Annie vs Linne (Skullgirls vs Under Night in Birth)
Annie, Girl of the Stars.
Linne, The Princess of the Night Blade.
Two young girls cursed with immortality enter the ring, but only one gets to stay that way. Annie is a child star and secret vigilante, bound by her undying life to seek out and eliminate the Skullgirl, a malevolent entity hellbent on destroying the world. Her immortality, initially seen as a tragic consequence of the well-intended selfishness of humanity, becomes a driving force in her relentless quest to rid the world of the Skullgirl. In contrast, Linne, a combatant somehow even more stoic and jaded, carries her curse of immortality as both a burden and a weapon against the Hollow Night and the Voids it spawns. Her eternal existence coupled with her inner turmoil over taking over the lives of others has shaped her as a cynical and enigmatic person, determined to break the cycle. Both characters stand as a testament to the true nature of immortality and what kind of responsibilities obtaining it bears in a dangerous world with need for heroes.
They also have really cute little friends they carry around with them!
Before We Start…
Neither of these two have particularly long lists of content to lay out but it’s good to establish nonetheless. For Annie, we’ll be using the main game, Skullgirls Mobile, and any other side media or content that expands upon it such as livestreams, maps, etc. For Linne, we’ll be using UNIB 1+2, as well as the other mediums to expand the lore, namely the French Bread Information Station livestreams and other minor Q&A related content.
Credit to Methalic, Poccola, and BT for Annie footage used.
Background
Annie
“Lights! Camera! Me!”
In “Skullgirls”, the world is plagued by the appearance of an artifact known as the Skull Heart every 7 years. It exists to trick women and girls of any kind into wishing upon it, but if their wish or heart is impure, she will be turned into the Skullgirl, a being of destruction who eventually loses their sense of self and is filled with intent to destroy the world.
In a world where women and girls are not only susceptible to such dangers, but swept up in many wars that could push them to risk it all for their loved ones or themselves, who would act as their mentor and guiding hand, helping give a moral code for kids to live by when any of them could be turned into world ending beings?
Annie of the Stars would, that’s who! While the show originally started as a radio play under the strict regulations of art by the Canopy Kingdom’s regime, Annie of the Stars would give everyone that much needed entertainment and comfort in times of terror and strife. This cultural impact would last for decades until it became a TV show with the new technological advancements. It would be a mix of live action and cartoon segments, kind of like the Super Mario Bros Super Show, filled with many PSAs and life lessons about not trusting deceitful and dangerous people like the Skull Heart, among other things. The show would seemingly last for decades, with multiple actresses playing Annie over the years. However, behind this iconic program and adorable magical girl lies a very dark secret…
Annie isn’t just your favorite TV show/cartoon/radio play character, she’s also a real person! Annie was born centuries ago to a mom who loved her oh so much she thought “I never want this awful world to take away your purity”, and took this so seriously that she wished for exactly that from the Skull Heart. This would curse Annie to not just be pure forever, but be young forever as well, making her a physically immortal child. The purity part of the wish would be granted so well that Annie is physically incapable of cursing or doing anything “impure” of her own volition. Her mother would pay a price as well, to give up her life and become an undead Skullgirl and attempt to destroy the world.
While the details on what happened after that are somewhat vague, we do know that Annie somehow came into contact with her parasite Sagan, defeated her mother before she could destroy the world, and made it her everlasting life’s mission to rid the world of the Skull Heart and Skullgirls for good, by warning everyone of the dangers and treachery of the artifact. Thus would begin her metaphorical and semi-literal rise to stardom.
Annie on the show has been played by multiple actresses who look like Annie, and would be entrusted with her secret to maintain the show’s existence throughout the decades, though Annie herself would act in many episodes too.
With a new Skullgirl on the rise, and centuries of children failing to grasp her messages and morals well enough to avoid making the mistake of wishing on the Skull Heart as adults, can a jaded Annie still save the world, or is she a falling star fated to collapse under the weight of the world?
Linne
“Good grief…I’ve seem to have met a troublesome opponent.”
The Hollow Night. A mysterious world that is home to soul devouring creatures known as Voids. 500 years ago, rumors about the realm and its secrets began to spread, and the surrounding village folk at the time began to worry. To protect the secrets of the Hollow Night and the people, an organization known as the Night Blade was formed, and would go on to protect the citizens from the Hollow Night for ages.
Unfortunately the organization began to fall apart and fight among themselves, causing a split between those who wanted to make their presence known, and those who wished to remain in secret. The Reformists and The Moderates as they were called began to fight among themselves, nearly causing the Night Blade as a whole to fall apart. With no other choice left, the elder of the Night Blade’s village offered to split the knowledge of EXS between two bodies. The volunteers would be none other than the Night Blade’s leader Kuon, and his younger sister Linne.
The experiment worked, and the Princess of the Night Blade would begin to move from body to body each time she died, overwriting the soul of a young woman and effectively stealing their lives. With several lives ruined, Linne would begin to search for a way to permanently end her existence. She would find her solution through the weapon known as “The Insulator '', a weapon that can purge the EXS from a target completely and end her curse once and for all. Unfortunately for her, finding the blade would prove immensely difficult, and the curse would continue for years and years, with only the bodyguard Waldstein being able to keep her company. That would change however, when Linne would encounter a particular high schooler known as Hyde Kido.
