I should've mentioned it in the video, but Moon describes also describes how they were "someone to delegate that unrestrained effort to" (from the bright green DS pearl). The earliest iterators would have still served as convenience machines, even before the Ancients/Benefactors moved on top of them. I apologize for not making this clear in the video. I also should've acknowledged it in the video since it got quite a few votes, but iterators were NOT originally designed to purpose organisms. While they certainly had the capability, it definitely wasn't an intended feature - just think about how long it took for them to purpose anything, and (at least in downpour) how messed up a lot of their experiments eventually turned out (the rot, Hunter, etc)
I agree with you because the ancients had already had the capacity to create purposed organisms exceptionally well already (the iterators being the biggest example). but. the examples you used for why purposing organisms isn't an intended bonus feature of the iterators are wrong. The rot seemingly only happened because of an extremely dangerous task pebbles was trying to complete, (buildin a purposed organism randomly and indirectly, while also doing thousands of these processes at once and rapidly). - the rot may not have happened if he just took his time, and it was not the everyday purposed organism he was trying to create it was too extreme of a situation to be considered the norm. 2nd, the hunter could very well be a rush job/been given cancer on purpose/built on limited resources. He was also purposed much later than say spearmaster (a very successful purposed organism by an iterator) so we don't know the condition of the other iterators. but we do know that some of their functions are gradually breaking down so NSH could have been limited in what he could do. That doesn't mean he was always limited in his prime though.
I would say iterators ether being designed to produce purposed organisms or not being designed for it is a matter of tools given to them. 5P was trying to basically perform "give a monkey a type writer, and wait for it to write shake sphere". With countless of these processes running at once, which caused the high water intake that killed moon, and cutting off communication because of how delicate the process is, which caused LTTM's forced communication to cause a disruption in the process, creating the rot. Them creating purposed organisms I would say is a matter of time given. Spear master is a purposed organism, he had plenty of time to be created since he was sitting around until given the task of being a messenger. Hunter I would say is a rush job, hunter's genetic stability was compromised in exchange for the target changes, being the physical enhancements, as the process of creating only him started after spear master finished his mission. Creatures like the vultures, miros birds, and leviathan were likely designed by an iterator, then they sent the blueprints to everyone else. As these 3 creatures are designed to help defend the Iterators and ancients structures. Leviathans defend the water intake pipes. Vultures defend the exhaust ports and delicate communication equipment. And miros birds defend the property of ascended ancients, which are stored in the "memory crypts". And finally, the iterators themselves are colonies of purposed organisms. Which were most likely designed by a more primitive version of the iterators. Yes, it takes them a long time to design a purposed organism, but iterators themselves were designed without a lifespan. Yes the ancients wanted the solution to the great problem as soon as possible, but they also knew it could take extreme amounts of time. Leading to them being designed to theoretically fiction indefinitely, which adds to the prevention of self termination.
idk if this is covered in the video, but FP was trying to ascend or die not because he was depressed and felt hopeless about finding the solution, but because he was in some specific Sliverist groups and he thought ascension and/or death was the solution.
Sliverism was so popular precisely because Iterators CANNOT die! They had been given a question about life and death yet were physically incapable of understanding half the question!
true but I see where the suicidal pebbles idea comes from because his 'bug in a maze' conversation with seven red suns can pretty easily be interpreted as five pebbles inadvertently saying 'i can't take it anymore' I personally choose to interpret it this way also for the angst lmao
This makes sense, because sliverism is basically just knowing that the iterators can’t self terminate… but one did. Sliver of Straw broke their code, and now sliverists want to recreate that to prove themselves, as SOS never told them what the solution was.
Long text incoming: I believe that a reason the ancients came to despise the cycle and wish for something else are the paradoxes it creates. We know that if you die, you will wake up again on the same day as if nothing happened. Yet we also know that Artificer's children didn't come back to life beside her and didn't send her back in time either. For Artificer, they became dead, decomposing bodies and memories to mourn. Her children however, after all we know, must have woken up again, in a shelter next to their mother the morning before it all happened. And they probably live on, each besides another version of their sibling and another version of their mother, but forever out of reach for the Artificer we get to play. The ancients probably didn't have an answer either to how this is possible. We get vague mentions of "other versions of yourself", but it doesn't really answer the question of who and how these versions are. Is there only one real you and those who died keep on living with simply a perfect copy without consciousness? Does your consciousness split, when a being who perceived you dies? How many are there of you? Do your dead children know, that in another life, you are mourning them? Does the other you know? How can you live with that knowledge? How lonely is it to know, that a part of your parent will never see you grow up? In that regard, ascension may be the wish to become "whole" again. To reunite all the versions of you and meet with all the versions of others, by escaping a world that is evidently broken, as it allows such painful paradoxes to happen. And the void sea somehow offers this chance, because once you go there, all the other "you"s follow and this is what you see, when you encounter all the other slugcats there.
holy hell, I never thought about that. It's so obvious now but these paradoxes were never something I would've pointed out. That's brilliant though, and so consistent with near identical slugcats being present upon Ascension, the only difference being their individual swimming speeds. That could be interpreted as a single grain of personal differences between copies of a single being, perhaps caused by their varied desperation to ascend and escape that world, based on their differing experiences Nevertheless, thank you for pointing out all these contradictions and questions, however clear they might've seemed to you. I think I just gained a whole new perspective on the cycles, and now am left to feel bad about all those times I got killed while traveling with a slugpup, leaving it alive by itself 😬
That makes the echos make more sense. Most fragments of you decide to go to the void, but a portion stays and becomes forever fractured and unable to fully become whole. An echo of the version of themselves who chose to stay.
For the saint point I wanna mention that the "a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable" does not necessarily imply that everything needs to be ascended at once. If that were the case "the solution is portable" would be irrelevant.
I’m not sure if I’m correct but I always interpreted “A technical implantation is possible and generally applicable” as basically whether or not another iterator can recreate it, this is because I doubt there would only be a single triple affirmative. Yes, one of the affirmatives are for it to be portable, but I doubt it would’ve been able to complete its purpose on its own or with only a few of them starting in one spot.
That's a great point. The solution doesn't need to be "portable" (at least in the strictly literal sense that the video assumes) if it could be completed for all entities in one simultaneous action. I think it's also key to recognize that the creators who designed the protocol for the Great Problem-solving Iterators didn't actually know what kind of solution they might find -- they just laid out a set of basic criteria that seemed like prerequisites. If an Iterator came up with a stationary building that could vibrate the entire planet to a higher attunement, I doubt they would be like "Nah, it's not portable enough". I think it would be deemed "portable enough to achieve its purpose". The fact that Saint can't ascend features of the landscape is an open issue, but I think that Saint is plenty portable. If SOS made Saint, we don't know of any reason why she and other Iterators couldn't make MORE. It's reasonable to assume that she didn't intend Saint to be a solitary solution -- or even that he's only a prototype and his creation was just meant to verify point number one: it is possible -- and an army of Saints could ascend a lot of critters.
A couple things I wanted to add to your first point. First, we must remember that by the time of Moon’s construction there was “very little primal fauna left.” The purposed organisms of the benefactors were driving out Rain Worlds original wildlife meaning that by the time Five Pebbles was constructed and Public Ascension took place it is not wild to assume that all creatures left were purposed organisms to some extent. At the same time, evolution takes awhile, and I am not sure that enough time could have passed where the Echos and Iterator couldn’t recognize what the Slugcat was because he evolved so far from his original being. Simply I do not think enough time has passed. Besides, we only know that Moon didn’t know whether or not slugcat was a purposed organism or not. The Echos and Five Pebbles might not care either way, and Moon can remember one day from the next since she collapsed. At the same time slugcat might only be a descendant of a purposed organism through cross breeding. Several generations of cross breeding could cause the slugcat to be a different species from his purposed ancestors. Then again, we really don’t know. In addition I think one of the reasons much of the community thought that slugcat was made to clean pipes was not just due to the magenta pearl but also this broadcast: Chatlog_GW2) [LIVE BROADCAST] - PUBLIC GROUP [OMENSCAGE] Wandering Omen, Pleading Intellect PI: You haven't heard about what No Significant Harassment did? WO: All I heard was the complaining. Didn't he send an iterator something distasteful? PI: Well, yes, but more importantly, he trained a purposed organism to deliver it! WO: Why do that? Was it so distasteful that he was afraid to send it via the broadcast network? PI: Just forward thinking. He's been experimenting with alternative communication methods. PI: So that we all may stay in touch even once our broadcast machinery meets its end of life. WO: What type of organism was it? PI: It was based on one of those resourceful, wandering ones that go in pipes. An image should reach you in a few moments... WO: ... WO: I see... WO: How do you even get a dull creature such as that to follow orders? I may consider asking him to teach me his ways. PI: I wouldn't do that right now. Recent broadcasts from NSH seem like he's been on edge and stressed. PI: I wonder what happened? It isn’t too far out to assume that the pipe cleaning slug and the resourceful wandering creatures that go through pipes may be the same or similar species. At the same time it is mentioned that NSH purposed and organism based-off the resourceful creature that goes in pipes, and perhaps not the creature itself. Who knows what modifications NHS made. All in all, largely agree with what you said here. I think we may be talking about as many as four separate creatures. After all, the pipe creature mentioned here may not even be a slugcat since we don’t know what the message referred to in this broadcast even was. If it was one of the messages delivered to FP than it probably would be a slugcat, but we don’t know what other messengers NSH might have experimented with.
