The Ark (Next Update talk/theories)

I actually just went and reread some codexes, and you're right about Greenfinger being the de facto leader, as well as ambassador to the other races. That still leaves the question of how Princess Nuru comes into the picture. I'm thinking that up until very recently, the Floran were heavily fragmented into clans, and the princess title is a remnant from that time before Greenfinger came and whipped the Floran into shape. Maybe they still hold regional power? I dunno.

Pretty much all we know about the Ring of Thorns is that it's called the Ring of Thorns. We do know that Thornwing is a "self-styled lord," but as to lord of what we can only guess. Since he's directly opposed to the Stargazers, and assuming that the Stargazers were at least at one point in possession of a Key, it's possible that he managed to filtch it from them like you theorized about the Outcasts.

Concerning the Outcasts, as far as I'm concerned, you're right on the mark with this one. It might actually be a cool mission to team up with the Outcasts and sneak into a Glitch castle or ancient hivemind server and steal the Key.

Liberating Earth certainly sounds like an awesome mission.

I thought up a theory on the location and form of the Keys. Perhaps they're not in their Key shape when we have to find them, and instead are in forms vital to whatever faction they belong to?
-The Glitch Key being an extremely advanced data chit that's the basis for the Hivemind server?
-The Floran Key being some sort of catalyst for the Floran's origin and rapid evolution, especially Greenfinger's. Perhaps Greenfinger's big secret?
-The Avian Key being a key component in a life support machine keeping the incredibly frail and ancient Kluex alive aboard his space station orbiting Avos?
-The Apex Key being the core module to instigate the VEP, used to a higher extent on Big Ape, making him some sort of horribly devolved mutant?
-Not really sure what the Human or Hylotl Keys would do.

Anyways, just tossing ideas around. I love a good lore thread.

 

Can I joust point out... the animation for that solar system is going the wrong way. ALL known planets travel counter clockwise.

This makes no sense. Servers are a central point of communication. Hive minds by definition, do not have one. They are all connected together as one singular being but in control of many. They are all one, but no one is all. Removal of a single part does nothing to the whole.

 

First of all, I've realized something. CF said in a video that Esther, the archaeologist lady, would be one of the most important characters in the story. What's the most important element of the story? The Ark, the Keys, and the Gate. As an archaeologist, Esther could play a major role in the study of the Ark, perhaps having discovered the existence and purpose of the keys by decoding the ancient Precursor text. Then she sends you to certain locations where you meet with people who have a better idea of where specific keys are and how to get to them. This also might suggest that at least some of the keys have been lost to time, as are most things an archaeologist works with.

Thornwing is opposed to the Stargazers? If anything I'd think he would be partial allies with them. Perhaps I was unclear when I referred to the religious Avians as the Flightless. Thornwing rejects the Ascension, and sets out to become his own "god", instead of risking his life to be a god inferior to Kluex. In doing this, he abandons Avos in a spaceship and assumedly founds the Ring of Thorns, which may consist of his first followers as an aspiring god. Now, I don't think he'd be directly opposed to the Stargazers if he partook in space travel just like them. Honestly, since Thornwing effectively rejects Kluex, he's more like the Grounded than the Flightless. But yes, as you said, since the only major lore character among the Avians is Thornwing, it's quite likely that he's the character who gives you the key. But if that's the case, then it wouldn't fit in with the idea of having to steal it from a party who isn't willing to part with it, like you suggest. So, in that case, perhaps Thornwing hasn't stolen it from the Clipped Council yet. It'd be awesome if you went on a mission where you had Helion NPCs as companions and you infiltrated wherever they're keeping the key. Helions in general sound really cool, and it's always healthy to implement more lore in to the actual gameplay.

Now, I'm not so sure about the idea of the keys containing some sort of strange power/having the ability to transform. It seems counterintuitive that the objects required to open the gate would also have indispensable uses that make the owners very reluctant to give them up. Not only this, but surely removing an object integral to the race's functions would have to have crippling consequences in the game world for things to make sense, so much so that it would be extremely difficult to code. The world has to remain static to some extent simply because of the limitations of the game. Also, if the Glitch key was the core processor for the hive mind, it would counteract my theory that the Glitch own what was previously the Precursor key, since for that to work the Glitch would have to already be well established before getting a key (EDIT: Oh yeah, and what Lazarus said). All that said, though, there's no denying that Greenfinger DOES have a really big secret. He probably has the key, but there's something other than the key. I'd originally written a whole big thing about how Greenfinger isn't a Floran, but rather the creator of the Florans (at least, the Florans as we know them), then that sparked a whole tangent about the age of both the Florans and the gate, but it's become apparent that the information we have is a bit too unstructured to draw any solid conclusions from it. I think that either the gate isn't nearly as old as we think it is, or Greenfinger's done something to the Florans to make them evolve faster. The whole Floran origin story is a big jumbled mess at the moment. Also, Greenfinger's hundreds of years old. The Incarcerus Notes are a good read, check them out.

