Underground (Undertale)

Background

The setting of the vast majority of Undertale, the Underground is a large region underneath the Surface of the Earth, which houses the kingdom of Monsters. The exit from the Underground is blocked by the Barrier, which was placed by the Humans ages ago. Humans access it, the protagonist included, by way of a hole in Mount Ebott. It is ruled by King Asgore, and formerly by his ex-wife as well, Toriel. Spanning several different climates, the Underground features the Ruins, the cold and wintery Snowdin, the wet and cavernous Waterfall, the blistery and barren Hotland, the technologically advanced CORE, and the Capital.

History

After the Humans defeated the Monsters in The War, the losing faction was banished into the Underground. A Barrier was erected to prevent the insiders from leaving, though outsiders could still freely enter. The monsters eventually accepted their loss and lived normal lives throughout the Underground.

One day, a human named Chara walked to Mt. Ebott and unfortunately tripped on a vine, causing them to fall into a pit and enter the Underground. Chara was discovered by Asriel, the son of Asgore and Toriel, and was adopted into their family. However, the human one day grew ill and eventually died from the illness, but wished to see the flowers in their home village. After Chara had died, Asriel absorbed their SOUL, becoming a powerful entity that was able to cross the Barrier, and picked up their corpse and carried it out of the Underground. However, the humans from the outside world attacked Asriel, under the assumption that he killed Chara, forcing him to return to the Underground with Chara's corpse where he succumbed to his wounds.

Since then, Asgore became vengeful for his son and plotted to escape the Underground and declare another war against humans. He declared all humans who fall into the Underground be killed and their SOULs collected; with seven human SOULs, the Barrier could be shattered. However, the brutality of this decision disgusted Toriel enough that she relinquished her position as queen as well as her marriage to Asgore.

Asgore continued to rule the land on his own while Toriel exiled herself into the Ruins. Over time, six more humans fell into the Underground, all of which Toriel tried to shelter and care for. However, they all eventually left the Ruins and were eventually killed, their SOULs collected by Asgore.

An eighth human, the protagonist, had then fallen into the Underground. Unlike the predecessors, the protagonist's Determination managed to carry them through many obstacles the Underground had presented, even managing to befriend or make an enemy out of many monsters. Eventually, the protagonist manages to reach Asgore, where he stands before the Barrier. One of few events occur depending on the protagonist's actions:

• On the Neutral Route, the protagonist and Asgore battle. The latter is defeated, after which Flowey intervenes and absorbs the six human SOULs. The protagonist defeats Flowey and is somehow transported outside the Barrier after the event, where they leave the Underground. Sans then calls the protagonist and tells them the fate of the Underground, which is either peaceful or grim depending on who was killed.

• On the True Pacifist Route, Asgore is stopped by Toriel and all of the protagonist's friends but are then ambushed by Flowey, who proceeds to absorb the six human SOULs as well as the SOULs of all the monsters in the Underground, reverting to his true form, Asriel. However, with all the SOULs Asriel gains compassion and ultimately loses the will to fight, instead of using their power to shatter the Barrier. Having returned the SOULs, Asriel leaves knowing that he will revert to Flowey and begs the protagonist to forget him, while the monsters are free to leave the Underground and live peaceful lives on the surface.

• In the Genocide Route, certain monsters try to stop the protagonist's murderous rampage while Alphys leads the evacuation. Upon reaching Asgore, the protagonist instantly defeats him with one blow and proceeds to destroy Flowey mercilessly. It is then revealed that the protagonist is under the complete control of Chara, revealing their true sinister nature, and proceeds to use the protagonist to leave the Underground and destroy the world.