Interesting, you made two comments haha! I'm copying and pasting what I said underneath the other comment just in case very worth mentioning that this is DP dialogue, this misconception has existed for wayyy longer than DP has been out, I think it used to even be on the rain world wiki? also, being a fanmade work, DP reflects many of the headcanons most popular at the time, although it doesn't confirm it, you can see how it nudges theorizing a little more in that direction
Nah the community assumption came first - the Downpour broadcast is a representation of the fan theory, not the cause of it (like a LOT of the weird lore broadcasts) (putting aside that “goes through pipes” is a meaningless description anyway because everything smaller than a vulture does in rw)
I 100% agree with the point about the slugcats and iterators, and while the Saint doesn't fit the benefactors textbook definition for the triple affirmative, I'm pretty sure it was intentionally meant to evoke the idea of it. However I don't think its possible to definitively say what ascension is, the information about it feels too vague and up to interpretation to confirm whether it's reaching a state of nonexistence or Nirvana. I definitely wouldn't summarize it as just fancy permadeath, but I don't think its a misconception that it's becoming nonexistent. If you ask me, the benefactors idea of becoming enlightened/ascending IS reaching a state of nonexistence, free from the cycle of life and death in the literal sense that they don't exist anymore. The problem comes from the fact that our society associates not existing anymore as a similar thing to dying, hence ascension being glorified as a fancy way to die permanently, but we have to consider that the rules work completely differently in Rain World. From the benefactors perspective dying isn't permanent, its a part of their existence in the same way as eating or sleeping. So summarizing their society as a death cult is blatantly wrong because nonexistence and dying aren't comparable to them. I could very well be wrong, the fact that the benefactors associate ascension/enlightenment with the karma flower which(from what I can tell) basically makes people go on a crazy hallucinogenic drug trip could be be a point towards ascension being similar to Nirvana since the karma flower would be like a temporary free pass to reaching that state of mind. However I could probably argue that the karma flower makes people so out of it that from their perspective they might as well not exist, but then I'd fall down a rabbit hole arguing about the semantics of existing in perpetual peace without conflict, want or struggle not being any different to just not existing in general, and I don't know enough about actual Buddhism to have a proper debate about that.
In Buddhism, being freed from the self isn't nonexistence, rather it is destruction of the Self and thus becoming something more akin to part of the universal experience of life, able to exist and flow through the world without attachment. It's more comparable to becoming part of a universal mind, as opposed to ceasing to exist. The Karma Flower lore very strongly suggests this to be the case for ascension, especially when combined with the visuals of the Survivor/Monk endings.
something super common i see is the thought that the five natural urges were sins and taboo. this is not necessarily correct, in the memory crypts pearl we see that the benefactor had many enjoyable experiences, and they were notably titled a "warrior". the natural urges were usually only seen as things to get rid of if you wanted to pursue enlightenment, and nothing else. i say usually because there were instances where the local government was strict and authoritarian, such as in rhinestones's dialogue and broadcast #4 in sky islands. edit: btw those examples were both from downpour, not sure if there's any in vanilla
As far as I understand it, the Five Natural Urges are what ties a being to this world. Karma 2 for example is not lust, it is procreation, having and providing for an offspring or having a partner, which are both attachments that make it harder to let go of the world for ascension. 4 is not just gluttony, it is the basic urge to eat and monks tried to display their willpower and triumph over this basic drive by starving themselves.
Indeed, it's reasonable to suppose the urges were seen as worthwhile experiences, at least to some extent. No value-judgement is indicated, either (not in vanilla; Pebbles' dialog to Arti and Gour bucks this trend). While we might reasonably suppose that some (most?) urges have some element of "sinfulness" to them -- perhaps inherent, perhaps just when taken to a sufficient extreme -- it's important to appreciate this is a human (in particular, western) projection; it reflects our own bias, but is only a _possibility_ to the story. The most important evidence to me, supporting this interpretation, is the existence and purpose of Shaded Citadel, and the respective pearls concerning it (Seventeen Axes's, and "Apostate Superstructure"). The storage and preservation of effects, experiences -- qualia -- was extremely important to them. The first people to ascend would've been those already nearly ready: the meek, humble, pious. Consequently, the population's psych demographic would shift from humble to egotistical (it's no accident some had trouble with narrow doorways). By the time of mass ascension, the entire process (readying oneself for the journey, clearing urges, voiding out) would've been fully industrialized. Which might include any means necessary to conquer the urges. I can imagine one way to do this: record and archive, essentially every lived experience possible, so that, rather than having to experience existence yourself long-term (among an ever-dwindling population of pompous jerks who, pretty quickly, won't provide each other with a rich spectrum of fulfilling experiences anyway), you can just stop by the machine once in a while, pop in a few pearls, and beam those experiences directly into your brain. In this way, in time, an individual experiences an exponentially fuller life than anyone before: the lived experience of not just individuals, but an entire society in sum; every relationship, every tragedy, every right wronged (and as seen from all perspectives!), every wrong righted; every greatest success, and every deepest darkest desire. (And when I say "every", I don't mean literally _every possible_, but every one that was _archived_; who knows what level of whitewashing, avoiding of embarrassment, or outright propaganda, might have been involved, by means of selecting or even editing experiences!) Any and all means to produce these pearls would've been justifiable; a society bent on self-extinction will develop a very different moral code from what we consider "moral". Those darkest experiences might impose rather severely onto their victims -- but given the loop of reincarnation, and the greater moral purpose, the "victim" might even consent willingly to participate in such acts (and meaningfully so) -- who knows. (The concept of consent, itself, might end up very different in such a society. Possible dark depths, indeed, from our perspective..!) And after all that -- after every possible experience had been had -- what is there left to hold onto, what ego could possibly stand tall against the accumulated psychic energy of an entire civilization? Surely, you would then take the bath, and disappear from The Cycle.
to add onto this, the 5 natural urges were only considered something to abate in order to ascend BEFORE the void fluid revolution. the discovery of void fluid ended all of that since it didn't require you to do that anymore
@@slugfishh well, this can be argued against, as when you where too tied down to the world through your urges you became an echo, even with the void fluids assistance.
@@Falkflip honestly I see it as representing lust and procreation. I also think of it less as providing and caring for another, but more bringing more life into this world is frowned upon, this idea is reflected in some Buddhist ideas, that it is cruel to bring more life into the cycle of suffering. Of course this does not represent the entire religion as a whole, as many individuals do not believe this! I simply am referencing it as an existing concept.
Also. "Ascension = final death" Meanwhile, the scene where you swim to the light is literally called in game files as 'EGG', and swimming slugcats look like... eeeeeeh, you get the idea. And the karma symbols also depict a process of a mitosis, to a certain extent, but people rarely see those because they tend to skip stages 6-7, 6-8 and 6-9 and go straight to 6-10.
@@slugfishh There is more to cellular imagery. If you look at the entire map of Five Pebbles, it actually kinda looks like a brain, from the side view, memory conflux being the back, and recourse transform arrays being the frontal lobes. The Inspectors/Hydras look like neurons, with their heads resembling axons. Neuron flies probably resemble free-moving hormones or something. Hell, even the rot itself kind-of resembles some single-cell life form, scaled up to humongous proportions.
My opinion on Rain World lore is very similar to my opinion on Hollow Knight lore. That is to say, it's mostly written in poetry and slippery metaphors and double meanings, in such a way that trying to establish 'hard' worldbuilding rules and what is and isn't literally happening is a futile venture. And I like it that way.
it actually has a good amount of hard worldbuilding! Just enough to give you a good basis for speculation and interpretation I'd say :D But things like, why the iterators were made, and aspects of ancient history are pretty directly conveyed. The devs certainly had developed intentions while writing the lore, it's all incredibly concise and intentional, just emphasizing one word of a paragraph can further reveal its entire meaning
@@slugfishh That's all true, but I'm talking more in terms of the metaphysical aspects, and in some cases the actual events of the game - like what the slugcats are thinking is left for you to fill in the blanks. In my opinion there's also a pretty strong meta element, that I picked up from reading the devlogs (creating the game is a constant process of iterating, and so is playing the game - learning through trial and error, over and over) and that Downpour really folded back into the game itself by being a collection of community content turned 'canon'. A lot of the game is in your subjective experience of it, that's why I tell people they can't understand it just by watching lore videos. It must be lived.
