Let's talk about the 1.0 lore rewrite

Humans and Hylotl are shown to be pretty close, if you look at their lines when talking to humans. NPCs often comment on human literature, and regret that they had been unable to visit Earth. To add to that, the third Grand Protector was a Hylotl, which leads me to believe there's been a long-term friendship between the two civilizations.

While I can't find much about Hylotl and grounded Avians, it does seem that the Hylotl Protector tends to appreciate the colorful banners made by the Grounded at least - even if the quality seems poor. That being said, I believe most Hylotl would find the practices of devout Avians to be rather barbaric.

When it comes to Glitch, they tend to actually be a little jealous of Hylotl being able to swim without a care, as well as Hylotl art and architecture, but a few of them tend to be pretty sour about it - perhaps what you described is a part of that...?

Though I have to admit, I haven't actually seen much of what you describe concerning Florans and Glitch, personally. I'm sure that it was indeed the case in beta, but... Haven't most of those lines been rewritten by the full release, especially in case of these two in particular? From what I can tell, Floran's inspection dialogue is now more on the fun and quirky side; can't say anything struck me as particularly bloodthirsty.

 

I'm not saying I can't be wrong, but I'll at least ask you to provide me more solid, unquestionable evidence before you SAY I'm "blatantly wrong". Here, lemme explain.

I'm trying to piece together the CURRENT lore, so the BETA doesn't really concern me. With that note, my Khala theory could still apply.

WHERE is it said "they were definitely not humans"? I'd like that please. lol

1. A totalitarian regime tends to lie.
2. I dunno if you understood the point of what I said or not, I was saying the Glitch were having their AI tested. I meant to imply that a sufficiently advanced AI was considered necessary by the miniknog for their soldiers, which is why they ran "society" simulations instead of only fighting simulations. Implication being they wanted a soldier that could think like a sentient person, and not merely a war machine.

That's... an interesting note. I obtained that codex but never got around to reading it myself. It doesn't exactly act as ANY sort of evidence that my "Apex built the Glitch" theory is WRONG...

 

Well, then as I had said, the current lore does not include mentions of a hivemind of any sort.

Did you check the link included? Apex comment that those are depictions of Apex prior to the change to their species, and everyone else describes them as "images of Apex without any hair", not "images of humans".

 

I clicked the link and read the description, yes. I remember encountering information somewhere that people often mistake humans for shaven Apex and vice versa, so forgive me if I hold doubts about that one.

 

There's some difference between joke comments and firm lore. Apex are clearly identified as a separate species, whether already affected by VEP or not.

 

Ah, nevermind it then.

 

Okay I don't want to read 8 pages super carefully so sorry if something I say has been talked about already. And if I seem overly emotional about this because I like to exaggerate things for fun.

So I agree on a lot of points, but I'm not really satisfied with the direction they took with 1.0 lore. The old stuff was fully of inconsistencies, but hey, it was Beta anyway. It was really more like a promise of "this lore will be improved and built upon" more than anything else. But instead of doing that the devs just chose to go "screw it" and just throw a lot of the most intriguing stuff to the bin. So it's not really a big surprise people don't like the 1.0 lore since its main features were a main plot filled with dated tropes and a standard cookie-cutter intro for every single race unlike the devs promised. And yeah, I know the ages and ages of waiting we had to endure waiting for the 1.0 to come. A bigger lore update would've taken a lot more time, what we got was very much a lackluster.

It's like uniqueness was sacrificed for the sake of brevity. Everyone is a member of the Protectorate. Everyone is the chosen one who happens to stumble across the very nonsense that can defeat the wonderfully generic worldender that is the Ruin. The Mentor (Esther) and the Dragon (Nox) are both human, great use of the 6 other races. The members of the races you gather to aid you in this important mission just... tag along for the sake of tagging along I guess? Esther just sends you to do stuff lol. Nox is evil because "nyah nyah im an edgy teen or something i guess lets cleanse this stuffy universe". Speaking of that, motives of the villains are next to none. The old lore might've been ran by ridiculous villains but at least they had more character. Greenfinger's hunger for power no matter the cost was obvious from the fact he murdered an old friend in cold blood. Big Ape or whomsteveryich was detached from the rest of the Apex and only wanted to keep the show running so he could sipping cocktails or something. The Avian Stargazer and religious stuff always came of to me as religious tyranny run by fear rather than idiocracy encouraging people to blindly jump off towers.