What started off as a random intrusion in a toy store would evolve to something more, as while being attacked by a series of Voids, Hyde would manifest the very blade Linne desired. A promise was formed between the two, with Linne training Hyde to use the blade and unlock its ability to end her life once and for all.
Suffice to say the training came in handy, as an organization known as Amnesia would show up, with its sadistic leader Paradox seeking to weaponize the Hollow Night to become a Re-Birth. On top of that, it appeared her brother Kuon had returned, seemingly puppeteering everything behind the scenes for his own plans. With new threats popping up left and right, Linne, Hyde, and Waldstein would set out to put a halt to these threats, and possibly find a way to permanently end Linne’s curse once and for all.
Experience & Skill
Annie
Having been around for centuries; fighting many criminals and Skullgirls alike, Annie has basically seen it all. Although her fighting style and abilities are pretty basic compared to what characters like Peacock or Marie are packing, she’s more than capable of keeping up with both, thanks to her skillful swordsmanship and sparkly powers.
Annie’s also been capable of defeating and keeping up with characters who have centuries if not eons more experience than even her, such as Eliza, Samson, Leviathan, and Double.
We see in Robo Fortune’s story mode ending that even in a total doomsday scenario, she is one of the Earth’s last few remaining defenders, which speaks largely to her power, skill, and survivability.
Linne
Being hundreds of years old, Linne has picked up plenty of skills throughout the many bodies she’s used. Despite operating mostly on gut feeling, she’s been able to decipher and quickly deal with many of the best fighters during the Under Night, using her fairly normal ability to the best of her advantage. She’s managed to take on some of the most talented fighters in the series such as Waldstein, who has lived for almost as long as Linne and has fought talented martial arts such as Enkidu.
Even mid combat Linne is able to figure out weaknesses within a target and capitalize on them quickly. When battling Hilda, she was able to deduce how predictable and emotionally charged her attacks were, allowing her to set proper traps to defeat her easily. (37:49-37:58)
Equipment and Allies
Annie
Annie’s Sword
While currently lacking a name, Annie’s sword is apparently forged from a meteorite and channels the power of the stars/cosmos. That makes it sound important enough to have a name in my opinion, but you do you, Future Club. True to the description though, it does get used as a conduit for her powers and is able to emit beams of “star power”. It also changes form alongside Annie when she achieves her “Season 2 Power’d Up Mode”. Annie can seemingly control it through gravity manipulation as well, since she has used it to fly whenever she can’t rely on Sagan. To add onto this, she can perform some attacks that make references towards gravity while seemingly being controlled telepathically, such as her Kuiper Belt move.
Annie wields this for combat in a very similar way to how Sol Badguy wields his Junkyard Dog (don’t read into that, please). This goes as far as even copying some of his moves, which we’ll get to in a bit.
Sagan
Annie’s best friend and faithful companion, Sagan is a remote parasite who carries her right eye in his mouth. Remote Parasites are different from regular Parasites in that they can act independently from the host so long as they have a body part of the host.
How they came to meet is still unknown, but their relationship seems pretty positive, with him constantly giving her advice through his garbled speech that only she can understand (though apparently he can speak perfect English if he wants).
Sagan grants Annie her powers outside of her sword, and they have a galactic motif to them, referencing many real life celestial objects and space phenomena. This can manifest in big fuck you beams from his mouth, energy propulsed flight, or any manner of energy attacks from Annie herself.
With the powers he provides being tied to space, he can also seemingly just reproduce new swords for Annie from his mouth, as seen in her Gravity Slingshot super.
Sagan also has a very moldable and flexible body, which allows him to do things like grow in size to consume an opponent, be pulled and stretched to sponge any incoming blows towards Annie, and use his ears as a temporary helicopter.
Linne
No Name & Nameless
The two weapons that Linne wields in combat. The first weapon is known as No Name, a gray blunted long sword that Linne forged centuries ago. The second weapon, Nameless, is a simple knife that can be bought at a store, which Linne uses due to its light size being compatible with her current body. Both weapons can be charged with EXS, granting them more power and allowing Linne to shoot projectiles from them. Pushing the weapons to their max allows her to create two golden great swords, or even combine them into a bigger sword.
And yes they are called No Name and Nameless because she literally hasn’t given them a name. Maybe she’ll call Annie’s unnamed sword “The Unnamed.”
Kuu
A void provided by Kuon that follows Linne around to monitor her actions. Tamed through a master-slave system, Kuu doesn’t actually do anything for Linne combat wise and his abilities are never properly elaborated on. He’s kinda useless to her but he’s always around so he kinda has to go somewhere.
Abilities
Annie
Crescent Cut
An energy projectile that evokes the image of a crescent moon. There’s three versions of this move that vary based on size and speed, with the bigger Crescent Cuts being slower but stronger and the smaller being faster but weaker.