@@meganhammer7857 That's incredibly well said! Also always nice to see a fellow dev logs reader :D There is truly something special about actually experiencing it yourself that lore videos cannot nearly accomplish for you, Rain World is very much a mood piece that must be individually experienced
@meganhammer I agree with you. Yes, there is lore that comes from explicit information and hard facts, but as any other well written book or series, not everything needs to be written as an objetive and irrefutable fact. All good stories have elements that are intetionally left up for the audience to interpret, and I agree that aspects like asscention are intetionally left vague. And that it's great too! Not everything needs to be set on stone for something to awesome :) (I just really love the whole concept and the implications of asscention in rw asdfgds)
@@meganhammer7857 He focuses a lot on the lore as written and doesn’t leave room for environmental storytelling or links that require a small jump. Then he also assumes some things like echo knowledge not being widespread and presents that as fact. He doesn’t give much for gameplay limitations either. It bothers me a lot that he presents a lot of what should be his theories as indisputable fact.
Yay! It's so nice to see a lore video actually make distinctions between vanilla/DP as well as mentioning the devlog a few times. The concept art appears too!
real though! countless times before have I seen people regard downpour dialogue and bits of lore as completely canon when that isn't really the case, DP is a DLC made almost solely by fan modders.
@@colfy3961 true, but counter argument - if it is in the game it should be considered true to the game (cannon). If external sources didn't exist it would have been considered cannon. I don't like looking at external sources at all over the actual flipping game/book/movie because otherwise that means creators/authors could say literally anything (like unicorns existed in rain world) and we'd have to go with it. no, if it is not depicted in the source, then it doesn't exist. If it is depicted in the source material it exists. Though because downpour is a dlc, one could view it as an alternate game universe than original rain world. viewing the characters from downpour as never existing in og rainworld
@@colfy3961 honestly I disagree, DP is canon, but there is more than one canon to Rain World. There is the base game canon, then DP canon, both are equally and completely canon (as they are, well, in the game), but are nonetheless separate.
@Erratic_Pulse_0758 I do agree!! that was my point but I didn't elaborate on that on my initial comment due to having made that comment on a whim. rain world vanilla canon and DP canon are two seperate canons, and while making theories, it should be kept in mind some people don't consider DP canon to the base game. I personally don't think DP is completely canon but instead its own official au of sorts and I like to make theories on DP's canon. Also things that arent canon in vanilla but are in DP (such as moon and pebbles being siblings or the existence of the MSC crew) I sometimes like to treat as canon in whatever I create like art or writing. whether or not DP is canon is obviously up to each person, you're supposed to have fun with it!! but I think that making that clear distinction between the canons of the base game and the DLC is important during certain situations.
additionally, same could be said about the upcoming watcher DLC. I personally think whatever happens there is canon to the base game thanks to joar and James actually developing it alongside the new dev crew, but if some people would rather consider it it's own canon, sure! I'll still make that distinction between base game and DLCs
mfw some random rain world lore vid shows up on my feed, i check the description and its citing my niche reddit post as a source incredibly well edited and accessibly presented video btw. something like this has been sorely needed in the community i think
another small misconception caused by downpour: it's not stated for certain anywhere in the base game that hunter's infection is specifically the rot. judging by the symptoms, it is obviously cancerous rather than being a simple pathogen, but my interpretation of base game lore is that it was likely just intended to be mostly normal cancer. i don't blame the msc devs for wanting to change it to rot though because that's a lot less boring and provides an explanation for why hunter can use a back spear while none of the downpour slugcats can (small cyst on their back that they stab the spear through)
@@the_phantom_cat7912 he'd likely still say the same thing regardless of if it's rot or normal cancer. plus as i mentioned it's not stated for certain, he just calls it "something Unfortunate" (like the development) so he could be referring to a tapeworm for all we know
I'd like to share my opinion on the nature of Ascension. TLDR: I found an unintentional H.P. Lovecraft reference When I finished my first Survivor playthrough, I was still puzzled by a question of what all other slugcats in the final scene symbolize. Are they a representation of your failed cycles? Or of your past lives? Or are they Survivors from parallel universes who reached the void sea? Or are they just random slugcats and are not related to survivor in any way? And then I realized that the scene looks familliar to me: it actually reminds me of "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", a story written by Lovecraft & Hoffman Price. I'll compare the plot of the story to Rain World Ascension The MC of the story, Randolph Carter goes through the process of ascension. He passes the metaphysical structure known as the First Gate [surface of the void sea]. Then he meets meets Umr At-Tawil [the void worm], an ancient being that gives Carter a choice: return back to his physical existance [swimming back is still possible when you see the first worms] or plunge deeper into the void. Carter chooses the later, and Umr At-Tawil guides him to the Ultimate gate [the worm helps you to reach the lower depths]. When he passed the gate, he saw endless stream of creatures walking with him to his destination [like those slugcats]. The creatures were versions of Randolph Carter from another timelines and universes united by the same goal of reaching the multidimentional Archetype of all every Randolph Carter that ever existed or will exist. Carter lost his physical body at this point, but he still had his consciousness. He used the power of his archetype to move his consciousness to the distant world that existed eons ago; to the place that he saw in his dreams countless times and where he wished to live. Now lets see what slugcats get in their endings: 1. Survivor finally finds home 2. Monk finds his lost brother 3. Hunter... he wishes to be with his creator again, free from the rot. I'm not sure if he chose to be reborn in an alternative timeline of if he finds NSH himself here, because there's no time in the void So each of them gained what they wished for. I also think the stream of slugcats that we see in the cutscene is not the same as before it. Before the cutscene we see another iterations of our character, and after it we see some sort of "Archetypes" of other slugcats. Thats why they disappear when the wish of your slugcat comes true. And thats it. Sorry if there are mistakes in my English, I've been writing this for an hour now and there is a high chance I've used some phrases that don't make sense in the language.
@@Erratic_Pulse_0758 I also have an interpritation of Saint's puspose that I've never seen mentioned. I think Saint actually exists to ascend echoes: 1) You can ignore 5P and Moon as Saint but you can't finish his campaign without visiting echoes 2) Saint can feel a presence of an echo in a region you enter 3) In the final scene when your karma is going from 10 to 1 you see screenshots of the rooms you visited before going to echoes Saint's origins are unknown but I like to think that when they achieved enlightenment, he chose to help those who physically cannot ascend on their own. In other words, they became a bodhisattva (and yes, I know that last part is a popular opinion in the community)
Id like to use this opportunity to just state something I think a lot of people gloss over: we dont even know what the cycle is. ive spent almost a year of my life now trying to figure this out, but from what i can tell there is no succinct summary anywhere that explains the exact mechanics of the cycle. I also am fairly certain that respawning isnt canon like everyone seems to say. anyways rainworld's lore is some of the craziest out there, im glad people are starting to discuss it again.
Although the cycles are inherently obtuse, *there actually IS a baseline of information to go off of!* I have an entire google doc dedicated to it but unfortunately it's much too long to add below haha. Part of the confusion of the cycles stems from the fact that it was much less of some concrete universal understanding and *much more of a subjective feeling!* FP calls understanding of the cycles an "oscillating claustrophobia", and an "elemental desire" while moon calls it an "intuition". We also know that rather than being one great cycle, *it's only ever referred to as cycle(s), plurally, because there are multiple!* We know *birth and death (clarifying the birth part) are in a cycle,* we know that *the bedrock of the entire physical world itself is in a cycle,* as the void sea eats away down below at an equal rate as the dust from the sky builds up, and even that *the very concept of civilizations are in a cycle,* which we know from listening to the Subterranean Echo dialogue, and from environmental storytelling in the depths, which is very likely the remains of a civilization that predated the ones we're familiar with, who made the iterators. we also know that *death is real, just not truly the end.* we can garner this both from in-game and textual evidence, as one, creatures that we see die do not ever respawn again from our point of view, this is a known fact, as we never see the same ID resurface. as for textual evidence, both FP and Moon pretty much lay it out for you, FP talks about how iterators have died in his convo with SRS, who even acknowledges that fact as being further motivation for them to work on the big problem. and moon says it all in her reading of the SOS pearl, where she mentions that SOS is one of the few iterators who have died (DP actually got this wrong and said she was the only one lol). ALSO! she even uses the term "lifetimes" as a loose measurement of time in the filtration system colored pearl, and even accuses you of trying to kill her when you eat some of her neurons. so that outright debunks most of the "cycle = traditional immortality" theories, and leans more into reincarnation, though even then I'd argue it's much more complicated :3 karma flower dialogue arguably provides the most insight on the cycles (and proposes the concept of multiple selves across different planes of existence) but that's deeper discussion lol.