Powers and Stats

Tier: At least Low 8-C, likely higher with Boss Monsters, up to 2-B with every monsters SOUL absorbed along with the human SOULs

Civilization Type: Post-Industrial Civilization

Name: Underground, Monsterkind

Origin: Undertale

Classification: Monster Civilization

Kardashev Level: Type 0

Age: Unknown (The civilization was first sent underground back in medieval time, although it the civilization's people predate written history)

Population: Unknown, likely 323 (The amount of monster SOULs seen in the ending plus Napstablook)

Territory: The Underground, at least 32,977 sq m (As calculated here)

Attack Potency: At least Small Building level, likely higher with Boss Monsters (Asgore Dreemurr is stated to be the strongest type of monster. He easily defeated Undyne while holding back. Could fight Frisk while holding back and being weakened by his emotions. As a boss monster should be naturally superior to Mettaton who could do this. Frisk no-selled the overheated blast of a MTT oven. Even the weakest monsters can slightly harm Frisk), up to Multiverse level with every monsters SOUL absorbed along with the human SOULs (Asriel Dreemurr with these powers purged the timeline, this was with only a fraction of his power, Stated that the "world was ending" in this form. The world of UT consists of an uncountable amount of timelines that were all made by Flowey resetting to the point that he knew every set of dialogue, numbers, etc.)

Power Source: Geothermal Energy and Magic

Industrial Capacity: Unknown (They are able to keep up with the needs of its population both in term of food and technology, seemingly all from the lab in hotland)

Technology/Abilities:

Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Magic (All monsters are made of magic), Personal Domain & BFR (When one encounters a monster they get into a fight, a FIGHT is an encounter in a monster's personal domain allowing them to fight humans, this has various rules such as turn-based combat), Creation (Monsters can make weapons, clothes and even food from magic), Limited Spatial Manipulation (Monsters can at times influence the battle box), Transmutation & Healing (Monsters can turn their attacks into healing projectiles), Absorption (Monsters and humans can absorb the SOUL as long as the person isn’t the same species as them), Curtain Fire, Soul Manipulation & Essence Manipulation (All attacks in Undertale are to the SOUL), Resistance to Physical Attacks (All monsters bodies are attuned to their SOUL thus only attacks that can affect their SOUL can affect them), Soul Manipulation & Essence Manipulation (Can take hits to the SOUL)

Genius Intelligence, Instinctive Reaction (In the form of personal domain Sans can dodge any attack under the fight system, even if he's asleep while one is actively breaking the rules of the personal domain requiring one to completely go agains the rules of the game to even hit him), Enhanced Spatial Manipulation (Can completely control the battle box, to the point where he can change it's size, move the player around in a falling action, and teleport around the areas and the type of battle box), Toon Force & Air Manipulation (Could make a self-sustaining tornado out of trash), Breaking the Fourth Wall (Aware of when Anomaly attempts to hack, directly winks towards the audience), BFR (In the Dirty Hacker ending Sans removes you from the Undertale game making you unable to re-enter it), Clairvoyance & Information Analysis (Able to tell what Frisk's LOVE & EXP is at), Cosmic Awareness (Was aware of an anomaly messing with the time-space continuum, could tell how many times Frisk died, and if Frisk has spared him before by the expression on their face, could tell from the look on Frisk' face that he already heard his speech beforehand), Gravity Manipulation (Makes the SOUL unable to float and can only jump around), Glyph Creation (Can create minature platforms), Energy Projection (With gaster blasters), Bone Manipulation (Has an assortment of bones in his attack), Telekinesis (Can throw your SOUL around), Teleportation (Has displayed it multiple times, can teleport during battle and the battle box along with your position), Karma Manipulation (Creates a status effect known as Karma that negates invincibility frames, and adds extra damage, based on your sins), Power Nullification (Able to lock his opponent in place so neither of them will be able to do anything), Resistance to Extreme Colds (Lives in Snowdin), Extreme Heats (Casually sleeps while in Hotland)

Immortality (Type 1. Toriel will live forever, never aging as long as she doesn't have a kid), Power Nullification (Nullified Flowey's magic attack), Fire Manipulation (Uses fire magic), Healing (Healed Frisk's wounds), Telekinesis (Moves her magic attack away from Frisk)