North Knuckle
A move where Annie charges forward and punches then headbutts the enemy with a burst of energy in the likeness of the North Star Constellation, better known as the Big Dipper. This move has three variations that change the speed and power inversely. At its strongest variation, as shown above, it can knock enemies so far back they hit the wall and it shakes the area around them.
Destruction Pillar
Based on Sol Badguy’s Volcanic Viper and the “Pillars of Destruction” in the Carina Nebula, this anti-air has Annie slicing upward with a burst of energy that knocks enemies upward. Like the previous special moves mentioned so far, this also has variations that affect strength and speed inversely, as well as the height the move travels.
Re-Entry
Based on atmospheric entry, this move is an angled mid-air kick that drives Annie towards her opponent and allows her to potentially land it up to three times before forcefully landing on the ground, though the additional hits are optional. This move also has variations that affect power, speed, and the angle at which you kick. The weaker variation is faster but weaker and goes at a more downward angle, while the stronger variations are slower but stronger and move at a wider angle.
Reflection Nebula
Annie extends her hand, inviting the opponent to let bygones be bygones. But it’s all an act! If Annie is hit, her handshake turns into a one-inch punch.
Sagan Beam
Sagan Beam is a powerful beam made of Cosmic Rays shot out from Sagan himself as Annie holds him in the air. This move can be performed both on the ground and in the air.
Meteor Strike
Annie hurtles forward at such high speed that the very air around her gets compressed, generating an intense heat.
Pillars of Creation
A super where Annie plunges her sword into the ground, drawing on the power of the cosmos underneath the opponent in the likeness of the famous “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula. While it gets that namesake from looking like a hand pointed upward, that imagery is taken very literally here with the pillars forming a cosmic hand that crushes the opponent after they are stunned by the eruption.
Gravity Slingshot
In this super, Annie transmutes her sword into a disc of pure energy and slingshots it towards her opponent in a spinning motion, referencing actual gravity slingshots, which are stratagem used for space flight vehicles by using the gravity and orbit of an astronomical object to their advantage in order to gain speed, change paths, and use less fuel expenses.
While she would seemingly lose access to her sword by performing this, Sagan actually just produces her a new one to take advantage of the moment and further attack the opponent while they’re stuck in the move until the sword that was thrown eventually dissipates.
Star Power
Star Power is a limited time install where Annie and Sagan harness the energy of the cosmos (and fame) and all their attacks are amped, unleash star shaped projectiles, and change the knockback type of all her attacks to better allow for continuing combos.
She also gains a secondary special known as Star Cancel, which allows her to immediately end an attack in order to immediately follow up with another to create combo strings that otherwise would not be possible. So yea, it’s basically Roman Cancels from Guilty Gear.
Gravity Collapse
The density of Annie’s Star Power reaches a tipping point, causing a gravitational collapse that sends out a burst of energy, knocking the opponent high into the air.
Photo Bop
A super where Annie signs her autograph on a headshot and has Sagan slam it on top of the enemy, stunning them for a photo op with Annie in a random outfit. The stun lasts long enough that Annie can follow up on it for a combo.
This is also her strongest move somehow. Probably because according to her, it’s worth “2000 words”.
Linne
In-Birth Physiology
An In-Birth is a state of being neither alive, nor dead, and the foundation for the manipulation of EXS. When a being is bitten by a Void, the soul begins to be consumed and infected by the Void’s ability. Should a being be able to resist these effects, the power of a Void and Manifestation mix together, thus creating a new In-Birth.
On top of the ability to use a special EXS ability, In-Births are granted several different other qualities to survive the Hollow Night. These powers include:
Superhuman Characteristics: In-Birth’s are notably stronger than most humans.
Regeneration: An In-Birth can regenerate wounds like paper cuts and bruises instantly.
Extrasensory Perception: In-Birth users can sense the presence of others and detect their EXS, sending their thoughts and attention towards them.
Absorption: In-Births can consume EXS within the area.
Enhanced Senses: An In-Birth’s senses are increased alongside their physical abilities.
Adaptation: The average In-Births are noted for their ability to adapt.
Credit to this page for a fair amount of the powers and images:
https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Re-Birth_Physiology
Secret Art of Samsaram, Reincarnation
The secret art assigned to Linne by the Night Blade and the source of her immortality. Whenever Linne dies, her soul moves to the body of another girl, implanting them with her memories and overtaking the original soul. Slowly but surely the personalities of the host body and Linne herself merge, causing her to adapt traits of her host and take their embedded EXS ability.
EXS of Agility: Speed Star
The current EXS ability granted to Linne after becoming an In-Birth. As the name implies, this boosts Linne’s agility, granting her multiple forms of mobility. Despite being an average ability, Linne has been able to utilize it to great effect within battle.
It’s never explicitly clear when this ability is applied, but we’ve seen Linne charge her legs with EXS to boost her physicality, and many of her attacks often leave afterimages or move faster than the eye can see. She can seemingly even use this ability in a subtle manner to sprint past people without anyone noticing (14:54-15:22).
Sky Fangs
A projectile charged with EXS. The attack can be performed in the air, and charged with more energy to create an even more powerful attack.
Dancing Leaf
A dash that allows for Linne to kickstart her offense. She can roll, attack, or continue her sprint to mix up the ways she approaches the opponent.