The funny thing about saint lore is that its not even confirmed in the game if his ascension even works, in fact its even questioned. Rubicon dialogue straight up questions if moon and pebbles actually ascended or if its just some sort of dream. And considering the fact his campaign is a time loop, can anything truly be ascended when it everything gets reset back to where it starts from?
A sizeable chunk of lore in rain world is very much up to interpretation I feel like. And at least for now you could read the information given by the game in different ways while not being wrong. I thought that the line in parentheses "(unable to reach Enlightenment by itself..." at 6:25 was directed to Five Pebbles, a Gift, that the benefactors have obligations towards. And the list of things he's made of is an explanation of why he can't be ascended by regular means, as he's not quite alive in the same way as regular animals are. The great cycle itself can be interpreted in several ways. Which things and creatures it does and does not affect, and how it even works. Depending on the answer, the meaning of ascension would also have different implications. I initially thought that The Great Cycle is based around an individual, as in, the creatures experience death in a different way than in our world, "waking up once again" in some kind of way and *experiencing* life again too. But it could as well be closer to our classic circle of life, basing the cycle on the world itself. You die, and something else is born out of your death, thus giving you "life" in a little different, more spiritual kind of way. Then breaking out of the cycle could have vastly different meanings, because the process itself isn't that defined, and because the cycle itself doesn't have a specific description. So I feel like the question of what's the nature/goal of ascension doesn't really have a right or wrong answer.
Now see, if the line in parentheses was truly about FP, *it would be the only time FP is ever referred to as "it" in the games text.* Also, the idea that having MICROBES gates oneself off from ascension is kind of absurd tbh, like *every single living thing has its own microbiomes and gut bacteria and microbes,* and not to mention how *rain world's organisms already blur the lines between machinery and flesh,* to posit that a mix of the two prevents ascension is really weird. That being said, "Rock, gas, dull witted bugs and microbes" do not even really sound fitting to FP's description, I mean he's a purposed organism and supercomputer, I don't see him being made out of "rock" rather than some kind of metal or concrete. On the OTHER hand, *it fits much more accurately when applied to the world instead,* which has been ecologically devastated by the ancients, to the point of there not being much life left. The surface is probably somewhat of a battered husk ecologically at this point in the story, and that's reflected in the dialogue. My last point is that we already know that *the physical bedrock of the world itself is within a cycle,* and we know that the ancients also knew that, since moon tells us all about it it in the filtration system colored pearl.
I feel that Iterators are the Benefactor's attempt to cheat the system: to craft something from sufficiently dull materials, that despite its vast complexity, and specific attunement to (even direct manipulation of?) karmic fields (or whatever mechanism by which this force manifests itself in the universe), nonetheless does not itself possess a "soul" (say, the property of having variable karma level, attachments and the ability to cast them off from time to time, and an at least in-part memory-preserving sort of reincarnation) -- to be something unto which the Benefactors' final burden could be cast, at least if nothing else as a minimization of harm (create perhaps thousands of them, doomed to eternal existence, but ascend billions of citizens in return), but more likely, in their mind, a complete end-run. The relative inefficiency of this method (sufficiently dull, simple materials must be used) perhaps implies the massive scale in size and power consumption necessary to develop useful computation -- the equivalent of using vacuum tubes or relays to build a modern desktop PC (but made of exponentially more reliable, self-regenerating (but still not self-aware!) materials, heh). This unfortunately doesn't work well when the computer develops ennui...
@@slugfishh My thought process was that the "it" would refer to the word "gift" in the sentence. Microbes specifically aren't the problem, the whole picture of being artificial is what makes him not entirely alive. The rock might have been a very brief way to refer to metal, or whatever else Pebbles is made of. Microbes and bugs would refer to the purposed organisms that are implemented into his systems in order to work. I could see the small white spiders we see in game inside of his memory arrays for example to be called dull whitted bugs. The whole text of that pearl is centered around Pebbles, so my mind leans towards that reading. But yours also fits well tbf. The text in the filtration system pearl makes me think of void fluid as a corrosive substance that evaporates matter in just a physical sense, but works differently on sentient beings because they have desires and stuff. But the rock getting dissolved and the matter coming back in form of dust does also fit in with the idea of a cycle pretty nicely.
@@Gayori_boi Alright, another angle to approach the Exterior dialogue from, would be how its used in the paragraph, which I'll first attach below for clarity: "The Moral Argument: Five Pebbles is our Creation, and we have Parental Obligations towards him. As an Iterator, he is also a Gift of Charity from Us to The World (unable to reach Enlightenment by itself - being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes - and towards which We thus have Obligations)." (Exterior colored pearl dialogue) The argument being made here is that the Benefactors have moral obligations towards Five Pebbles, explaining that they are his parents, and that he is a gift from them to the world. *By having the subject of the parentheses be about FP, it fits in much more awkwardly with the rest of the paragraph.* It becomes a sentence about how the Benefactors are obligated to care for five pebbles because he is unable to ascend.. which doesn't really make sense, and doesn't tie in much at all with the previous sentence attached to it outside of the parentheses. This is how it reads off when put altogether in a more broken down way: "Five pebbles is our moral obligation, because we are his parents. He is a gift from us to the world (He's not able to ascend by himself, meaning we have obligations to take care of him)" They already set up in the first sentence that they're morally obligated to care for FP as his parents, and then in the second sentence, instead of having any real connection to the sentence that its directly attached to, the parentheses just repeat the first point in an odd way. This also just isn't really proper use of parentheses, since it doesn't elaborate on what it's connected to. Now, *if we take the sentence and make it about the world, it actually flows perfectly lol:* "Five pebbles is our moral obligation, because we are his parents. He is a gift from us to the world (The world is unable to ascend on its own, meaning we were obligated to create the iterators to help it ascend)" If you take it this way, it literally perfectly expands on what has already been set up, and *provides a direct reason as to why the iterators are a gift from the Benefactors to the world.* The purpose of putting a section into parentheses like that is "to insert a phrase or clause into a sentence as an explanation or afterthought." (googled definition) If the subject of the parentheses were FP, it wouldn't expand on what's been said within the sentence in any real way, and it weirdly clashes with the first sentence of the paragraph. There really isn't any way to justify it without jumping through a few hoops of logic and reasoning, *one option creates a very awkward sentence while the other flows entirely perfectly.* Also- very quickly regarding your last point, I just wanted to point out that LTTM does in fact present it pretty clearly as a cycle, an equal exchange! It's just much more than just speculation is what I'm trying to say. "If you leave a stone on the ground, and come back some time later, it's covered in dust. This happens everywhere, and over several lifetimes of creatures such as you, the ground slowly builds upwards. So why doesn't the ground collide with the sky? Because far down, under the very very old layers of the earth, the rock is being dissolved or removed. The entity which does this is known as the Void Sea." (Filtration system colored pearl dialogue)
this is a smaller one, but the group seven red suns belongs to, because i've seen so many misconceptions that they belong to five pebbles' group, when there's so much dialogue that hints to that not being the case. even the wiki had this wrong until i bapped someone about it and they told a wiki editor
7:39 Iterators were built only for the first purpose, but when their heavy water consumption resulted in deadly rains taking over the surface, they needed to also be repurposed to sustain the benefactors. Otherwise, really good video. Rain World lore is very nuanced with lots of intricate ways different elements interact, and I think you did a good job making that clear.
I had one other person comment about this and it's my fault for not mentioning it in the video, but I'll copy and paste my response here: I should've mentioned it in the video also, but Moon describes how they were "someone to delegate that unrestrained effort to" (from the bright green DS pear). The earliest iterators would have still served as convenience machines, even before the Ancients/Benefactors moved on top of them
I don't disagree that challenge 70 can't be used to extrapolate any serious lore information, but I think it's misunderstanding the debate to use "too many inconsistencies" as your main argument for doing so. The rationale would be that challenge 70 is like Gourmand's campaign, a mythical representation of much more mundane events for gameplay reasons. WIth that justification, the number of inconsistencies with canon/common sense logic is completely irrelevant except as a sidenote: the real reason to not use challenge 70 in lore discussions is because the developers have At Best said that only some elements might be based in lore, but given no mention of WHICH elements - and At Worst said that it's completely noncanon. Since we don't have any way of determining WHICH elements of the challenge might POSSIBLY be at all based on lore and which aren't, that's why it's not useful to point at challenge 70 for lore reasons and it should be discarded if your focus is solely "canon".
@mxyzptplk As someone who playtested and actively discussed the creation and design of MSC/Downpour behind the scenes with its development team (Darthzz), this is not true at all. Challenge 70 was not at all based on cut content, or even plans for the design direction for Saint's campaign. It was mostly made as a fun poke at a popular theory that Saint might end up being the triple affirmative that people had long before MSC/Downpour was even released. A common theory since 2018. If you do want a fun behind the scenes fact however, one thing the team joked and considered was having the iterator in challenge 70 sorta randomize its colors since people had wildly different interpretations of what Sliver Of Straw would've looked like.