Weapon Mastery (Uses a trident and is skilled with it), Skilled in H2H Combat (Trained Undyne in hand-to-hand combat), Immortality (Type 1. Asgore will live forever, never aging, as long as he doesn't have a kid), Acausality (Asgore remembers killing Frisk after his resets), Fire Manipulation (Uses fire as a basis for many of his magic attacks), Power Nullification (Breaks the mercy option making Frisk incapable of doing mercy or fleeing the battle), Resistance to Memory Manipulation (Asgore nods to Frisk when they note he's killed them before)

Weapon Mastery (Skilled with swords and spears), Regeneration (Low-Godly to Mid-Godly as Undyne the Undying. Regenerated her body which is attuned to her SOUL) Skilled in H2H combat (Trained by Asgore in hand to hand and weapons), Weapon Creation (Creates spears), Energy Manipulation, Velocity Manipulation (Can turn the SOUL green making the opponent unable to move, this extends to their physical body as they can not flee from fights), Resistance to Extreme Heats (Resisted the temperatures of the MTT Oven which is stated to heat over 9000 degrees Fahrenheit)

Body Control (Has extendable arms), Creation & Explosion Manipulation (Creates a large number of bombs, and mini versions of himself), Text Manipulation (Can turn his words into bombs), Energy Projection (Disco balls which fire lasers), Technology Manipulation, Hacking (Could out-hack even Alphys), Flight (Shown here), Inorganic Physiology, Cyborgization, Time Manipulation (Can rewind time with attacks), Electricity Manipulation (Can shoot electricity out of their fingers)

Enhanced Senses (Notices what The Annoying Dog does over the phone), Bone Manipulation (Uses bones for various attacks), Gravity Manipulation (Via turning your SOUL blue, it is no longer able to float around and is restricted by gravity), Resistance to Extreme Colds (Lives in Snowdin)

Animal Manipulation (Can use spiders in battle), Web Manipulation (Uses webs to entrap your SOUL making it only able to move on the web strings), Summoning (Can summon her pet)

Undead Physiology, Immortality (Type 7. Is a ghost), Non-Corporeal (As a ghost he is incorporeal), Invisibility (Can fade out), Acid Manipulation (Napstablook's tears are made of acid capable of damaging ghost), Telekinesis (Can control the direction of his tears), Text Manipulation (Creates text as one of his attacks basically stating he does not want to continue the fight), Limited Empathic Manipulation (Those who lie down with him feel like garbage)

Genius Intelligence, Cosmic Awareness (Shattered across all of space-time, can listen in on conversations while being outside of reality), Immortality (Type 5. The concept of death no longer applies to him), Reality Separation (Type 4. Completely outside of Undertale reality), Paradox Existence (Type 4. Exists and doesn't exist at the same time, no longer bound by any concepts as he's completely outside of everything), Omnipresence (Type 3), Nonexistent Physiology (Type 4. Gaster doesn't exist to the scale below even beings like Chara or Goner Kid. The mere act of acknowledging his existence or saying his name causes one to be erased or all of reality to reset. Even for the brief moments he can enter reality merely acknowledging him causes him to be completely erased), Acausality (Type 4. The concept of causality doesn't apply to him as he is outside of it, he can appear at any point in time he wants and is seemingly unaffected by resets), Existence Erasure & Nothingness Manipulation (Type 4. Even acknowledging Gaster's existence or merely saying his name will cause you to be erased completely from existence), Spatial Manipulation (Created a new room between two points that were previously right next to each other, and erased it afterward), Passive Technology Manipulation (Frisk's phone shuts down upon running into a follower)

Flight (Flying during the fight), Summoning (Can summon swords), Timeline Creation & Destruction (Stated once he removed Frisk, he'd have the power to manipulate the timeline), Transformation (Type 3. Can transform into God of Hyperdeath), Enhanced Magic (Embodies all of the monsters, who are stated to be made of magic), Immortality (Type 1, has Asgore Dreemurr's and Toriel's SOULs), Plant Manipulation (Flowey can manipulate vines), Curtain Fire (One of his attacks use multiple bullets), Absorption & Time Manipulation (Absorbs the entire underground, the hyper goner attack was absorbing the entire timeline), Soul Manipulation & Essence Manipulation (All monsters initiate in battles against Frisk in his SOUL form), Lightning Manipulation (Via this), Power Nullification (Destroyed all of Frisk's options), Energy Projection (Shoots out projections of energy blast), Irreversible Damage (Even after Frisk SOUL regenerates, he still struggles to even move), Fire Manipulation (Via this), BFR (Via scaling to Photoshop Flowey, could send Frisk into areas where he needed to call for help from the SOULs to get out of), Insect Manipulation (Could cause insects to come and attack) 4th Wall Awareness (Re-wrote the text in the beginning and re-named the game into "Floweytale"), High Resistance to Soul Manipulation & Essence Manipulation (Can take attacks to the SOUL, he’s made up of every SOUL in the underground & the 6 human SOULs)