Dancing Wings
A dash in the air that allows Linne to mix up her approach towards an opponent.
Moon Gyre
A rising slash that allows Linne to hit airborne targets.
Tenacious Mist
A series of quick slashes that Linne employs to deal fast and precise damage.
Flying Swallow
A quick hop that transitions into a large slash that can hit opponents from a distance.
Dragon Fang
An overhead slash from the air that allows Linne to reach the ground quickly and capitalize on an opponent's mistakes.
The Diviner
Using the Power of Sealing within her body, Linne combines her two weapons to form a giant sword, slicing the enemy before producing a giant stream of energy.
Divine Blaze
The ultimate skill in Linne’s kit. After using the Power of Sealing to enlarge and power her swords, Linne performs a series of combo attacks that send the opponent into the air. Once airborne, Linne quickly rises towards the sky and performs one final slash with an even bigger sword, causing the opponent to explode in a flash of light.
Forms (If Applicable)
Annie
Season 2 Power’d Up Mode
Not a whole lot is known about this form because we only ever get a glimpse of it at the end of Robo-Fortune’s story mode, but in Annie’s concept art from Alex Ahad, this is referred to as her “Season 2 Power’d Up Mode”. Seems like even Annie has that PreCure quota for new forms to make merch of…
What we do know about this form is that she obtains it by fusing with Sagan, regaining her missing eye, being able to fly on her own, and gaining a new golden straight-sword. It can be assumed this form makes her stronger though by how much is unknown.
Linne
Veil Off
A powered up state that grants Linne more damage and seemingly lets Linne access more of her abilities at a faster rate. This state is only in gameplay and has never been depicted in story, but it has been shown to be a state any In-Birth can enter in, making it likely a universal application of EXS.
Feats
Annie
Overall
Played a major role in the defeat of many Skullgirls over past centuries
One of the few cases of a wish backfiring on the Skull Heart by providing it an immortal enemy
Ran successful plays, radio shows, and TV shows throughout history in order to not just warn children everywhere of the dangers of the Skullgirl but to provide them all a moral compass in times of war and strife
Fought and defeated a sizable chunk of the Skullgirls cast in her mission to defeat Marie
Power
Can throw around the 5000 pound Big Band
Her density during Star Power is so great it can cause gravitational collapse (201.05 teratons-2.01 petatons of TNT; Debatable, See Before the Verdicts)
Speed
Can move so fast during some moves that she ablates (Mach 2-11)
The Sagan Beam is made of cosmic rays, which move at nearly the speed of light (See Before the Verdict)
Escaped Gehenna before it could collapse, in more than one timeline
Destruction Pillar is stated to move at a speed approaching escape velocity (Mach 32.65)
Durability
Can take hits from Beowulf while wielding Grendel’s arm
Can take hits from from Peacock and her cronies, including Tommy Ten-Tons and Lonesome Lenny
Linne
Overall
Defeated Hilda and helped stop Amnesia
Trained Hyde to successfully wield Insulator
Lived for 500 years
Helped to defeat Kuon and seal The Abyss
Seemingly breaks her immortal curse
Power
Can toss around the 298 kg Waldstein
Creates an explosion of light with her Infinite EXS Worth^
Speed
Can move faster than the eye can track
Durability
Scaling
Annie
Thanks to every individual character’s story mode being an existing timeline among an infinite amount, this affords Annie and pretty much every Skullgirls character some generous scaling, both to one another, and to the main antagonist and final boss, Bloody Marie.
Lab 8
Annie has bested Peacock in combat in her story mode, and fought alongside Big Band to defeat Selene Contiello 14 years ago, so logically she’s comparable to both characters.
Peacock can abuse the space time continuum to attempt to fling the Skull Heart out of the universe. The exact logistics of how this would have worked are unknown, since the Trinity’s own control over time and space interfered and instead forced the Skull Heart to fragment
Peacock can pull all kinds of incredibly heavy objects out of her hammerspace, such as elephants, her car, and all her cronies, including Tommy Ten-Tons
Peacock’s creation and minion Lonesome Lenny is a big ass bomb that creates a mushroom cloud when he explodes
Many of Big Band’s attacks and even just a high enough jump can shake the whole stage, which cause things such as a train they’re standing on and trees, cars, and even a tugboat several meters away to shake violently
Peacock and her creation Avery can perform the math in their heads necessary to tamper with the space time continuum without causing mass destruction in the process, and within extremely short amounts of time
Squigly
Much like Big Band, Annie personally fought alongside Squigly 14 years ago to help stop her mother’s path of destruction, and thus they should be comparable.
Can seemingly travel as disembodied sound, which other characters are able to react to
Capable of impaling Marie with a decisive strike
Her’s and Leviathan’s growing control over space allowed them to assist Peacock in theoretically ejecting the Skull Heart from the universe
Played the largest role in defeating her mother when she became the Skullgirl 14 years ago
Beowulf
Annie has saved Beowulf from his potential demise at the hands of Double more than once.
