Splatoon: a third-person shooter about humanoid squids harmlessly shooting ink at one another, or a look at a post-apocalyptic future in which squids have evolved as the dominant--maybe only--life form on the planet?

　　Allow me to elaborate.

　　I am likely not the first to notice that when Splatoon's adorable squid children are in squid form, they look suspiciously like enemies from the world of Super Mario games. Specifically, Bloopers.

　　Going off the Blooper ancestry, the Inklings' cephalopod form bears more than a passing resemblance to the vacant-eyed Bloopers of the Mario franchise. Tiny arm-like appendages have evolved into the Inklings' longer, with what looks like meatier tentacles with looks like a sucker on each end. The general shape of the head is the same, although Inklings have four shorter, smaller tentacles between their larger ones, whereas Bloopers' four "leg" tentacles are longer.

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　　Still, though. It's there in the eyes. Eons of being on top of the food chain hardened the Blooper, turning them into the adrenaline-fueled, competition-starved beings in power they are by Splatoon.

　　My theory isn't so farfetched. I can even tell you where it all begins: Super Mario Sunshine.

　　In Super Mario Sunshine, Mario must cleanse the Isle Delfino of graffiti and pollution placed there by Shadow Mario. Armed with only a water cannon and his wits, Mario must find the island's Shine Sprites and restore them to their proper place, where they will protect and prevent the island from being overcome with dirt again. Along the way he encounters several types of enemies that seek to hinder his progress. The race of many of them? Bloopers.

　　Skilled players who beat Super Mario Sunshine are shown an Isle Delfino free from grime, the day saved, and balance restored. But what if Mario failed to clean up Isle Delfino? What if the gunk and graffiti had been too much for him, and he had failed to scrub it all away? What if the blackness had grown, swallowing Delfino and seeping into the ocean, spreading itself across the entire planet? One tiny plumber alone couldn't handle the mess, and since no one ever really seems to help Mario out with situations like this, it's likely that the endeavor would have failed, leaving the world an inky black mess.

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　　This theory isn't so far-fetched; Nintendo set a precedent with multiple universe outcomes before with The Legend of Zelda series. Alternative timelines are not entirely foreign in the company's canon.

　　It is in this darkness, this grime, the Blooopers evolved into the best and brightest. They overpopulated the planet and dispersed to all its corners, developing hardened dispositions and sharper wits to match their newfound dominance.

　　In their quest to become the best and brightest, at some point Inklings evolved out of the need for water. Like some land creatures in the history of the planet, they crawled from the murky depths, shed their gills, and embraced a life of oxygen and sunlight. No longer shackled to the ocean waves, they were able to expand and conquer, populating the planet with beings that needed to rely only on puddles of their own self-made ink to survive.

　　The Inklings became so aggressive as they evolved that they wiped out most other species. With no one standing in their way, there was also no one to compete with, no other race to beat into submission. So they took to shooting each other with their own ink for sport, making a game out of it. To "be fresh" is to be the most bloodthirsty, accomplished warrior among the squid people, worthy of wearing cute hats and graphic t-shirts proclaiming your dominance to the rest of your species.

　　And this is where the Octolings come in. In a bizarre Planet of the Apes-style uprising, the Octolings evolved alongside the Inklings until they two species could no longer peacefully cohabitate. The Inklings would share the world with no one.

　　Splatoon's timeline begins with you, as the new squid in town, discovering Captain Cuttlefish and his insane murmurings about the Octolings. Not so long ago, in Cuttlefish's lifetime, the mighty Turf Wars shook the world. Octopus people and squid people fought to the death for control of the little land territory that was left. Time and again the Octolings failed, retreating back into the darkness to recuperate and scheme.

　　As the Octolings struggled to scrape themselves together after every defeat, the Inklings thrived, building massive cities and mass-producing their war technology into designer clothing lines. After decades of defending themselves, the only world the Inklings knew was war. And to prepare their children for the same fate, the elders of their societies turned the ink-splattering turf wars into competitive sports, breeding into their babies from birth the hunger to cover swathes of territory in their own ink. This is how the Inklings continued to thrive, secretly raising a child army to beat down the Octolings in the next round.

　　But somewhere along the line, the Octolings got a hold of Inkling technology, building their own inking guns and bombs and constructing giant "boss" creatures fueled by ink and malice. This time around, the Octolings would be ready. And this is where you find them in Splatoon.

　　Nintendo has stated before the Splatoon almost featured Mario as its main protagonist. Perhaps part of the reason they chose to abandon him was the anomaly of his presence. In an alternate universe where Mario was disgraced for failing Isle Delfino and in turn the world, he would have faded from the public eye. Besides, in this timeline, Splatoon would take place eons after the Delfino mess. It's not hard to imagine the world of the Inklings as a broken piece of the Mario timeline, a shifted piece of a parallel universe in which our heroic plumber failed.

　　Alexa Ray Corriea on Google+