@UraniumEater i run scav-gifs-daily and scavbot yeah! also you can if you wanna stick something in the description, but honestly I'm happy just seeing my silly little things out and about :)
Great video. Even though I would consider myself a huge fan of rain world and very familiar with the lore, you managed to change my opinions on some things. What really stood out to me was your interpretation of the Exterior pearl, I had never read it in that way. Now, this does make it very confusing on why iterators where "not built to transcend." Why would the ancients build something unable to ascend if they where trying to ascend the whole word? It's a catch 22 situation. Now wether Pebbles (and by extent other iterators) fits the description of "being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes", it may hold up fairly well. The bright purple pearl reads, "Most of our processing is outsourced to microbe strata which need a flow of clean water or else slag builds up" So, iterators do have microbes inside of them (and so do we!). Well, maybe. When Pebbles references "microbes in the processing strata" he uses "the" rather than "my." So, is he referencing something else? Perhaps he does not consider these microbes to be apart of himself? Yet, (going into Downpour territory now) Pebbles refers to himself as "Composed of specialized organisms, and machinery" (from the reading of the bright magenta pearl) and "While your chains are made of your own natural urges, mine are a duty to my creators. My kind are built unable to ascend, as our minds are not our own. Composed of microbial life, machinery, and electronics" (from the bright red pearl) so we know iterators are composed of many different organisms to create one super-organism, the only real life equivalents are perhaps siphonophores and lichen. This also tells us that they where not built to ascend, as also said by Moon. Its also confusing why they refer to the subject as "it", when in all other instances they use he/him for Pebbles (if someone can find another example please let me know!)
The iterators are unable to ascend in general, but like- if you ascended the whole world, that'd probably ascend everything else in it, iterators included. All the taboos and design choices seem to be intended just to stop iterators from ascending themselves before actually solving the problem.
@@Confused-Rock From one 5P profile pic to another, I understand that they did it in order to stop iterators from ascending themselves first, but it still makes no sense, how can they not be able to ascend in general, yet also be able to ascend?
@@Erratic_Pulse_0758 I guess that'd require you to define exactly how they're prevented from ascending in the first place, which is difficult. But from how I see it, 2 issues keep them from ascending: -moon talks about how their mantras keep repeating. I guess this is something about their messy interior structure making them too aggressive to ascend by avoiding natural urges, etc. this one makes less sense. this might just be the taboos, the taboos keep them awake and connected to reality. Or maybe it's because they're made of "inanimate" metals etc. if clumps of dirt don't ascend by avoiding urges, maybe pebbles can't. -obviously, that can is way too big to fit into the void sea without digging a hole the size of your mom. being too large to dissolve, and unable to avoid natural urges (well, it seems like inanimate objects can't, anyways) means the iterators have the same issues ascending that the world as a whole does. No one knew how to solve the problem, but by stopping iterators from ascending by known methods, this would probably ensure they wouldn't ascend without learning to ascend everything else first.
@@Confused-Rock hm makes sense. Something to add, Pebbles says iterators are unable to ascend due to their minds not being their own, but we know they are actually able to ascend. Its also confusing what the motives of the iterators are after the ascension of all the ancients. Are they still working on the great problem? Or just to ascend themselves? Or maybe, Pebbles is not trying to ascend, but actually kill himself, as if he is dead, then he might, so to speak, see the other side of the coin, and better work towards the solution. But, if you die as an iterator, what happens to you? Can you come back? My brain hurts...
Turns out you actually found one of the few DP contradictions, that pearl dialogue is a weird one. Given the nature of DP's creation as a modded work, it was worked on by many people, and despite some other dialogues getting this stuff right, this one stems from someone misreading the exterior pearl. Now let me better explain why the exterior pearl parentheses aren't about FP. For starters, *it would be the only time FP is ever referred to as "it" in the games text.* The idea that having MICROBES gates oneself off from ascension is kind of nonsensical, like *every single living thing has its own microbiomes and gut bacteria and microbes,* and not to mention how *rain world's organisms already blur the lines between machinery and flesh,* to posit that a mix of the two prevents ascension is really weird. That being said, "Rock, gas, dull witted bugs and microbes" do not even really sound fitting to FP's description, I mean he's a purposed organism and supercomputer, I don't see him being made out of "rock" rather than some kind of metal or concrete. On the OTHER hand, *it fits much more accurately when applied to the world instead,* which has been ecologically devastated by the ancients, to the point of there not being much life left. The surface is probably somewhat of a battered husk ecologically at this point in the story, and that's reflected in the dialogue. My last point is that we already know that *the physical bedrock of the world itself is within a cycle,* and we know that the ancients also knew that, since moon tells us all about it it in the filtration system colored pearl.
great video! to add to the final question I would say that saint doesn't even fit the criteria for first affirmative. if we look at moon's and pebble's "ascensions" in the campaign they are transported to rubicon, which, to me, is not the same place the ascended slugcats prior to saint and the ancients went. manly because at the end of rubicon you swim up the void sea to ascend as saint. so what is rubicon? imo it's a sort of limbo where all the creatures go that saint tried to ascend. this is mostly because of 5p's dialog "This place is not real, a dream from the outside. As if every cycle of my existence has knotted together with another's, even if for only a fraction of a second it rippled through mine". to me this doesn't rly feel like ascension but more like he's trapped in a place right between the physical and the spiritual world, kinda like an echo. also most of rubicon is made up of altered rooms from all other regions, which could make it an alternate reality or even a dream world of sorts? idk
i dont tend to comment on a lot of videos, but i cant help but say this whole thing was so nicely done, especially with the the abundance of sources to support all of your claims makes it all the more better!! i would love to say more but you left me in so much awestruck i forgot all of it right as i tried to write it down
One thing to note: when talking about the "portability" of a solution, the iterators may be talking in the sense of software (or in this case, genetic) engineering: a portable solution is one that can be implemented in multiple different environments with no changes; ie: it can be deployed on a mass scale without having to be customized. If Saint's ability to ascend were engineered, rather than emerging naturally, then he would be a portable solution to ascension. However, he needs to be exposed to multiple echoes in order to be able to ascend things. Echoes are environmental factors which can't be controlled for, I would argue that Saint is not a portable solution, unless echoes are extremely widespread.
I also think most people forget that Downpour was stated as being an AU of the base game. It seems all additions are plausible in universe but not cannon. This hasn't/won't cause any confusion among the community...
@@TysALTDownpour devs have stated it numerous times, but they’re all random tweets and discord messages so they’re a bit out of the way. Since downpour is fanmade most of the lore drops are headcannons or outright contradictions (like the retaining wall)
it's an official AU. In other words, it's essentially a second canon. Both vanilla and Downpour are canon, Downpour just isn't canon to the vanilla timeline
One weird thing that stuck out to me for a very long while is just reading one pearl where it's told that the world is constantly building up with ash and being consumed by the voidsea in a loop. Just thought it was weird.
We have to realize that the iterators never actually figured out a solution, so maybe there IS a whole-world ascension technique involving Saint that just hadn't been developed or discovered yet.
I think saint being the triple affirmative is still up for debate because it is hard to say what’s a gameplay limitation and what’s a restriction on his abilities because yeah there’s probably going to be more births than deaths in most cases but saint literally has an infinite amount of time figure out how to ascend literally everything since he goes right back to the beginning of the game after he ascends the void worm at the end of the game and at the end of Rubicon when you meet FP/LTTM if you ascended them they describe him as having a cycle which loops into itself forever compared to theirs which eventually ends
ok let me put a simple example why this is not possible. You have a human who can fly and is inmortal, and he has a gun with infinite ammo, he cannot extinguish all life on earth no matter what, going after every individual one by one is just not going to ever work, kill every ant, every bacteria in a cave, all while the areas start to repopule after you leave. The solution equivalent in this scenario of "ending all life" would be something more akin to nuclear armagedon, which may not even fully work, if we could blow the entire planet from its core then that could work. Thats how downright impossible it is to consider saint tripple afirmative, the entire game has always shown this solution as some universal almost magical thing that is even questionable if it exists but they try to find anyways. A rodent with a gun is laughtable awful and is not much more efficient than void fluid. Not to mention saint story ends up with one of those "all in le head" sort of weird hard to explain thing, thats just pouring saint in the wound at this point, what does being an echo have to do with ascending creatures or rubicon even, is this where you start to notice not even the devs agree on what saint ending is? feels like a safeguard to justify any surreal stuff with "well, maybe is not real"
two lore details i wanna mention that imo downpour fixed, both involving the rain: - outer expanse, particularly the jungle part of it, is shown having the full death rain in the opening cutscene for survivor and monk, but does not have it in gameplay during gourmand, survivor, and monk's campaigns. though it's a bit too convenient with the timing, this shows that weather patterns and especially the height of the clouds in a given place can vary over time, as clouds do. - the cycle timer running out also marks sunset and the beginning of night. this coincides with the rain falling at that time because the temperatures begin dropping late in the evening which allows the water to begin condensing into rain. it doesn't go to the next day unless you hibernate purely because of technical limitations, the game can't really save unless you hibernate, die, or trigger a cutscene. these are pretty much just headcanons though. i guarantee that the outer expanse one was unintentional, maybe both of them
both of these could be considered inconsistencies that downpour added in, especially that first one. If Outer Expanse has death rain in vanilla but not in downpour, that's arguably downpour's problem as it was added later by different devs.