Could tear off the arm of Grendel, a Gigan who eclipsed him in size, and uses his severed arm that’s bigger than his whole body as a weapon
He promptly proceeded to murder his similarly sized, elderly mother after she attempted to avenge her son (yeesh)
Could tear Grendel’s arm out of the grip and control of the Skullgirl
Double
Annie defeats Double in one timeline and kills her in another (though weirdly enough that doesn’t happen in her own story mode timeline), but either way, she obviously scales.
Has full control over Gehenna, a semi-pocket dimension that’s essentially part of her and runs under the entire West Continent, if not the whole world. Double maintains it and can choose to collapse it whenever she pleases. (575.13 teratons-2.75 petatons-33.7 petatons, see Before the Verdicts)
Double is tasked with potentially being the killer of the Skullgirl if she resists the Skull Heart too effectively to carry out the will of the Trinity
She can change her weight and mass with relative ease, going as far as to form herself into Peacock, her entire posse (including Tommy Ten-Tons), and Peacock’s car
The Skullgirl(s)
Annie has spent centuries fighting Skullgirls and had a direct hand in killing Selene and her own mother in every timeline we know of, so yea, easy scaling there.
Marie throws the Medici Tower at Lorenzo (3.49 kilotons of TNT)
The Skullgirl serves the purpose of destroying the world as an agent of the Trinity, and Queen Renoir apparently came pretty close to this. (Debatable, see before the verdicts)
The arteries and veins that make up the Final Atrium in its entirety are made and maintained by the Skullgirl
These same veins are capable of holding up a lot of ancient architecture
Linne
As of now Linne is arguably one of the strongest characters within the series, and should be afforded practically every notable feat the verse. Her power has been desired by the Re-Birth Kuon, which is consistent with Seth needing to use said power to actually beat him in his arcade mode. She’s also beaten characters such as Hilda, who’s stated to be capable of reaching the level of a Re-Birth, and people within her power range such as Gordeau. With this in mind, she should have no trouble scaling to the best the verse has to offer.
Licht Kreis
A group of In-Births dedicated to protecting the Under Night. Linne has taken on members of the organization before, and has performed well against members who have competed against them such as Hilda and Kuon. With that in mind, she should scale to the feats performed by their members.
Wagner parts the clouds with her Infinite Worth EXS (21 megatons of TNT)
Wagner is stated to burn the world down (33 teratons-2 exatons of TNT) (see Before the Verdict
Night Blade
Being a member of the organization has inevitably lead to Linne competing with many of it’s members, such as Waldstein, Yuzuriha, and others. Due to this, she should be capable of scaling to their accomplishments.
Waldstein’s Katastrophe causes the earth to crumble (1.36 tons of TNT)
Yuzuriha slices faster than electricity/lightning (Mach 836-16.87% the speed of light)
Misc. Characters
Linne should naturally scale to most other characters in the series due to either fighting them directly, or fighting characters around their level or above them.
Londreika creates a field of ice that surrounds a battle area
Akatsuki summons and channels lighting from the sky (Mach 285) (see, Before the Verdict)
Re-Births
The level that transcends the In-Birth and home to the most dangerous individuals in the series. As of now, Linne has only managed to interact with one of the six Re-Births, that being her brother Kuon: The Weaver of Eternity. Beyond just beating him in her arcade route, Kuon is noted to need her power to complete his plans, and characters like Seth are amped by her power in order to compete with Kuon in the first place.
Characters such as Hilda have also been stated to have a vessel capable of evolving into an Re-Birth, and many characters were stated to defeat Hilda in the previous entry, Linne included. Naturally, this allows Linne to scale to the feats performed by Re-Births.
Hilda as a Rebirth could seemingly kickstart multiple Hollow Nights (20:29-21:03)
Hollow Nights being formed causes clouds to form in a short time (30 tons of TNT)
Kuon is stated to have the power from the night flow into him
Kuon’s Infinite EXS Worth disperses multiple stars (1.312 kiloFOE) (1672 times FTL) (Debatable, see Before the verdict)
Weaknesses
Annie
That curse of purity means she can’t call her enemy a slur.
Outside of that debilitating weakness, she also could not really have her powers without Sagan and although destroying him probably wouldn’t kill Annie like it would a non-remote parasite, it would likely leave her powerless.
Sagan also feels the same pain Annie does, though not vice versa.
Linne
The one thing that can definitively kill Linne is the removal of all EXS within her body. Weapons such as the Insulator have been stated and shown capable to do this, but any equivalent ability should reasonably be capable of the same.
Her current body is also not the best for more strenuous physical activities. She uses shorter swords due to longer ones being more bothersome, and has to use more EXS than normal to bring out the most of her body.
She also may not fully understand why teenagers in the modern day don’t get married.
Before the Verdict
Double and Gehenna
Gehenna is a space that runs under the entire continent if not the whole world, according to Marie. It’s Double’s domain and a part of her body. She also maintains its structure and can choose to collapse it if she pleases. Sooooo what gives, what’s the problem with it as a feat?
…Maybe I’m biased but I personally don’t see a problem with it lol. It’s a part of Double’s overall body that she can control and collapse as she pleases, so it’s not too unlike things like Chaos from Castlevania for example.