The current story does its mission, don't get me wrong. It just does what a story is supposed to and pretty much nothing more. Sets up the races and runs you through a very standard campaign. The old lore despite its many flaws gave a character to the universe of Starbound. There were stories running all across the universe. Interesting personalities (unlike the super generic fellas from the current story) with discernible motivations and desires. Yeah there were a lot of holes but it was like "wait until 1.0 to get the real answers!!!" but all they gave was "psyche heres the bare minimum lmao". The facts that this is supposed to be "a light game" or "a sandbox" aren't really applicable. It's more of a counter-argument than anything else. The developer could do as much as they wanted, but Chucklefish didn't want anything beyond that which is necessary. A little more direction could've made the lore far greater than it is.

 

Was that... really the case? As far as I can tell... I couldn't actually tell.

You tell us that motives of the villains are next to none, but truthfully, these old geezers didn't actually seem to have any tangible goals to begin with. To me it seemed that they were just chilling in their Omniscient Council of Vagueness, being evil and enigmatic for the sake of being evil and enigmatic, which might be the most dated trope of them all. If anything, it's Asra that shows us more character - driven by rage, with a clear goal in her mind - and her mindset and background further detailed in her and Esther's journals.

Turning Avians into a straight up tyranny run by fear also feels... bland to me, actually. It removes all significance from their culture, it turns everyone faithful to their religion and culture into someone who's evil for the sake of it - as well as being even more of an idiocracy that it is now, considering that back then Ascendants actually jumped with an expectation that they'd have a chance of suddenly becoming physically able to fly.

Devout Avians, including the Stargazers, genuinely believe that their religion brings honor to them and that there's a spiritual significance to it, which makes everything concerning their culture... somewhat more meaningful, I would say.

Don't you think that branding the expansive lore that we were given at release as "bare minimum", just cause some untouchable sue characters weren't included is somewhat unfair?

 

Are you gonna misconstrue me that much? Ouch. That's a sharp fallacy you got there, handle it with care.
No, but seriously. There are 121 codices in the game now. 105 are of 1.0 lore, and 5 of that number are writing contest winners. So yeah, we were supplied 100 codices, which is seemingly a fairly lerge number, yeah? Well guess how many were removed? 213 codices. Over double what we got in exchange. And I imagine you've read through the current lore, so you know most of it is exposition. Small excerpts of text to let us in on the traditions, setting and culture of each of the races. Which is cool and all, but where are the cool stories of individuals we had pre-1.0? Nowhere. The lore is there just to lay the setting, which is cool and all, but it doesn't even try to tell a story. So yeah, that's why I'm saying its the bare minimum. (and for any counter-arguments saying "it's because we're meant to make our own story" or "it's because

Also, I didn't give praise to the sueness of the villains. Only the motives and personalities. Like, compare them to the current main villain, the Ruin. It does have a tangible goal, to destroy everything in existence or whatever. But why? Uh... it just is that way... I guess. That's not much of character given to the main threat. And in terms of Asra, yeah, she's motivated by rage caused by the loss of her family at a young age. But then again, can we consider she was mainly raised by Esther and the Protectorate, an organization concentrated on inter-species co-operation. It's a fine backstory I give it that but it's more of a testament to Esther's poor parenting than Asra's villainry. Unfortunate fridge logic there. I mean, Asra is an intellectual extremist raised by an order of a peaceful organization that wants to kill everyone but humans yet completely misses the very obvious fact the Ruin is Literally About To Destroy Everything. Clear motivation and detailed mindset indeed. Talk about a Villain Ball. Beyond that stuff though, Asra remains merely a Boss to be fought, really. What would it have taken to somehow put Asra's journal in the game instead of Esther's? Or make their backstories completely separate and get rid of the weird implications?