Moving away from the hellhole that is Greenfinger lore, I think "liberating Earth" is quite optimistic. You saw how big the holes in Earth were so soon after the tentacle beast awoke. Chances are there's nothing left. Nonetheless, I'm sure the Humans would like nothing better than to get revenge on the creatuire that destroyed their home, not to mention the obvious goal of obtaining the key that might be inside the beast if they never moved it off-world. Maybe the planet-sized boss'll be the tentacle beast that destroyed Earth, and the Destroyer itself is instead fought using the player's ship (finally dusting off those otherwise cosmetic weapons), which would make sense considering the tech progression upgrades the SHIP to fly through the black hole, and I doubt a tiny little player could do so much as scratch a being larger than entire solar systems (or, y'know, be able to safely pass through a black hole by themselves), making a ship necessary for the battle. If that doesn't sound epic, I no longer understand the definition of the word.

Wow. These walls of text just kind of appear... I've never thought so long and so hard in a single weekend.

Hm... A careless oversight, or an important plot point?

 

I'm betting on oversight, since its not really a "well known" fact.

It could be explained away for story purposes, but I feel like that would just be a cheap way out.

 

i can't say anything that hasn't already been said, but i really like the artwork for the statues and ark in general. like, wow.

i hope that, if there is a final tentacle boss, it's as huge as it's depicted and also looks as good as the statue/artwork we've seen of it so far. i don't think it would work out very well if it's own mob or creature. really, i think it would have to be a mix of a planet, multiple entities/mobs and a lot of new background/foreground stuff. i definitely think they (meaning, both programmers and artists) could pull it off if they planned it out well enough.

i wonder if we would play as a default character (ie, a lone floran or apex) or something else entirely, like the buddha thing itself? the idea of a normal character being able to defeat a tentacle monster the size of earth is a bit silly and sorta takes the cake.

 

Maybe there's a final key that unlocks the bhudd, which is actually an ancient mech/ the only thing powerful enough to destroy the tetacle monster.

 

I strongly disagree, that makes perfect sense. I think we're all forgetting just how big space is, and if the smaller creature released didn't have any kind of self propulsion it could have drifted for billions of years before finally arriving at earth and growing.

 

Apologies for calling the Tentacomet Pentacomet, when we first saw the file for it, I called it pentacomet cause a few peeps thought it was the 5th boss. I meant for the eye being a drop as if the Tentacomet was fought outside the Ark. When it would be killed, the player could obtain it's eye as a drop from the creature and use it as a key.

 

Yeah, I thought about that after posting. I originally thought that there would be spacefarers who would have been all too eager to intercept it, but upon rereading the introduction, the Humans were the first to engage in space travel. So yes, it IS perfectly possible that it was drifting for that long.

Are you under the impression that the face slots on the sides are key slots? The eye shown is simply the listing for an 8th race, alongside the other seven.

 

I really hope that someday soon we get some general lore PDFs or something for each of the races, just so we can get a few basic facts straight.

 

It could be that the gate is damaged and needs to be repaired as well as getting the 6 keys.

 

THIS.

old lore states(on one of the wiki's) that florans only have one gender. yet here we are with a princess. an official lore post from the devs to clear the confusion would be nice.

 

Technically no lore is final until the game is completed.

 

It's possible that they're just assigned roles based on personality (or at complete random) to fill roles which most
races developed naturally to fit needed social niches. For example, there are Glitch "kings" despite the fact that
none of them are technically male anyway.

I once read something on a fantasy/sci-fi race in which the members had no biological "sexes" and couldn't reproduced
in the normal way but sometimes identify as emotionally male or female.

 

I'm pretty sure that the Glitch actually do have genders even though they're extraneous, as they're programmed and built to emulate the progression of biological civilization. While they don't actually do anything different, they're just there to simulate who can "mate" with who and all that.

 

that is possible. Consider this however: many flowers in the world have both the "male" and "female" parts but cannot reproduce alone. it may be that the florans have 2 genders in a limited sense due to that. like one gender is more predisposed to protecting the the living space due to physical or mental makeup for example. kind of like there are soldier and worker ants. and who knows they may even be able to switch "gender" based on what the group needs.

 

Well, since other gates work well enough without the 8th face intact, is seems odd that they would serve a purpose in the Ark gate but no other gates. Not to mention the inscription says nothing about the faces.

 

What happens when the Ark gate is opened? Will it look similar to the normal Gate? Also, what about the challenge doors? In one of the latest videos it shows what they look like and where they lead to, which looks very similar to the Ark.

 

That sounds like something we will have to wait for the devs to release before we can speculate much further on.

 

Well, let's see...
The gate itself says the six keys will open the black hole.
The Destroyer was pushed in to a black hole.
The final ship upgrade lets the ship safely fly through a black hole.
What happens when the Monolith Gate is opened? The black hole opens once more, the player flies their ship through it, and they discover the Destroyer in an alternate dimension full of tentacles. (since the Biome Diagram says "Tentacle" after the black hole, we can assume it means the tentacle biome is on the other side of the black hole, the Destroyer being the boss within it (or maybe the Destroyer IS the tentacle biome, since it's so massive))