Though that does leave me with a different problem… How the fuck do you calc this??? The world of Skullgirls is severely lacking in an official map of its regions and the actual methodology to calc this could be tricky as well.
Well, to start off there’s always the classic earthquake calc, which you could justify under the fact that Gehenna does violently shake when it’s collapsing. You would just need the result in Radiated Waves instead of Total Seismic Energy, since it’s not a natural earthquake. Works for me.
As for getting the size of the continent Marie is referring to (The Western Continent to be exact), it would seem that we do have some information on it from the game’s creator, Alex Ahad, from over 11 years ago on a Twitch stream. Shouldn’t be too hard to track down though, right???
I scoured YouTube, I scoured Twitch, even though it seems to just automatically erase old streams, especially from that long ago, and I even tried reaching out to the Skullgirls forum for some help in tracking it down, to which they helped by giving me a date for the stream that contained that lore drop by checking through old messages from around that time (The OP was very nice and helpful for that btw). Eventually, thanks to the help of Kingsly, I used a Twitch archive site, tracked down the stream from that day, and browsed through hours of footage till Alex Ahad actually made the fabled appearance. Naturally, since this was almost lost media, I have decided to archive it via saving a clip of it on my YT lol.
According to Alex Ahad, the creator of Skullgirls, the three nations that make up the Western Continent are roughly the distance of “Europe, Russia, and the Middle East or Africa or something” between each other. Amazing. Especially since Russia is literally part of Europe, but I guess he could have meant like Western Europe.
After a lot of struggling and then reaching out for some help, I was able to calc this at varying ranges, from large country/continent level if you assume continent size, to multi-continent level if you assume Gehenna runs through the entire planet.
Sagan Beam Speed
So thanks to the Skullgirls tutorial, we know the Sagan Beam is made of Cosmic Rays, which move at nearly light speed. Is this legit?
Uhhhhhh, sure, I guess.
Not sure I can give a very concrete reasoning, but Annie’s powers do go beyond just having the space aesthetic, and are stated to come from actual stars, galaxies, and such. Thus no reason for me to really deny that the beam is actual Cosmic Rays.
Gravitational Collapse I Guess LOL
So this seems like a pretty fucking insane feat for what is basically just an combo extender off of ending an install, right?
Increasing your own density to the point of causing gravitational collapse IS actually pretty impressive!
…Because it only ever happens in the formation of stars and black holes. Would this make it an outlier? Maybe, maybe not, depending on how you handle Gehenna and the Skullgirls’ world destroying statements.
How strong it would be kinda is kinda hard to figure out because like mentioned earlier the only real world examples of this come from formation of stars and black holes, but for the sake of example let’s compare it to the smallest imaginable black holes that are theorized to exist, which includes black holes the size of atoms.
A black hole with the radius of an atom would be around large country or continent level (calc for it is posted earlier), but what’s my personal take on this?
Ehhhhhh. I honestly don’t know. I think the description of the move is meant to be literal and it’s tied to Annie’s general theme and powers, so it makes sense in that regard. There’s no reason to assume it’s not an actual gravitational collapse, when that’s visually what we’re shown and it falls in line with the rest of what she’s shown to do.
The issue however is that the only way to get a yield out of it is to compare it to gravitational collapses under different processes, and just hope the smallest possible yield is fair. It’s rather vague and lacking a basis in any real science.
To add onto this, while I know vs debating is openly against authorial intent, I can’t help but doubt the people who thought of this ability foresaw this move being as potentially powerful as it would be if compared to IRL examples of gravitational collapse.
Ultimately, it’s one of those things where it’s better used in support of another feat for consistency, rather than being strong evidence on its own of any particular stats.
Robo-Fortune Lasers
I can put this one to bed fairly quickly. Robo-Fortune’s lasers are not light speed. They are beams made of Theonite, a fictional element within Skullgirls associated with the Skullgirl and the Skull Heart. Not made of light, therefore not a real laser. The tutorial also states they are “solid beams of energy”.
Skullgirls and the Moon???
Well, while this is not fully explained, I do have some sort of logical conclusion I’ve come to regarding it. The Trinity are stuck within their own plane of existence known as The Abyss. They cannot leave it for unknown reasons and use Skullgirls as a means to not only destroy the world but to bring them back into it somehow. The Abyss has been said by Alex Ahad, the creator of Skullgirls, to rarely intersect with the normal world, though it can and has happened before. I’d imagine in the case of Marie’s story mode, that’s exactly what’s occurring and therefore it’s likely that the moon appearing is just a result of intersection between the realms rather than any moon moving, or it being summoned by the Trinity in this particular instance.
There’s further evidence to back this up with the existence of Nightmare Crest, an inverse version of the stage Maplecrest, that shares a lot of similar inverse coloring with the Abyss intersecting with the normal world in Marie’s story mode. The only character to really access this stage/area was Painwheel, and it can be deduced that this was caused due to her connection to the Skullgirl since she has Skullgirl blood infused in her. To drive this home, the name of the stage at the end of Marie’s story mode changes from Hilgard’s Castle to Hilgard’s Castle (Nightmare), implying a connection to Nightmare Crest.
