both eldritch beings that make people lose themselves and cause environmental issues on a rather universe-level scale.
I basically think someone in the Indigo Disk is going to try and tap into Terapagos's power again (My bets are Briar or Kieran, in that order. I love Kieran by the way! And I think it'd be awesome if he got to have a very powerful turtle as his friend, he deserves it! But he also deserves to cause a little chaos... I wish he got Ogerpon so badly, it's unfair that the game forces you to cause him so much grief, but that's not the point...) and it's going to cause A LOT of trouble and damage. The player character will save the day, but Paldea will never be the same...
Terapagos will be a shy little thing, but it won't be afraid to defend itself either, or perhaps it unintentionally protects itself. If its powers are being meddled with, I could understand that it may go out of control and not know what to do with itself, which yes, is something that happens to U-DO (Abel) at the end of Xenosaga Episode III as the final boss!!!

I don't mean to brag, but I predicted Volo's entire deal from the moment he was revealed. My reasoning? He reminded me of Klaus from Xenoblade Chronicles. So yeah, I do think I at least have the right energy going into this! I would love to be right about something simply because it reminded me of Xeno again. But I could be completely off my rocker and that's okay too. What matters to me is how much fun I've had since playing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet for the first time and coming up with all these fun ideas as to what Terapagos actually is. It's a fascinating creature and I'm absolutely so pumped to play the Indigo Disk on December 14th! I've been wanting to find out more about this little critter for a while now, and soon I will know what's going on with it. The whole mystery tingled my brain in a way where I actually felt a little scared! But I always knew Terapagos was going to be scrunkly, and that helped ground me.

Thanks so much for reading. I hope this was fun to read even if it's a bit lore intensive. I will update this after playing the Indigo Disk to let you know whether I was right! Or if I was completely wrong. Or somewhere in between. We shall see.

See ya next entry! ☆*: .｡. (●'◡'●) .｡.:*☆