• Sleeping Beauty is a tree we run into in NieR Gestalt/Replicant it’s actually a giant computer that runs on magic (maso/demonic element) and has all kids of data about the world.

I don’t think we know that the terminal runs on Maso, however it is a fusion of plant and tech, much like the machine cores.

• The “Old World” as implied in NieR Gestalt and Automata is Earth before humanity was completely turned into Gestalts. Basically 2003 Earth (Ending E DOD1), we see ruins of this “world” in Gestalt and even Automata.

The post 6.12 Shinjuku world is not the “Old World”. It is much older than this and is the same place where dragons came from. Also, when Caim and Angel arrive in the city it’s not in ruins yet. It’s not until the Mother Angel is defeated and it infects Angel’s body that Maso comes into existence, causing people to succumb to the White Chlorination Syndrome. The Wall of Jericho is erected around this area of the city to keep these things from escaping and spreading throughout the world.

• Emil is somebody from the Old World, an experiment

He is not from the “Old World”. He is from the post 6.12 Shinjuku. They’re two very different things.

• Devola/Popola are also from the Old World, as they were created to oversee Project Gestalt.

They were tasked with overseeing each terminal around the world and managing the creation of Replicants.

• In Drakengard 3 the “Old World” is what Cathedral City is called, a “futuristic city in terms of where civilization is in Drakengard times. You can see it’s got a modern look to it, similar to the ruins of the “Old World” from NieR games.

It’s true to say that the Cathedral City does look like a modern city (ie. circa 2003-ish), however, there’s nothing that has been officially stated connecting the Cathedral City with the post 6.12 Shinjuku. They are likely separate locations in both time and space.

• My theory is that Cathedral City from Drakengard 3 is somehow the Machine Lifeforms “Ark” from NieR Automata.

My impression was that the “Ark” was quite small and only contained data of the machines. It doesn’t have the ability to create things like the Copied City or the Tower because the machines actually created those structures over a long period of time. (source?)

• Machine Lifeforms extract data from Sleeping Beauty tree, begin working on the Tower. (according to Yoko Taro in the NieR A Strategy Guide)

It’s likely that N2 is being that appeared at the terminal in the Forest of Myth (The Lost World). I don’t think the machines have the “mind” to extract the data themselves, so it’s the Network that does this and relays this information to them.

• Inside the Tower we can see all kids of church like architecture, along with familiar locals because of all the data they’ve gathered from throughout time.

The data on human civilization has been acquired by the machine network and is used to create specific locations such as the Copied City and Library in the Tower. But this is exactly the same thing that is done elsewhere, too, with Eve’s tattoos and such. I don’t think it has any deeper meaning other than it all is related to the history of human civilization and the machines have access to any and all of this information.

• Constantly throughout the Tower tho it’s got a church like motif. Looks kinda like a Cathedral (city).

Like stated above, the design is copied from real locations throughout human history. This particular location could be copied from the main hall in the Cathedral.

• The Ark flies off with all kids of resources and data about the Machine Lifeforms, androids, and most importantly the vast amount of data from Sleeping Beauty (magic & quantum physics).

I don’t recall exactly what information was stored in the Ark – I thought it only pertained to the machines themselves, but it could have also carried the history of the world at large.

• Back in Drakengard 3 times the “Cataclysm” happens, earthquakes, monsters, dragons, all kinds of inexplicable stuff happens, including the Cathedral City appearing.

My impression was that the Ark shot out into space like a message in a bottle tossed out to sea. They’re searcing for a new world, traveling through space, not necessarily time as well.

• A “futuristic city” said to be the origins of magic, and have spells “beyond its time.”

Notice that a great wall around Shinjuku was erected to keep monsters and Maso from coming out and infecting the rest of the world. Maybe that part of the city is what travels back through time?

–Actually, no. That would not explain the extensive differences in language spoken there (the “Old Tongue”) nor the appearance of dragons and the Flower along with it.

• It’s also home to the Church, and is surrounded by a rather Earth-like city.

The Cathedral is in the center of the Cathedral City. Surrounding the Cathedral is a modern Earth-like city. Brother One sets up the religion of the “Church of Angels” with the Cathedral as its headquarters.