Skullgirls Destroying the World
Soooo this particular phrasing gets used a lot. Skullgirls are stated many times to be capable of destroying the world, as is their purpose, with the Skull Heart even saying “until this world exists no more”.
Issue with this is mostly the same as a lot of other destroy the world arguments, that being it’s too ambiguous and unclear. Plus if the Skullgirl was a planet buster to begin with, why would they not do so as soon as possible. You can make an excuse that Marie was too strong willed, but neither Selene nor Nancy were.
If there was a bad timeline ending out there with a feat to support it, I’d totally hop on board and emphatically push for it. But the statements on their own aren’t the best evidence.
Soundwaves, Lightning, and Lasers Oh My! (Under Night Edition)
Under Night is full of weird and fascinating speed arguments, and many of them have their own quirks to dissect.
The first would be Phonon and her “soundwaves.” You might have heard that Phonon can manipulate sound and even break the sound barrier. On paper that would make sense, but sadly there has yet to be a proper source given for this claim, either in the series itself or through any interviews or supplementary material. The closest we can get is in the concept art for Phonon mentioning that she can control “waveforms”, and a potential livestream that was deleted, but so far there’s nothing to solidify the claim currently.
Next we have Vatista’s lasers, which apart from moving in a straight line, don’t actually have a whole lot to display themselves as lasers. In fact, they are stated to be energy from her wings, that emit light, but don’t have any implication towards it being converted towards her lasers or using any other properties that reflect proper lasers.
Lastly we have Akatsuki, who obviously channels electricity through his body, but has one super where he calls lightning from the sky, implying that his suit channels the same kind of lightning for his attacks. That being said, given this action isn’t replicated in any other attack, it could be argued he cannot channel this kind of power normally. For the sake of comprehension, the cloud to ground lightning speed has been factored in for calculations regarding Akatsuki’s lightning generation.
Wagner Scaling
If you couldn’t tell, Wagner is a pretty strong character and the series knows it. Prior to the events of the games Wagner had her powers sealed by the higher ups of Licht Kries, making her unable to access her full power. This naturally will bring into question the nature of how Linne, much less anyone notable would scale to her statements of burning down the world.
Well it should be noted that the statements are made during the events of UNIB II, where Wagner’s EXS is going around unsuppressed, and weakening her combat capabilities. She even states that she is in no condition to fight properly, and by the of her arcade mode she has so little EXS that she needs to use her own spirit to suffice. With all this in mind, Wagner was arguably stronger in the previous title, thus allowing Linne to scale to her safely due to her fights with characters comparable to her level such as Orie and Hilda.
Kuon of the Stars
In Kuon’s Infinite EXS Worth, the climax of the attack seemingly causes a bunch of stars to disperse and explode. So Solar System level Kuon right?
To be blunt there’s a lot of issues with the “feat” in question. Right off the bat it’s never made very clear that these are even stars. It’s the classic starry background argument you’ve heard before, but with even less grounds as we don’t know where this background is coming from and how does Kuon transport someone to fucking space.
Even taking the feat at 100% face value, it’s safe to call it a massive outlier throughout the verse. Kuon was concerned about fighting Wagner, whose world burning feat at the highest is 2 exatons of TNT. Compared to the supposed star feat, that would be a difference of 15 quintillion times, which is way outta line with just about everything we’ve seen from the series so far.
In most cases this feat would be discounted. For the sake of covering this blog, the feat will be included to cover every possible end you could reasonably argue.
Verdicts
Stats
Annie and Linne both have different ends to explore their scaling avenues, some more complicated than others. The only end where they would mostly be close is in speed, as Sagan’s cosmic rays can fire at near light speed, but Eltnum can calculate and process events at straight up light speed. A slight edge towards Linne, but not the game changer either are looking for. Power is the name of the game, and we’ll start things off with the lower side of things.
Starting with Annie, some of the more blatant feats of power come from the Skullgirl, who has been shown to throw buildings with over 3 kilotons worth of energy. Impressive for sure, but compared to the cloud parting feats of Licth Kreis, Linne can be granted 173 kilotons to 21 megatons of worth of energy. Linne wins in this category, but what if things are kicked up a notch?
Looking into some of the higher ends, Linne’s is far more simple. Wagner’s statement of burning down the world has two values, ranging from 33 teratons to 2 exatons of TNT. Annie comparatively speaking has multiple tectonic feats to argue for, though as displayed by the Q&A not all of them can be argued safely. Gehenna especially can be tricky due to its esoteric nature not fully being explored and the nature of its collapse not super clear. That being said, when looking into the multiple different values, we can get around 501 teratons-33 petatons of TNT. While the lower values can beat out Linne’s own, the higher ends don’t quite stack up and end up being a bigger gap by comparison.
Between the two values and interpretations of said values, ultimately Wagner’s higher ends are just a good bit more reliable than Gehenna’s higher values. Wagner’s feat is effectively the same split between two different time frames, and the claim of a burning the world in a day was while her EXS was still being condensed and prevented from going out of control as it does in the ending of her arcade and in her fight with Kuon. Comparatively, Gehenna’s values in general are more reliant on assuming the entirety of the realm was shaking and collapsing in order to take out a small group of people, which isn’t nearly as safe of a claim. Even with the higher values, none of them beat out the exaton value, which makes this side of the stats safely in Linne’s hands.