A note on the second, but there’s a lot of implication that the rain cycle is much more than an overnight sleep - even excluding out of game text, it is after all called *hibernation*, not an overnight nap
This is an incredible analysis! Thank you Uranium, you've done a lot of us loreheads a huge service. The editing is fantastic, and the narration too. :)
There are other inconsistencies of Saint being thought of as the triple affirmative: If Saint was the one that that killed/ascended SoS, he would have to be thousands or even over a million years old and I don't think a standard rodent of Rain World can realistically live that long. Also disregarding gameplay, if he was the one that ascended the other iterators, why doesn't he have his powers from the start? He can't ascend anything without having max karma and he doesn't have that from when the campaign starts.
Something that is strange is that stars are green in rainworld, in real life they can't be green due to the nature of light, the simplest and likely explanation is that they're just green cuz in that universe the laws of physics are different, but some people think they're void worms or some cosmic horror shit, or satélites
Amazing video! Found it really funny that I got all the questions on the poll wrong- Also, If you don’t mind, Can you do a video covering Rainworld space/ astronomy lore?
I definitely appreciate the suggestion! As much as I like astronomy myself, there unfortunately just isn't a whole lot to it in Rain World... at least in a traditional sense. The devs had intended it to be a sort of fantasy world, akin to something like middle earth in LOTR where planetary aspects weren't really considered. That being said, the Ancients/Benefactors did seem to have more astrological views on the world, referencing celestial spheres and such. And *maybe* downpour wanted to hint at more space stuff. But the point is, it would probably only be like a 3 minute video lol
I distincly remember discussing it somewhere on the discord with you about 3 affirmative and yet here it is again. (would be nice if you replied, discord is kinda too spammy for proper conversation) Portable doesnt mean mobile, it means easy to transport, if you can put saint into a box and then send it to another part of the planet he is portable. If you have supertrain travelling at 5000mph it is mobile but not portable (it cannot be easily moved off of tracks) 3 rd one is also pretty sketchy, we see saint ascending iterators, part biological and part mechanical beings, if it comes to other matter like rocks you use already incredibly stretched interpretation of "the planet" as literally everything, instead of literally everyone (both are equally plausible i think) unless i missed some dialogue that specifically states the rocks must ascend too. Still though i would say 1st requirement is not fulfilled because saint is uncapable of ascending everything (time/size constraints) therefore it doesnt qualify as solution to global ascension, so basically your 3rd point.
There's also "portable" in the computer science sense: for iterators, a proper solution must be implementable by all of them so that it can be rolled out globally at once. Even if the solution itself is mobile, it might not be able to outcompete the [re]production of all beings, let alone the dust falling on top of the world, unless enough iterators are able to produce it in enough quantity.
within the video one of the ancients/banifactors state that iterators were a gift to the world and they are to ascend everything, including gases and rocks.
The nature of ascention is purely phylosophical, there is no one answer to what it really is as it's quite literally supposed to be unknown, I find your way of explaining it optimistic at least
I think correct answer to question 3 is both. Like yes people too often simplify ascension to “just” being death, which it isn’t. But it almost certainly involves the death of the physical body. In order for the mind/spirit to ascend to a higher plane of existence, the physical body of this plane needs to be destroyed so there is nothing to tether it to. Also consider that the older method of ascension was starving oneself while drinking a spiritual tea. And I mean karma 10 (the final thing you need to ascend) represents the abandonment of the 5th worldly desire, self-preservation. Id say the first answer to the poll is (probably) correct in regards to the physical body, while the second is (probably) correct in regards to the mind/spirit/inner self. And I say probably because although ascension is important and we have a lot of dialogue about it, the exact details are deliberately left pretty vague and mysterious, I don’t think we really do (or are supposed to) have a full understanding of it.
i think i heard in one of the intercepted broadcasts that had the dialogue where seven red suns explained the spear master they said it was one of the creatures meant to clean pipes
I personally don't think it's unreasonable to say that Saint being unable to ascend certain objects can be chalked up to gameplay restrictions, but even with that in mind Saint still fails the third affirmative since there's one thing it can never ascend: itself. In the final Moon + Pebbles dialogue, they do kinda imply Saint is, or at least found, a way to solve the Great Problem ("Only those who have seen the other side can know the answers"), but that it leads to a catch 22 scenario where you can't go back to apply it - in which case it's only possible to come back as an Echo, a failed ascension. What's interesting is that Moon does seem to posit that it would've technically been possible for the iterators to "stumble upon" the same solution as Saint did *without* ascending themselves, but that of course they would've had no way to know or confirm that they did. I'd also like to second the notion that Challenge 70 isn't canon or even a retelling of a canon event. It's not a very decisive argument, but I'd say that Saint's biology seems to clearly indicate it descends from a line of Slugcats that evolved to adapt to the new wintery environment (extra fur, and capability to utilize their tongues to stick to cold surfaces) - similarly to the Strawberry Lizards who only naturally appear in Saint's campaign presumably as a result of the cold climate. Of course, Saint could have also been modified or purposed by an Iterator to adapt it the new environment, or it could've found some other way to modify itself (Artificer doesn't have the mark of communication and we don't how it gained its abilities), but I feel like that would have needed to happen *before* Saint became an Echo, mostly on account of it always respawning at the same cycle and place after its failed ascension.
this is a great video! :D though i was a little surprised that you didn't mention the cycles/rebirth in lore, since no two people really agree on how it works
to be honest i completely forgot about the karma flower dream memory thing, so i got to reconsider the slugtree at the bottom of the void sea what i thought before is that these are just like the "life flashing before your eyes" when you die a neurological thing no idea why the brain does it but it does it would hold if we look at the whole void sea trip as more like your body slowly dissolving in the weird antimatter substance while that same substance gets in your respiratory system and blood and shit and tickles your brain weirdly and makes you perceive a long long dive down a black void and swimming into a light where you see whatever brings you closure which would mean the void worms dont exist, which doesnt rly change much since they dont do anything anyway but everything seeing the same worms in their near death hallucination would be like the benadryl man that people all over the world have reported seeing when overdosing on benadryl but we only have record of this from the human species well we only rly ascend as slugcats only and see the void worms so it could be a neurobiologically specific thing to slugcats that the void fluid interacting with their brain makes them see the void worms so maybe the ancients didnt see void worms but smth else
i think saint was created shortly prior to sliver of straws death and spent most of his time around other parts of the world and saints playable campaign is just part of his story upon reaching five pebbles facility grounds
to be fair. being portable usually means that it's ease of transport for objects and systems. assumed to be compact enough to carry, and self contained that it wont rely on any thing else external supplies to function. describing something as portable never actually takes into account the means of transportation, nor to the environments being travelled through nor the final destination of the object being transported.
I understand that Enot/inv is not cannon, but when Saint ascends enot’s egg it ascends the whole world, and I’m not saying that the egg is the solution, but that Saint is perhaps simply a part of it. Maybe Saint must perform or be a part of some ritual or process.
This is a good video, gosh dang! Something that has always irked at me a little bit are the misconceptions people declare and spread around as though common, obvious fact. Shoutout to the belief I've seen many people have of the "cycle", rather than being like a bhuddist reincarnation, is apparently literally "when any creature dies they come back at a save point because thats what you experience in the game". Leading to... timeline-branching theories for how it works and...??? I guess that's the woes of letting your game speak for itself rather than over-explaing every bit of minutiae.
The Cycle is deliberately unclear and vague so I find it hilarious you are doing the very thing you're criticizing in this comment. Rain World clearly takes after these Indian religious concepts like Karma and Samsara but does not necessarily work the same way. For example, RW Karma does not really work the same way as Hindu or Buddhist Karma. Quantum immortality theory is one of many potentially *valid* theories, even if it's not my personal favorite. I feel the only truly concrete evidence for it is the many slugcats in the Void Sea, which seem to represent alternate selves. All of the tangled and interwoven cycles of an individual creature meeting in one place for one grand final rebirth. Either way, please don't discount or discredit interesting theories by mistakenly believing you've already solved it and that everyone else must simply have "missed the point".