Sheer Will (All holders with determination logically have large amounts of willpower), Time Travel & Timeline Hopping (Travels back to a specific point in time while hopping through timelines, users with a greater amount of determination can use this to save and load through all existing timelines), Limited Reality Separation (Type 4. Exist outside of reality as shown in the scene where Photoshop Flowey creates a SAVE File that Frisk is outside of within his SAVE File is Frisk’s original SAVE File which Photoshop Flowey comes out of), Subjective Reality & Creation (Frisk can create “last dream” to heal themself), Information Manipulation (Type 3. Photoshop Flowey re-wrote the history of the war between monsters and humans), Existence Erasure (Type 4. Erased all inhabitants of the current timeline and a save file), Reality Warping (Determination is described as the power to re-shape the world, and Photoshop Flowey re-shaped the world in his own image), Possible Fate Manipulation (Determination gives the user the ability to change fate itself), Statistics Amplification (Frisk used determination to continuously amp themselves to tank hits from Asriel's attacks and keep up with him in speed), Regeneration Negation (Up to Low-Godly to Mid-Godly Genocide run Frisk was capable of permanently killing Undyne the Undying), Acausality (One with very strong determination can remember resets), Power Nullification (Passive. Anyone with higher determination then another can overrride their powers. The difference in DT allows them to nullify more abilities, though the standard is negating all time based abilities), Resistance to Memory Manipulation, Reality Warping, & Time Manipulation (Unaffected by standard resets)

Reality Warping (Warps all of reality back to an original state), Memory Manipulation & Resistance Negation (Erases the memories of every character, even those who originally resisted it), Time Manipulation (Resets the world), Information Manipulation, Data Manipulation, & Conceptual Manipulation (A true reset thoroughly erases all information in one’s file, resetting it back to 0. Chara with the true reset set a permanent flag that cannot be removed without non-canon hacking), Possible Acausality Negation (Type 5. Annoying Dog was seemingly affected by the true reset itself too as he repeated the process of reabsorbing the legendary artifact)

Military Prowess: The Underground has several hundred combat-ready monsters and an unknown numbers of Royal Guards

Notable Individuals: Asgore Dreemurr, Toriel, Frisk, Undyne, Sans, Papyrus, Muffet, Alphys, Mettaton, Napstablook, W. D. Gaster

Weaknesses: The entire civilization is currently locked in the Underground by the Barrier, with only certain individuals being able to cross it by absorbing the Human SOULs though depending on the ending this weakness is removed. All monsters are weak to an attack with killing intent behind it and if a monster doesn't want to fight, they are weakened greatly. The Human SOULs are still conscious to a degree and can break out of the control of whoever they absorbed in certain situations, however in cases like Asriel this weakness doesn't seem to apply. Their King, Asgore, is naturally depressed and will hold back against an opponent if he feels he's wronged them (this usually refers to human children). This overall harpens the morale of the Underground. If many of the underground members are killed, this will also lower their morale significantly making them naturally more pessimistic.

Key: Individuals | Technology

Explanations

Why attacking the SOUL is essence manipulation.

Gallery

Gallery

Asriel Dreemurr Frisk Flowey Sans Undyne Asgore Dreemurr Toriel Mettaton Papyrus Muffet Napstablook

Others

Notable Victories:

Notable Losses:

Inconclusive Matches:

Discussions (Link For Mobile Users):

Discussion threads involving Underground (Undertale)