But should you push to the HIGHEST of highs and use the incredibly shaky arguments for cosmic stats on both sides…well it’s a similar story here. You could argue that Annie scales to the Trinity possibly creating or moving moons and the Skullgirls having planetary-esque destruction based on the many world destroying statements. By comparison, taking Kuon’s Infinite EXS worth at face value creates kiloFOE level energy…or a thousand supernovas at once. Frankly these ends just make the power gap far more absurd than the previous examples, and even swings the speed advantage comfortably into Linne’s favor, going from light speed to thousands of times that.
Overall when looking at the different values, the two immortals will be close in speed more often than not, but consistently the power advantage lands in Linne’s favor, granting her the wins in stats.
Arsenal & Abilities
For the most part, arsenal and abilities are actually pretty handily in Annie’s favor, thanks to her ranged abilities, flight, and greater amount of options at her disposal. A lot of Linne’s special moves are mostly techniques as opposed to separate abilities entirely, and because of Annie’s ability to fly and use several attacks without ever coming within close distance of Linne, it’s going to be very hard for her to land the hits she needs to secure the victory, even with EXS being able to enhance her agility.
It could also be argued that while her In-Birth Physiology does grant her some things unique to her such as heightened senses, extrasensory perceptions, and regeneration, the first two mentioned are highly unlikely to come into play against someone like Annie, who employs no kind of stealth or underhanded tactics (save for that joke parry move I guess). Also, while Annie does not explicitly have any regenerative capabilities, we do see her pretty much heal instantly from a match-ending blow from Double when she amps herself with the Power of the Stars.
The big hurdle for Annie on the other hand is the problem that would present itself if she should kill Linne. Because of Linne’s curse, she would seemingly be capable of transferring her soul into another body post-mortem, and she even has some control over who she “reincarnates” into, so long as the body has EXS.
If the fight really came down to this point, it would be very hard to justify, not just because we never get to see it actually happen, but nothing in the story or lore seems to imply she’d somehow be able to use this in a combat scenario anyway.
If we assume that Linne can in fact just possess her opponent after being killed by them for some reason, there’s also some small arguments you could make for Annie resisting it. While cross resistance scaling is not something typically usable, it has been shown that parasites could help their hosts resist the effects of the Skull Heart’s possession over them, such as Leviathan being the reason Squigly isn’t part of Marie’s undead army. Thus, it could be possible that Sagan might be a similar blockade to any control being assumed over her.
Tertiary Factors
These two characters fighting in generally straightforward fashion means this fight doesn’t actually have a lot of tertiary factors to consider.
In terms of skill and experience, both are arguably on the same level, having been around fighting threats to the world for centuries, so neither has an advantage in that. Similarly because they both fight fairly straightforward there’s going to be very few things that will surprise either character, given the more wild and weird foes they’ve faced. Linne has shown more direct showings of applying her skills as displayed by being able to outwit Hilda in mid combat, though given Hilda is also far less experienced and predictable by comparison to Annie.
And in terms of their fighting style, they both similarly are going to attempt to rush the other down with their swords, shoot projectiles at each other, and attempt to do le fighting game combos as one would expect from two rather simple fighting game characters.
Conclusion
Annie
Advantages:
Better mobility
Better range
Far more abilities at her disposal
Sagan is a more useful companion than Kuu in several respects
Doesn’t wanna die
Disadvantages:
Loses the stat trinity in both low and high-end feat interpretations
Does not have heightened perceptions or extrasensory capabilities
Needing to amp herself to heal isn't as good as just naturally having healing capabilities
Was not in Indivisible like originally planned
Mike Z (he’s gone now thank fuck)
Lore locked behind lost Twitch streams from over 10 years ago
Linne
Advantages:
Takes the stat trinity in both low and high-end feat interpretations
EXS of Agility can enhance her speed advantage
More direct showings of skill
Better senses
Having minor regen normally is better than healing via amps
French Bread Money got her into EVO
Disadvantages:
Less mobility
Less range
Far less abilities at her disposal
Wants to die
Was in Blazblue Cross Tag Battle
Lore locked behind untranslated streams
Annie certainly isn’t lacking without advantages, especially when it comes to the arsenal she brings to the table compared to Linne’s fairly limited kit. Unfortunately the stars aren’t shining on Annie this time around, as Linne is just frankly too strong overall. Whether it’s the lower or higher ends, Linne is always coming out at least equal in speed and notably stronger overall. Basic as her kit is, it’s effective in getting the job done and granting Linne what she needs to get a swift kill without a lot of issues. Combined with her own experience and skill, the Princess of the Night Blade is the winner of this clause.
This was a collab blog by Homestucklover AKA RadioactiveCaffine who handled most of the Skullgirls stuff big shoutouts to him especially for some of that deep livestream finds. As usual thanks to Rina for many of the big calculations here for the most part as well as thanks to anyone else who's numbers made it in (namely VBW).
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