@nts0n Hey, fair point. Oh dang my original comment came off much more vitriolic than I would've liked. So I guess some addendum: I don't mean to declare bhuddist reincarnation as the one truth or whatever. But rather to encourage taking a look into the ideologies that may have inspired the game for some possible insight, as yeah exactly, there are multiple answers. I don't think i've 'solved' anything at all, goodness no. In fact I like discussing the multiple possibilities of rain world lore with others. Its just ive been met with so many "lmao its this, duh" like am an idiot that I've just grown a little dissatisfied. And all I meant through my disatisfaction is the loss of cohesion in the game's narrative if the quantum immortality as you referred to it is true, and have seen others express that parts of the narrative makes no sense, believing this to be true from the basis. And while yes, maybe it is true and the ancients were worrying about a cycle and not a branching web of parallel selves, that hunter can somehow perma die in all parallels when getting rot. Why would this be considered a burden to escape from if you die but its a different you that lives on like nothing happened? Is that even how that works? How do iterators fit in to this? Like even if another iterator dies, would their thoughts change if they know that there's still another version of them that's fine? What about evolution? How does an evolutionary timeline work, or creatures dying out, both of which can be observed in game? Interesting thought experiments, but perhaps not to be disputed as fact until more solid. And also makes the narrative suddenly really muddy, when trying to take a look at it and appreciate it. Point is there that the gameplay mechanics of being able to try again after you die should not be evidence in of itself until other proof is given confirming that, even though the game does a good job making things diegetic. Anyway nonsense rambling aside, theorycrafting can be fun, and ultimately others can think what they want. Although this _is_ on a video about "lore misonceptions" so maybe you can understand my thoughts on well, perceived misconceptions. Though I do not mean to imply "aha yes but _I_ have the answers!" god no.
multiple things to point out at around 9:00 echoes seem rare because there is stuff going on with levels of mind and cycle stuff. it is a pretty rigorous requirement to be on karma 5, visiting the place twice isnt nearly as hard as that but echoes do seem to be placed around pretty lonely places. if one isnt one of the "downpour is just an AU" losers then one would also notice that echoes do move, disappear and new ones appear as time goes on over the different slugcat campaigns, so there is even more going on than that. i guess if you are partially seperated from the cycle you dont have to stick to a certain "coordinate" within it ? also the horror story is pretty damn accurate, so its not fully unknown, like you point out. i think that would be reason enough to weigh the risks of a 50/50 chance of finally ascending or getting an even "worse" treatment of immortality than before ? also i do not believe that echoes were rare at all, as we know that being 100% desireless and dead inside as the requirement for ascension is, is practically impossible. i dont even believe that even those who drank bitter tea and starved themselves on gravel got to ascend, i mean how could as outside observer know, to their perspective the person dies either way but there is no way to tell if they woke up again in another parallel universe still trapped by the cycle, or escaped it ? so echoes would actually be extremely common, caused by if not all instances of void fluid suicide. but like i mentioned, the location that echoes occupy in time and space and in the great cycle isnt 100% strict, the 6 (vanilla) we do meet are just coincidence that we happen to occupy all 3 coordinates with them simultaneously the line "blessed with an ever shrinking population" still holds up here. some didnt care about the ghost stories, but once dissolved by the void fluid you cant go back, cant go back to tell the others it didnt work. all that people still alive see is that they dissolved, but whether they ascended or stack around as echoes noone can tell now with the final public ascension thing youre kind of conflicting yourself. we know that the final public ascension took place in a last desperate effort, i dont think anybody cared anymore, they just risked the chance of ascension, cuz its better than nothing right ? risk it or do nothing, they been doing nothing forever by now so the temptation took over them. now why they ordered to harvest even bad crops but not shut off the iterators is still beyond me aswell
the entire point of ascension via void fluid was that you didn’t have to abate your urges to ascend, I recommend checking out bright red farm arrays pearl and filtration system colored pearl
the benefactors may have kinda seen it as a spiritual continuation of existence, but ascension still maintains its ambiguity, it’s not inherently good or bad, just like, a natural step in one’s life if they choose to take it also, there is birth symbolism throughout the game that frames ascension in a “final rebirth” sort of sense: - the light we swim into at the end is called the egg - void spawn are also encased in an egg which we can free them from (mirroring what happens down in ascension) - echoes are in a fetal position, symbolizing them being somewhere in-between the physical plane and ascension - iterators have umbilical cords, a childlike appearance, and their creators are referred to as their parents - and a bit more but I can’t touch upon it in a comment section unfortunately
I believe you might have misinterpreted the text at 6:35 , where the text is most likely describing what the iterators are made out of. As in "... a Gift of Charity from Us to The World (unable to reach Enlightment by itself - being [5P] composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes)".
That section of dialog is somewhat archaic, the Benefactor could be referring to either the "Gift of Charity" (Five Pebbles) or "The World" when they switch to talking in parenthesis. I think the latter interpretation is the one that actually makes more sense, since if you consider the pearl in its entirety it's clear that the Benefactor is trying to convince someone that they have obligations towards Five Pebbles, and it's not clear why going off on a tangent about his composition would support that argument.
Now see, if this were the case, *it would be the only time FP is ever referred to as "it" in the games text.* Also, the idea that having MICROBES gates oneself off from ascension is kind of absurd tbh, like *every single living thing has its own microbiomes and gut bacteria and microbes,* and not to mention how *rain world's organisms already blur the lines between machinery and flesh,* to posit that a mix of the two prevents ascension is really weird. That being said, "Rock, gas, dull witted bugs and microbes" do not even really sound fitting to FP's description, I mean he's a purposed organism and supercomputer, I don't see him being made out of "rock" rather than some kind of metal or concrete. On the OTHER hand, *it fits much more accurately when applied to the world instead,* which has been ecologically devastated by the ancients, to the point of there not being much life left. The surface is probably somewhat of a battered husk ecologically at this point in the story, and that's reflected in the dialogue. My last point is that we already know that *the physical bedrock of the world itself is within a cycle,* and we know that the ancients also knew that, since moon tells us all about it it in the filtration system colored pearl.
The benefactors never refer to Pebbles as an it. He's very explicitly anthropomorphised in their dialogue, what with him literally being a god to them. Also it'd be a little mean of them to say Pebbles is incapable of enlightenment when they are literally the ones who made him incapable of enlightenment via the self destruction taboo.
if saint is able to ascend whole iterators in one pop then they may actually be able to ascend the whole damn world. maybe there's a limit to how much saint can do at once and that limit is somewhere above a city sized biomechanical god but below a whole planet full of them. maybe saint has to ascend all the iterators before he can begin mass ascending the rest of the world. we just dont know.
Saint isn't able to ascend "whole" iterators, only their puppets. After ascending Moon, her actual superstructure remains online. A lot of people seem to forget that 99.9% of an iterator is their actual can/superstructure, not their small puppets.
@@UraniumEater that's kinda bleak then, there'd be a sort of ghost of the iterator still left in the larger computer structure no longer conscious but still vaguely alive.
Signal boosting the point: I feel like it's a serious stretch to say a triple affirmative solution needs to be a single event for the entire planet. After all, if it just needs to trip once and ascend everything, why does it need to be portable? And looking at the comments used to support the ascention of everything, the specific text mentioning the rocks and microbes could potentially be ruling those things out as unascendable in the transcending above life sense. After all, most of those things don't really have complex life themselves. Transcending above life may indeed be the goal of ascension, but it's not the only outcome. The echoes aren't even the only outcome; we see what I believe would be the most common outcome with Artificer's ascension ending, where she's rejected by the void worms for being unable to achieve max karma. The outcome for matter used in mass rarefaction: dissolution.
the reason for iterators not being able to ascend doesn’t have to do with being partly inorganic matter, that’s a misinterpretation of the exterior colored pearl; the parentheses are actually discussing the world, not FP. It’s the logical conclusion for a few reasons, being one, that FP is never referred to as “it” anywhere else, two, being that all of rain world fauna already blur the line between flesh and machine, and three, if you look at the structure of the sentence, it makes much less sense when interpreting the parentheses about FP compared to interpreting it as being about the world, one flows very awkwardly and the other is pretty much perfect. However DP kind of misunderstood this, so you could argue it’s canon to just downpour or whatever, but it’s still very odd. I mean, to imply that having microbes prevents one from ascending?? 😭 as if every organism doesn’t have microbiomes and microbes within themselves lol
Thank goodness for you, UE. Rain world is extremely popular among most of my friend groups, and its lore is brought up often. Your videos have saved me many, many silly debates over the lore in the past. I've said this before on past videos, and ill say it again. You are CRIMINALLY underrated, my friend! Another banger from you.
gonna' be honest, this video is great but heavily based on semantics, ESPECIALLY the Triple Affirmative section, and when you reach that point in lore analysis it's just not productive anymore also I had no idea there was some kind of confusion on the purpose of Iterators, to me their purpose for being built was like super clear lol
Just wanna share a random theory about ascension (spoilers for endings) I think it gives someone what they wanted most. Survivor sees their family seemingly, monk sees survivor, arti sees her pups, and Inv gets to find a mate.