• The machine ark is full of all kinds of data about quantum physics and magic and the Old World of NieR, somehow appears with the Cataclysm during Drakengard times and becomes Cathedral City, which is called The Old World, too.

Not exactly. Again the post 6.12 Shinjuku is not the “Old World”. Although we don’t have any concrete information regarding its origins, the “Old World” is the place where the dragons, the Flower, the Cathedral City, Accord, and Bartas are from.

Were we ever told exactly what data was included in the Ark? I don’t recall anything regarding quantum physics and magic.

• Now there’s a really good theory here about Accord also being a Machine Lifeform akin to Adam, you should read it. N2 and Adam evoke similar imagery to Accord and her “network” of selves.

Accord does not have a fleshy body like Adam and Eve, therefore, I don’t believe she is on the same level of technology as them. She is seemingly similar to any other regular android.

• Accord saying she’s from the Old World means Cathedral City, which can mean the Machine Ark, leading to theory that she’s a Machine Lifeform “descendant”.

I originally speculated that the “Old World” referred to a future timeline that had been eradicated due to forced interference. Accord is essentially displaced in time, which makes her the perfect time traveler. But this wouldn’t exactly explain why dragons and the Flower came along for the ride. Maybe their world was at its end and the desire of the Flower to live at all cost caused a massive rift around the city and caused it to be thrown into another reality, 856AD.

• Maybe when she says she’s from the Old World it’s a bit of a play on words and she doesn’t exactly mean Cathedral City but NieR’s “Old World”.

This wouldn’t explain the unique history that accompanies the Cathedral City. It’s a unique history, culture, and language that did not exist in Shinjuku, Japan during the post 6.12 events. I think it’s more likely to be an entirely separate reality / world / dimension.

Then again, take a look at how the Flower that infects Zero’s body looks like. There seem to be mechanical parts that come shooting out of the center of the flower… a fusion of plant and technology. This sounds a lot like the terminals that house the Gestalt data around the world and the machine cores that were created with plant cells.

There are other locations on the planet that have not been explored in the lore yet. We know about the Kingdom of Night that includes both North and South America, which is where Accord apparently has taken up refuge. But there is also the free state of androids down under in Australia /  Oceania. Interestingly enough, the antipode of the general location of the Cathedral City (which appears to be around present day Madrid, Spain) is down in New Zealand. Whether this means anything or not is entirely subjective and speculation only.

• Accords observe/watch. They are the watchers. The machine network overlooked different groups of machines for data. Perhaps Accords do the same with multiple timelines, taking their job the extreme.

No, Accord is not an Angel aka “Watcher”. The Angels are beings from another dimension and seem to be related to the Flower and thusly the Utautai. That is the whole reason why the Utautai girls are able to summon the Angels in the first place; their connection to the Flower.

• Accord is tricky business because we don’t really know her end goals aside from just “recording” history. But I don’t really think she’s that connected to the Watchers themselves, especially since the Watchers have already been implied to be the Angels, and Grotesqueries.

Accord is not related to the Angels. We know that her job is to record the events surrounding certain “singularities” in time. One just happened to be Zero, which is why she was sent to observe her. She wasn’t supposed to get involved, but her emotions got the best of her and she wanted to help Zero achieve her goals.

We know that Accord reports to a higher authority. She had to get approval from somewhere to engage One in battle at the end of DOD3 Branch D.

Lastly, the Watchers are not “implied” to be the Angels, they literally are. The Japanese for the Queen Beast is “Mother Angel” and the Grotesqueries are called “angels” or merely the “enemy”.

• That second story got me thinking, maybe the “angel” it’s talking about is actually Legna, a black dragon. Idk if you’ve read DOD1.3, but in it the dragons are shown to be able to turn into humanoids with angel wings.

I don’t recall what this comment was referring to, so I can’t easily comment on the bit about Legna. But in the DOD1.3 novella, the dragons lose their dragon forms and become more humanoid with angel wings. As they continue to devour the world and everything in it, even each other, they begin to resemble the Eggs of Destruction. In the end a humanoid Angel is left standing among these eggs in a bleak, empty world.