The Ark (Next Update talk/theories)

That's an interesting theory. It reminds me of one I made a while back, about how the tentacle monster was actually a giant mushroom…
But in all seriousness, it's a pretty plausible theory. The Erchius Horror could be an early stage of development for the Tentacle Monster.

 

I really hope that the Erchius Horror has a tie in with the plot. I absolutely loved that mission. Only big one I've done so far, but man. That was exciting and fun. I kind of hope they have more special places like that in the game. It's kind of fun to have to follow a set path on occasion.

I just hope the story has more shocking moments in it. My first encounter with a Moontant still in human clothing killed me right off because I thought he was just an npc who needed help. I was like "oh gods these were the miners." I love when I get surprised like that in a story... Plus my second time playing the mission for fun I killed the horror on my first attempt without dying and i dunno if I just killed him fast enough or what but a human character was there and he thanked me for saving him before he mutated. I thought that was pretty awesome because he followed me all the way to the teleporter out.

 

The only problem with the theory in my mind is the way the devs talked about the moontants on their latest stream. I'm paraphrasing here, but they mentioned that they enjoyed that the moontants (and by extrapolation, the Erchius Horror) being a mystery that's never fully explained and only appears in the one mission. I'm not saying it's out of the question, but it sounded like the moontants are a one-off enemy. It's too bad, though, because some more in-depth erchius lore would be an interesting read.

 

This is an oddly mesmerizing thread, I'll need to do more reading here.

 

Aww man that kinda thing is not always that fun. Can be frustrating too. Usually works better in a long running work of fiction because they can tease it later on or build on it if they want to, but in a game it can be kind of like a big lipped alligator moment. Especially since Erchius is a big fuel source in the starbound universe. If they had just come across some weird crystal abomination that WASN'T a giant Erchius crystal that'd be one thing, but it's directly tied into the fuel source itself. It'd be kind of a let down to not explain something like that.

I have just created my own headcanon: Liquid Erchius Fuel is broken down Moontants left behind after an Erchius horror has absorbed enough energy from living creatures found on the planets. Only reason the moontants were let out on the mission was because the horror needed to protect itself and spit out some of its food to deal with the issues/drag more food to it. Once the Horror is fully grown, it uses its laser to burrow out of the planet and fly off to who knows where.

We be fueling our ships with dissolved squish-creatures.

 

Heh, I understood that reference.
Concerning the Horrors, I've decided to go with a Dune theory on it- The massively dangerous creatures create a substance vital the processes of the space-faring populous, so megacorporations cover up the monsters instead of fighting them so they make more of a profit and easy FTL travel goes on.

 

Ooh, that's neat. I'm admittedly not familiar with a lot of science fiction stuff myself. Starbound's really one of my first forays into it outside of Mass Effect. I was always a fantasy obsessed girl growing up but ME and Starbound and making me more interested in Scifi.

I like that idea. Seems like something I could see higher ups doing. I bet people like Big Ape and Greenfinger know about stuff like this. I love learning about lore stuff so keeping things like this 'just a mystery' is frustrating to my nerd side! xD

 

Now I want to see giant sand worm enemies in desert biomes.
That's kinda disappointing about the Erchius Horror. I really need to start watching those streams.

 

If they were created as a result of the battle, surely the fourth hologram (which is chronologically located after the battle) would show them.

Also, just to add to the (already resolved) discussion about the Erchius Horror, keep in mind that it has a round pupil, not a cat-eye like the Destroyer does.

 

Here is my Theory: The Precursor locked the Destroyer away, but was not able to destroy him. The Destroyer can somehow create tiny Destroyers or tentacle monsters that will try to release the Destroyer (the monster from Earth and the Erchius Horror). The Precursor knew this, and entrusted a key to 6 different races for 2 reasons: to keep the way to the Destroyer away from his minions, and in the hopes that someone would be able to destroy the Destroyer one day.

And the Runes in the mining facility that say "IT WILL RETURN" were actually made by the Destroyer's minions.

 

There is a new "Friendly Cultist" tenant you can get by placing 24 evil tagged objects. He wears the Cultist Set. Here is what he says to you so far:

Apex Cultist:

• "I'm here to... Observe. Don't mind me."
• "You intrigue me. Don't worry, I won't cause any... Harm."
• "I won't bite, don't worry. Ha ha."