Well, you are right that there were no clear goals for the villains of the old lore. Well, it's pretty clear there were some for this council of vagueness, but we were never told them. But my point was that this could've been built upon, which the devs gave up on. We used to have Clear motivation, Unclear goals and in exchange we got Unclean motivation, So clear and trite goals it's painful.

On the Stargazer thing, yeah, no. I don't know where to whole religion being evil would ever have come from. It'd more like been the Stargazers were huge jerks spreading lies and fear while the true devout would follow them because hey they're devout not necessarily evil. Like, the Avians are based on Aztecs, right? Their human sacrifices were in majorly shows of power. That's how Avians seemed to me. Sacrifices for displays of might and letting some devout take the jump because it brings honor and stuff and die so the other faithful wouldn't dare to have any higher aspirations in fear of being rejected by gods. Now it's only like... they jump because it makes Kluex happy. Does it do any good? Heck if they know but they just do it because they believe it is a good thing to do! It's very one dimensional for something as severe as DEATH. Super awkward writing guys.

 

I suppose it's the whole deal of "who'd win, a samurai or a warrior?" thing you know?

 

Doesn't really matter, considering what some of these codexes were, and how little they told us. I mean, come on. "A drawing carved into slate"...? "A scrawled, handwritten note"...? "An Apex headline"...? Quantity alone means little, when the quality is so poor, when there's next to no actual substance.

Wouldn't that be exactly what lore is meant to be? Something to make you understand the setting better and add detail to it, instead of dropping random hints to a vague "storylines" that no one will ever have anything to do with?

And why exactly would whatever these persons are up to be so important for the entire universe in the first place? Why would the entire universe be forced to care about them to the point that almost every single book you find in any given settlements is all about them? Are they really that important? No, they are not, they were not, and having every single piece of lore oscillate around such persons was an awful experience.

What you said here makes little sense to me. They jump because it's seen as a great honor, and because it guarantees they have a place in the afterlife. Rather than jumping because they're told that they can magically become physical gods, ignoring that no one ever has, as it was in beta lore.

If you want to look into the differences, feel free to compare beta's Ascendant's Tale and current lore's Yolotli's Diary. One involves jumping based on "yippe, I'll have a minuscule chance at becoming a living god" with some rivalry over who's going to be better at leaping and another involves acknowledging that they'll depart from this world, with their soul ascending to embrace their god in the afterlife, and their vessels buried with great honor. Any guesses on which one seems more awkward to me?

Isn't that what I already said is incredibly bland, and making religion evil for the sake of it? Isn't that what I meant when I said that it feels more sensible for Stargazers to be motivated by actual devotion? If you just want a government that deliberately manipulates its population, intimidating its people into absolute loyalty, look no further than Apex. We don't exactly need doubles.

 

Yeah, some of them were like that. But again nice fallacy. That's called cherry picking if I'm not wrong. In those 200 are also a lot of books with a lot more to say than that. There were more books with less content, but there was also a lot more content altogether. It wasn't like half of them were like that. Also take a look at some of the current codices. Yeah, there's a bit more text. The rate of information however stayed the same. I mean, LOOK at some of the current texts. "Floran cook meat ha ha", "Floran stab ha ha", "Rebels scary", "Not many humans off-Earth" are literally the only things some of these codices say regardless of the number of the words. It's not how much text you use, its how you use it.

Also, the Hylotl lore was missing entirely in Beta. So it was about 230 codices divided over 5 races. Now it's 120 divided over 6 races. That's not stellar.

Okay, I don't think I have facepalmed this much in ages. That hasn't been my point. I guess this is the third time I'm gonna have to repeat it.

I'm not saying the way the Beta lore was objectively better. It was lacking in many parts, especially in conclusions. But that's why it was Beta lore! It was meant to be improved upon. It was like a promise we were gonna have that AND MORE in the end. Maybe we'd get ourselves involved in the stories the codices told. Meet those characters and actually play through the "vague storylines" which wouldn't be vague at all at that point. Uncover the mysteries and stuff. But no. We were denied that, and instead we got the same old story where we save the universe by collecting Plot Orbs so we can defeat the monstrosity that threatens the world.

