Why Earth? (Spoilers!)

Why was Earth the first destroyed by The Ruin? Traveling around, you see no other planet infected. Also, how did the ruin get to Earth from it's seeming extradimensional space? Isn't it sealed behind that gate? How did it get out if you can't get in? I'm really quite confused about this, now that I think about it.

 

1. drama
2. to make earth not a needed planet in the game (otherwise one would ahve to explain why no one knows where earth is)
3. more drama

but yes the story leaves a lot holes, how did evil granny got to the Ruin before us, even if we gathered the orbs and opened the portal/seal/gate?

 

I would think the Ruin is a creature with immense power and knowledge, and that it would be sentient. It probably did this so it could leave the Protectorate disorganized so his/its cultist could release him without as much trouble

 

Evil Granny is magic that's how.

 

Well, honestly I wouldn't be surprised if she orchestrated this

 

the next lazy devs answer on anything thats not fitting xD

 

If she thought that Humans were the superior race, why did she try to destroy them all?

 

I've been to a many places.

to suggest that Earth is on the doorstep of an ancient evil is not unreasonable. If you don't believe me, simply go to Tuscon. From there, you can basically see ancient evil starring out it's front window, fogging up the glass with the heavy breathing of anticipation.

 

someone thought a tentacle monster would make a fun pet and didn't read the feeding instructions.

 

I believe it was to destroy the Protectorate and remove the biggest threat to the Ruin's return.

As for how it reached Earth from the pocket dimension it's locked inside, this is up for speculation. According to Esther, the Ark's defences holding the Ruin in place are weakening. It's possible the Cultists/Ruin broke the defences temporarily giving it enough time to consume and destroy Earth. Once the defences reactivated, it snapped the Ruin back into the pocket dimension.

That's my theory, anyway.

If she was indeed behind the destruction of Earth, it could double as a means of destroying the Protectorate and showing that Humanity is able to survive the destruction of their home planet.




Or maybe the story isn't all that well thought out and it's got more holes than a fine Swiss Cheese.

 

The being known as Ruin was inside it's dimension the entire time. Nobody understood the nature of it, which is why it was (mis)labeled Ruin. The being lived in it's extra dimensional space, along side the two dimensions of physical space. It's innumerous tentacles coiled everything across the universe in it's extra dimensions, holding the universe together. This is why the universe was a single giant blob of stars instead of many separate galaxies.

The legend of the Cultivator spoke of one who banished the run to this extra dimension. This is not entirely the case. There was another alien race, now extinct, who's bones can still be found over countless planets. This was a highly technologically advanced race. One of their last breakthroughs was the extra dimensional gate. It allowed them access to a third and fourth dimension of space that physical beings were naturally unable to access. They did not know of what lived within, or it's nature.

Opening the gate released the Ruin's normally extra dimensional tentacles into the first and second dimensions of the universe. The incredible strength required to hold the entire universe together was subjected entirely onto the home planet of this now extinct race, and crushed it to pieces. There was now a hole in space allowing this unknown tentacled being, who is only trying to hold things together, to reach out, crushing planets.

The Cultivator became a legend after he learned about the gate from the few survivors of the original crushed planet that he could track down. With their help, he engineered a lock for the open gate. He managed to close and lock the gate, but suffered serious injury in the process. He did not survive. The device that locks the gate closed is now known as the arc. The legend of the Cultivator, slightly exaggerated as every good story is, has since been etched into it's walls.

The cultists did not directly worship the tentacled being, they worshiped ruin. Their goal was death and destruction, and the being was their means to the end. They believed they shared the same goal as the being, who to this point has only been observed crushing everything it encounters. Eventually, the being became synonymous with the objective of their true faith, Ruin. Through their own secret research on the now extinct race, they recovered enough knowledge of opening extra dimensional rifts to devise their own method. The cultist rifts were not as perfected as the original gate. They could not remain open forever as the original gate could.

Their first real success was on earth. To this point, they were seen as just another crazy cultish religion. They were no real threat. They were able to operate outside the view of the Protectorate because they were mostly ignored.

After the destruction of the earth, this cult was viewed more seriously. Their "deity" was proven to be real, which gave them legitimacy most religions didn't have. It's membership grew exponentially because of this, and it spread quickly through the universe.

The "hero" of Starbound managed to open the lock, invade the third and fourth dimensions, and defeated the being now known as Ruin, but without ever truly understanding it's true nature. The being dies.

The universe is,for the moment, still held together by the now dead tentacles. Over time, their grip on everything will loosen, and the universe will fall apart. Stars and planets will move as they have not yet done. Many will collide, causing massive destruction across the universe. Stars will die, more stars will be born anew. New planets will be formed from the crushed ruins of other planets. A new, dynamic universe will be born from the old decaying one, and nothing will be the same again.

edited to fix some readability issues.

 

1 Drama.
2 Why not? Judging by the reason why it happened (The seal that isolated the Ruin weakened), it could have been any planet. It just happened to destroy Earth.
3 The reason Earth is the only Ruin-infested planet is because the whole point of the storyline missions is to prevent the Ruin from destroying other planets.

 

Hmm, perhaps. Perhaps the Ruin is sentient and was aware of all that went on, just wasn't able to do anything until now, and now that it could, and knew that apparently all of the protectorate would be on earth right then (For some reason), and the protectorate was likely the only organized force good enough to stop it, maybe, it targeted it first? Hmm. Maybe that would be a good explanation, and would make sense. Now, if only they would revealed that in the story... And still, explain why all of the protectorate was on earth at the time.

 

Would the protectorate really have been any tangible threat to the ruin? They can't have been a big organisation if every single member was on earth, and killed during earth's destruction they can't have had much galactic power anyway
I have to imagine the ruin only infesting earth was some form of intentional plot, and that it's just really bad at space travel to be unable to infest any other planets

 

This needs a big spoiler tag...

 

heh, and this post needs an understatement tag

 

That was beautiful, man...

 

Not sure if that's cannon. Could and maybe even should be though

 

It's not at all. I made it all up. I thought it fit nicely though, and it plugged some holes that the real story has. I didn't like that the ruin escaped and destroyed earth, yet was still trapped behind the gate. The whole seal is weakening thing didn't sound good to me.

I was inspired by a scene in The Last Unicorn at the Midnight Carnival when Rukh describes a huge tangle of giant snake in the cage being the Midgard Serpent, and has the whole world in it's coils. One of the viewers asks how something that big could fit in this tiny cage, and Rukh says it's not all in the cage, urns just a very tiny part of it. If it should discover that they had caged even this small piece of it, they would be in some serious trouble.

 

Great read. Thanks for this.