Human Cultist:

• "It's a terrible thing, what happened to Earth. Hee hee."
• "No need to be nervous around me. My goals are beyond your understanding."
• "The terrors that lurk in the night... If you can't beat them, why not join them?"

Floran Cultist:

• "Floran isss watching you."
• "Don't pay attention to Floran. Floran isss sssafe."
• "No need to ssstare."

Avian Cultist:

• "There are many things worth worshipping in the shadows, friend."
• "Don't worry about me. I'm perfectly trustworthy. Hee hee."
• "The Protectorate are a cult in their own way."

Hylotl Cultist:

• "Fear not, I am perfectly harmless."
• "Trust me, and we will get along just fine."
• "There is beauty in the darkness. Maybe you'll agree some day."

Glitch Cultist:

• "Insidious. I am trustworthy, but do not cross me or my kind."
• "Menacing. I am an upstanding member of society. Honest."
• "Disturbed. Why fight against the dark forces of the universe?"

Needless to say, many of these responses heavily imply involvement in the destruction of the Protectorate and Earth. (summoning @Ferrettomato)

Side note - There are now conflicting spellings:

• Terrene Protectorate - Confirmed directly to me by @SamuriFerret
  
• Terran Protectorate - Now in several places in the assets

Also, the Human Flag was recently updated to say "A human flag, depicting the symbol of the Terrene Protectorate.", so I guess that's the Protectorate logo now. I'll make a wiki page for them soon, after the spelling gets nailed down again.

EDIT: The spelling in the assets has now been corrected to "Terrene Protectorate". So I'm counting that as the official spelling. Thanks whichever dev fixed that

 

This sounds quite a bit like welcome to night vale, I wonder if it has anything to do with warping through dimensions and stuff, after all we don't truly know the true nature of that strange tentacle beast. I mean all he's done is destroy a planet.

 

While the devs might have said the Horror and the moontants are liked as mysterious and will most likely stay a one time thing, I believe it could still be something that will come back.

My own theory about the horror is linked to the idea of the "Eight Races" on the Ark door. I think that the eighth race might have been corrupted by the Old Evil (I have no better name) and the Horror is a member of that race that has been heavily corrupted and trapped in the crystal. The miners awoke it and it proceeded to attempt to continue its master's goal, corruption of life. I'm basing my theory on two things.
First, the fact that the eighth race's icon is a big eye or something such. What we see of the Horror is a big eye which could link the race and the boss.
Secondly, the boss is corrupting the miners that gets too close and mutate them, like it would have been by its master.

Erchius Crystal could therefore take a certain importance in the fight against the Evil Tentacle Guy. At the same time, the devs don't have to reveal such details to the public. It could simply be hinted that, if we encounter the eighth race, we may have seen it before. So the devs wouldn't have lied about keeping it mysterious!

Maybe I'm pushing it too far though.

 

This, giant scientific plot twist: All palnets are just tentacle creature eggs. Some just started to have civilisation since hatching time is a few billion years. So The races in SB are just like bacterias on our skin.


But I hope the planets of tentacles return more properly by having huge tentacles able to attack and slap the player and grab him instead of being just different kind of trees.

 

Found all or these organic things in the game's files. I guess it would be on tentacle biomes. Also this thing called ''bossrightspawner'' Thats intriguing...

 

That is intriguing. Man, I can't wait to see what they do with this stuff.

 

What they DID you mean.
All of the stuff is deco from the now deactivated "heck" underground biome. See here: http://starbounder.org/Heck

That being said: There are mods out there that reintroduce said biome and I personally would welcome a reworked variation of it, because there's cool stuff there.

 

Ah, my mistake, I have never encountered those before.

 

I have a very un-finished theory that the guy that wears a mask under the outpost is probably a key-holder of whatever species he actually is and he is hiding because he doesn't want anyone to take the key from him. Maybe having the key is shameful or if you have it you must live in exile.

 

He has human-like hands, meaning he's either Apex or Human. It does indeed sound like a plausible theory, due to him claiming he's being hunted. Having a key puts a huge target on your back.