It's a Conspiracy!

As is general knowledge, Dota is a game about a battle between two sides: the Radiant, and the Dire, with each trying to destroy the other's Ancient. We also know, through the comic 'Are we Heroes yet?' that a Hero's affiliation with an Ancient is based upon their proximity to said Ancient - thus you get 'evil' characters like Troll Warlord on the Radiant side, and you have Clinkz on Dire.

The origins of this theory can be traced back to the Dota Wiki. I found Brewmaster's page, and his featured quote was 'Drink and be bleary, for tomorrow we die.' This intrigued me. Few people go into a battle sure that they are going to lose (and by extension die), much less in Dota, where the POINT of the story is that the battle can go either way. Also, it is one of Brewmaster's 'rare' quotes, said on the actual battlefield. If the battle is 'today', then what is the 'tomorrow' of which he speaks?

I decided to look further into this as it seemed like a nice something to pass five minutes on. Thus, I found in Invoker's backstory, a little sentence which added to the mystery.

"He is ancient, learned beyond all others, and his mind somehow still has space to contain an immense sense of his own worth...as well as the Invocations with which he amuses himself through the long slow twilight of the world's dying days."

So, if we look at these two lines together, we can assume that the world is ending, and that it will end tomorrow if Brewmaster is to be believed. But why? And what role does the Ancient War play?

I then read 'Are We Heroes Yet?' which is an official Valve-commissioned Dota comic. In it, two rogues come into the possession of Demon Edge, a weapon with a Direstone hilt and Radiant Ore blade. These materials are what the Ancients are made of, and exert the same influence. One rogue became influenced by the Direstone, and the other by the Radiant Ore. They fought, and actually transformed into the same form as a creep. It is also revealed earlier in the comic that the creeps are utter slaves to the Ancients - the Radiant creeps 'may have nobler intentions, but that doesn't make them any less free'.

So, if proximity to a WEAPON made of Ancient-stuff can transform a person into a mindless slave, an extension of the Ancient's will, then what will proximity to the actual Ancient do?

It was now that I started forming a theory, which is as follows:

1. We usually think of Radiant as 'good' and Dire as 'evil'. My theory proposes that Radiant is 'evil' and Dire is 'also evil'.
2. Ancients are not inanimate - rather they are sentient creatures, albeit not alive as we know it.

So what, you ask? It was now that I drew all the sources together and interpreted them.

3. The two Ancients keep each other in check, and enlist Heroes to try and destroy the other to gain the upper hand.
4. If one Ancient is destroyed, the other will be able to unleash its full power and influence.
5. This will have the effect of essentially mind-controlling and brainwashing the entire planet, in the process transforming the Heroes into Mega Creeps and everyone else into Creeps as well.
6. Over time, the entire planet will transform, eventually becoming the Ancient itself, but much larger.
7. From there, perhaps it will crash into another, larger planet, and another Ancient War on another world will begin.

This is a lot of speculation with too little facts for my liking as a History student, but given all the evidence I believe it's as good a theory as any else, considering how little Dota's lore has been fleshed out past character bios.

Perhaps as an aside to the theory, but the Ancients have attracted extremely powerful forces such as the Fundamentals, Doom, Weaver and Elder Titan amongst others. Perhaps they've tried to control far more than they can?

I'll just leave this open for discussion.

What Brewmaster said is a parody of a quote in the bible "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." It basically means that we should live life to the fullest. It doesn't mean that we'll literally die tomorrow, it just means that death can come at any time, and that we should enjoy our lives before that time comes. Thus, the "tomorrow" in "Drink and be bleary, for tomorrow we die" should take on the same figurative meaning. I'm pretty sure he said this simply to justify his alcoholism using the concept of Carpe Diem.



EDIT:
I agree with 1-5, but I think that the many, many possibilities in dota are due to some parallel universe shenanigans. In each parallel universe, different events occur that alter the timeline, possibly explaining why only certain heroes appear in each battle and the varying skills levels between heroes (pro players vs n00b*****).

