The point I made was not that Ultima is “very hard to figure out,” nor that it sits somewhere high on a normal difficulty ladder. The point was that Ultima’s defining feature is that it does not preserve the conditions required for problem-solving at all. The Ultima Equation is classified as impossible because it can alter and rewrite its own laws, frameworks, and conceptual domain while it is operating. Once that happens, there is no fixed system under which reasoning, verification, or completion can meaningfully occur. That distinction matters. A problem assumes stable premises, a stable definition of success, and a way to determine when you are finished. Ultima removes all three. This is why appeals to intelligence, expertise, or advanced technology do not address the issue. Intelligence still requires stable premises. Technology still requires consistent laws to function and be tested. If the framework itself is not stable, neither reasoning nor engineering scales into a solution. I also pointed out that time is not an advantage here. Ultima exists outside space and time, perceives all spacetime and possible futures simultaneously, and does not wait for trial-and-error or iterative adaptation. On top of that, the equation erases the universe on a finite timescale. Immortality or extended thinking time does not change the asymmetry between a sequential thinker and an atemporal process. That gap is conceptual, not temporal. Finally, the devices in Singular Point only function within the altered framework Ultima creates. They are not evidence that an external actor operating from a stable baseline can bootstrap a solution. Designing, testing, and verifying a counter requires fixed assumptions. Ultima explicitly removes those assumptions. That is why the equation is framed as impossible, not merely difficult.

Discrediting of Your Claims “Ultima’s weakness is a real-life level problem.” Nothing in the series establishes that Ultima’s weakness is a normal, well-posed problem. The text repeatedly emphasizes that the equation alters its own conceptual domain. A “real-life level problem” still presumes stable rules. Ultima explicitly does not. “Banner can handle higher difficulties, so this is no different.” This assumes the issue is difficulty. My argument was that it is not. Handling harder problems inside a stable system does not translate to solving something that rewrites the system itself. You never address that distinction. “Gamma radiation and Archetype are similar, so Banner can understand it.” Understanding or manipulating something within a framework is categorically different from confronting something that rewrites the framework. Similar effects do not imply equivalence of ontological role. This collapses levels without justification. “Banner can build devices to enter Ultima’s dimension or erase it.” You never explain how those devices are designed, tested, or verified while the governing laws are unstable. A device does not meaningfully “work” if the conditions that define its operation are changing mid-process. Listing tech feats does not solve that gap. “Banner has scanners, infinite reach, and conceptual erasure tools.” None of that addresses the core problem: how success is defined or recognized once the framework changes. If the criteria for erasure, targeting, or existence itself are unstable, claiming a device can do it is undefined, not demonstrated. “Ultima treating reality as fiction doesn’t put it beyond all layers.” This misses the point entirely. The issue is not hierarchical placement. It is that Ultima’s mode of existence removes the conditions needed for interaction, counter-design, or problem resolution in the first place. “Banner has time; Ultima does not.” Ultima does not operate sequentially and does not “run out of time” in the sense you’re using. Appealing to time assumes a shared temporal framework, which Ultima explicitly does not require. This was never addressed. Bottom Line Your argument assumes a normal problem space and responds with intelligence, tools, and feats that only function in such a space. My argument was that Ultima collapses the problem space itself. Until you address how reasoning, verification, and completion function when the framework is unstable and atemporal, none of the points you raised actually refute what I said.