And that's not even all. They removed most of the journal series and left mostly expositionary books around, written by totally neutral anonymous professors or something. Show, don't tell, anyone? Maybe it'd be possible to make series of journals set in glitch society instead of explaining how it works mechanically. Mechanical exposition works, yes, but it's really the no-thought choice. Bare minimum. Don't you want to hear stories of people living and experiencing in the Starbound universe instead of hearing how it works through heavyhanded exposition?

Maybe the people were so important because they were built up to be major characters/antagonists? I mean, maybe people do prefer one book briefly exploring the backstory of a major antagonist instead of spending multiple story tidbits exploring them. If that's true, I guess I can't really judge that...
Also you're really exaggerating that there were so many of that sort of characters. There were about 10 characters that had tiny storylines, and half of them had any indication the storyline was going to tie into something larger. Greenfinger was the only one that was all over the place.

Yeah, you're right it making more sense that there is a guaranteed entry to the afterlife. But alone that is pretty bad writing, at least in my opinion. Like, consider how such myth has started? Who would start such a story? Why would a whole society keep encouraging their members to kill themselves for ages?

The answer to those questions being a religious elite trying to keep their power than pure madness is the more interesting answer. Maybe a good and satisfactory end for the avians in question but as a whole it paints a really sad picture of birds killing themselves for absolutely no reason.

 

When it comes to how such a belief developed, that's in the realm of theories.

My personal guess is that much like the Master Manipulator was the human artifact capable of manipulating matter, the Wheel of Kluex and its derivatives gave Avians the ability to transform Avian blood into Avolite crystals - as such, sacrifices would become necessary to utilize "Kluex's gift", and would eventually became a sacred tradition upheld over centuries.

 

Wait, hold on, I remember that from something. Maybe some reddit AMA or whatever?

That'd make the reasons better IMO. None of that is explained in the game, though.

 

Perhaps that would be my theory thread?

That being said, I do think someone might've brought it up on reddit before I have.

 

Nope, not your thread. It was last year probably. I haven't been looking into Starbound related things this whole year really.

 

I like this theory, this theory is nice, and so, i find it appeasing to my taste.

 

where did that culture thing happen? All i did was going to an underwater city, scanning objects and granny told me where to go. then went through the temple, which didn't do much "culture" participation". Honeytly thats less "cultural participation" than even a one day tourist experiences. So participation in culture is quite somethign else in my book than walking through parts of another cultures property.

it's all just: scan objects, granny makes some whatever connection reasearch thingy, boom, knows the location fo the artifact, there ya go retrieving it in a loop.

 

Did you read your character's speech lines while scanning objects, or did you rush it, trying to turn every green to red as fast as you can?

If you don't pay attention to the dialogue, then you shouldn't complain when you don't learn much from it. You'll only get the feeling of researching a culture if you actually read what the characters are saying.

 

Behold, Hylotyl the item descriptions for various Hylotyl scanning quest items (roughly in the order I encountered them):

Bookshelf: I fell asleep just reading the titles.
Other bookshelf: I fell asleep just reading the titles.
Big bookshelf: A sturdy bookcase.
Really big bookshelf: Are all these books poetry?
Inkwell: I'd take a ballpoint pen over a quill any day.
Gong: A gong in the shape of a lillypad. I could picture these in a gift shop.
Globe: Looks like a bit statue of the Hylotyl's home planet.
Cupboard: It appears some amateur artist has tried to decorate this. How quaint!
Lamp post: This post seems quite wobbly.

Not exactly deep cultural insight here. So no, reading the scan text doesn't really help very much. We get about as much cultural insight from these scan texts as Donald Trump would get taking a limo ride through Baghdad. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration: you could easily conclude that hylotl lake books, especially poetry, and make wobbly lamp-posts, but that's hardly a great insight.

Actual participation in a culture means interacting with people, which isn't really possible when all they do is spout one line over and over again and ask you to rescue six friends in a row who accidentally got lost in the same sewer on the opposite side of the planet. We get a tiny bit of proper interaction with Nuru et al., but not much.