This conspiracy... makes sense o___o".

edit: For the many constant wars that happens, maybe there is a final war that takes place. That final war is basically a match of Dota.

I took particular notice of Undying since you mentioned Invoker because they might've fought together in a war or was that "kin that was grim". If you read Undying's lore, he was basically fighting a war against zombies (this line sort of proves it "He remembers a battle: pain and fear as pale hands ripped him from his saddle") then was thrown into a pit to later mindlessly consume others that were with him and sooner or later be transformed by the Dead God.

However if you read a little more into it, who is this Dead God? Pretty sure the Dead God is a very powerful soul or consciousness based on how he entered the mind of whomever is in the lore. For some reason Undying's lore reminded me of the wizard that got locked up with the lifeless body of Naix. Does this nameless wizard later "evolve" into the Dead God since he might've been turned crazy by Naix's inner madness or realized he can make an army of dead dudes like Naix.

However it might not be the case since the wizard that entered Lifestealer's mind of utter madness was a lot later into the lore of Dota since it seems Naix was caged for a long time. With that note, Invoker might've been a part of the Vile Councel since they did use a spell of longevity on Lifestealer or might have stolen the spell. Then again.. Naix was a thief so who did he steal for? Better question, what did he steal to be punished this harshly for?

the fact that the fundamentals and the primordials ( Enigma, Keeper of the Light, Io, Chaos Knight and Elder Titan existed before this radiant vs dire thingy implies that they what's up between the two big trees.

and also, Elder Titan created dota universe as it exists and has hinted that he created the ancients while trying to mend a mistake that was unmendable and that the world of dota was his "accidental" creation,and is bound to it. if he accidentally created them, he know what each one of them is upto and fights for either when he deems appropriate implying that either Elder Titan is a huge *******, or knows that this radiant vs dire thing is just a **** swinging contest on a global scale and that the fundamentals join it to take part in the fun.

This is also minorly supported by a Puck line!
When he dies, he sometimes says: "Let the world end now. It matters not to me..."

Oh. My. God.

Aliens.

On the topic of Elder Titan, he also says 'On this alone of seven planes the final war is fought.' I'll ignore the correlation to the Seven Hells and refer to the Final War. Another line of his, when killing a Hero, is 'Death shadows us all.'

Suspicious, mmm?

Maybe the radiant/ancient stone is Elder Titan's broken soul,and got enslaved by it because it sated in his lore that they turned their tools against them.


In the lore of Phoenix it states that Phoenix has someone foretold this and so he took a mortal form to help whoever is in need.
In his lore it also states about an unlit ocean,which may be what Facleless void is talking about in some of his dialouge.

Your theory may be real because in some of Faceless Void's respawn dialouge he says:

"I have seen the end of time"
"So begins... the final epoch"

So maybe the world IS ending.

It may be evident that most of the heroes know this because like puck's dialouge "I world of exploits await us"

Lets wait for Oracle's lore and lets see if this is also conmected.

Well we have the planewalkers like Io, Spirit Breaker, Spectre etc.
who just walk planes like mindless *******s and they may have the most/leadt influence from the radiant/dire stones so they may be our key.

But right now im just blank.

one more point emerges from the seven planes thingy. If there are seven planes, why do the planes-walkers and fundamentals prefer this world?

maybe this is the first plane of hell and these planes-walkers are escaped criminals from the lower depths of hell (seriously barathrum looks like a convict).

Razor and Visage also predate the DoTA shenanigan, implying that they were the jail police and were following Spirit Breaker, who himself serves a "greater master"when they were trapped in the world of DoTA.

Also bringing in OD, who says himself he is merely a harbinger of 'Worse to come'.

This may very well be the first plane of Hell, but I don't think Spectre and the other planes-walkers are convicts from other Hells - or I'd expect Doom/Shadow Demon to say something about it. The Narrow Maze may be the second plane, maybe, as it is pretty obviously the gate to the Underworld, or Underscape, as Razor/Visage/AM call it. The fact that AM mentions the Underscape means that it may be the realm of the Dead God, and that makes the Dead God the master of the afterlife.

This is turning into a general assumptions thread :P