there does seem to be a continuity between these dreams tho, since survivor is in the same position in her dream as she is in monks dream :D to me it speaks to it being quite real
I dont understand the need of ascending rocks, gases and other materials. I mean ascend the whole planet means all the living things in the planet for me, not literally ascend atom by atom
It isn't covered in the video, but are we sure cyclical reincarnation (you die and then go back to the previous cycle) is backed? The main time we hear about the nature of life and death (base game outskirts pearl), Moon specifically says, "Then you know that death isn't the end - *birth and death* are connected to each other like a ring, or some say a spiral. Some say a spiral that in turn forms a ring. Some ramble in agonizing longevity. But the basis is agreed upon: like sleep like death, you wake up again - whether you want to or not." She specifically mentions are birth/death reincarnation cycle. So why do we assume that the gameplay mechanic of respawning is canonical? Maybe it is the "like sleep like death" part, because the cycle starts when we wake up from hibernation. How does this function though? As endless timelines for the billions of creatures that exist within the world that surely die everyday through predation or means besides old age? There isn't really any confirmation that game death is canonical death from what I've seen. When a lizard dies, we do not get the same lizard back the next cycle. When (I know people have differing opinions on downpour, but it is still worth mentioning) when Artificers children die, they are never seen again. Artificer could have died as well, to go back to the last cycle where they were still alive, but did not.
It makes sense to me that, upon cycling (whether by sleep or death), creatures' worldlines can intersect or drift apart. Arti pups could still be out there [during the campaign], but their worldlines don't intersect anymore. Perhaps other beings are aware of their existence, perhaps their worldlines can intersect with Arti's -- or perhaps they're exclusive, in the branching Quantum Worlds sort of meaning. Whether a given act of success (sheltering) or failure (death) leads to a shift in ones' worldline, is a fair question; failure mostly seems to be answered in-game as, "try again". Killed lizards always come back (eventually), but as different individuals (or species even); yet from their perspective, everything might seem the same from cycle to cycle and the one(s) where they crossed you are just a few among many. The fact that the game only chooses creature IDs from so-and-so many thousands (if you aren't using expanded IDs mod), is kind of funny to interpret as canon: it means various individuals can indeed be met across different [great] cycles: by different incarnations of the player character, or in different worlds entirely.
Great point with the emphasis on *birth* and death being connected! I believe that the in-game death mechanic has to do with the lore, but that it's not the entire picture as experienced from the perspective of the slugcat, and that's naturally where gameplay limitations come in. The "sleep like death" line sits quite weirdly within it all though
hmm. I’ll give some of my thoughts/theories, though I’m not really sure either way. one is that the cycle is personal. this seems to line up w/ gameplay. if a creature dies, from its perspective, it begins the cycle anew, but from anothers it is seemingly dead. following this theory, that is why killed creatures get replaced by a different individual; another one is simply taking their niche in the area’s ecosystem. old age is kind of a hard question to answer… perhaps eventually a creature gets so weak it simply dies/starves in its shelter repeatedly? honestly not sure. karma flowers might give a bit of a hint. Moon says they allow creatures to connect w/ their “selves of other planes,” so perhaps creatures are not fully aware of their previous lives… otherwise they’d already be connected, I guess? they have an innate understanding of the cycle, but the flowers allow them to see their lives and the cycle’s workings with clarity. maybe that’s why Arti didn’t go back for their pups; they’re, after all, just an animal that probably instinctively tries to survive. the “a creature is reborn as a different creature” being the cycle theory is possible, but doesn’t have much direct commentary in game. it has less holes in it than the cycle being day-to-day like in gameplay, though, since it explains old age and why Artificer didn’t just die on purpose, but I’m honestly not sure. this theory kind of lessens the impact of some dialogue, though. when The Exterior echo asks you if you’re tired of all the cycles and such, this seems to me to be intended to directly relate to the player’s own, cycle-to-cycle struggles in gameplay, not a nebulous lore idea. there’s also Hunter, who DOES seem to die permanently (at least as a slugcat) w/o ascension, which seems to support reincarnation rather than day-to-day revival. I’m honestly surprised they aren’t brought up more often since they’re the only slugcat that is so heavily implied to be permadead. their whole 19 cycles thing is… weird though, could just be gameplay limitations rather than a lore commentary. I’d say, overall, day-to-day revival is backed by gameplay and reincarnation is backed by being a bit more logical. there are, ofc, other interpretations, but these are the big ones I see talked about a lot. sorry for any typos! wrote this out on mobile.
because of karma and wheel flowers. my own loose interpretation is there are two cycles: reawakening after death after dying post-rest, and rebirthing after true death (e.g. old age or illness), which I personally refer to as karmic death and cyclical death respectively just to differentiate the two. karmic death refers to gameplay death, cyclical death refers to deaths like hunter's "permadeath", karmic death is more of a dreamlike thing where you can reawaken from the last time you rested *peacefully* (starving mechanic...) while cyclical death is like restarting your entire life from the very beginning. karmic death is the "like sleep like death" line, and cyclical death is the "birth and death are connected like a ring". subject to change but yk
@@gdogdogdogdogdogdogdogdogd8948 If we are taking a personal cycle as true, death by old age/terminal illness, ect could be explained by the soul having such a weak grasp on it's body that it could not return to its previous incarnation, but instead has to become something else. I cannot see creatures surviving indefinitely into their old age, otherwise surely by this point most existing creatures would be so old they could not move. I do think reincarnation as traditionally thought is canon for sure tho, due to its direct mention as well as how much the game draws from Buddhist beliefs. I do like the mention of the echo dialogue, it does seem more impactful if cycle-based reincarnation is true. It could also be because cycles are rw's equivalent of days. It has a double meaning of time passed, and the cyclical nature of life and death. I'm not sure if Hunter counts as truly dead though, perhaps (although this is horrifying) their mind is intact, but they are stuck in a body that is no longer their own? Their own body is technically alive, although for Hunter it must be agonizing, there would be no need to reincarnate until someone or something takes them out of their misery. Although they could also just be fully dead, and without anything to struggle against the rot has full control, since after the cycle limit hunter still needs to be killed by something in order for the run to end.
In spearmaster's campaign there's a transmission in garbage wastes which confirms that slugcats are purposed organisms based on the genome for those pipe cleaners, I don't blame anyone for not finding this because past garbage wastes sucks without arti jump
not quite, it just confirms that nsh purposed at least one organism based on creatures that wander through pipes. > PI: It was based on one of those resourceful, wandering ones that go in pipes. An image should reach you in a few moments... it's possible this isn't talking about slugcats at all, though i suspect it is. however, that description also applies to scavengers. and importantly, it never calls them pipe cleaners, just describes where they currently live. it definitely doesn't call them descendants of the pipe cleaning slugs specifically
Ok, but what if SOS made saint and THOUGHT that it was a triple affirmative, so sent out the broadcast, but was ascended before they realized that saint was did not fit the criteria all the way. Alternatively, saint could have had more power before the events of their campaign, but because they ascended at the beginning of their campaign they lost all their power. This would mean that Saint could have been able to ascend stuff at a much larger scale before they came to pebbles' facility grounds. This also means that saint could have had more live expectancy because of their stronger powers. I also believe that saint was originally made to withstand a bit of cold because of floof, but they weren't originally purposed for so much cold as a blizzard.
Lizards were used like pets likely so they were probably genetically modified just like we did to dogs through selective breeding, but due to them being pets it's unlikely they would be extremely changed
Implementing tripple affirmative criteria into saint timeline kinda misses the issue that the saying was created in time when climate was warm and creators were still allive. Transportation via trains would be possible. But i agree that third criteria isn't met yet and Sliver was killed before she was able to make more testing. Just like spearmaster, maybe she would make more effective versions.
Saint being the 3T, also seems to not fit from a thematic point. Saint is the first, last, and only scugcat to move the story of the world forward through their own prerogative. Them being a 'tool' progressing the iterator's story, like Hunter, Spearmaster and Ruffles, seems like it would go against the thematic intention of Saint's independence.
The biggest, coolest part about Saint, I think, is that they're kinda the biggest jebait of the story: "become Triple Affirmative!" "This is amazing, I can do anything now!" ... "But wait, are we _really_ the Triple Affirmative..?" It's at once, thematically relevant, a power-fantasy, and an enormous imposition of responsibility (at least, at such point the player becomes aware of the lore implications -- or exceptions thereto!); and also a deep and troubling question -- from where did we come, where do we go, and what is our purpose, really, since we're not actually the thing so prophesied? (And what the hell happened in Rubicon?) :) Also interesting to pick the Triple Affirmative as an almost-Chekov's Gun, revealed only in the final act; but it's actually a bait-and-switch, kinda. Or, from your point: that they seem to have their own prerogative. A fact not without its own disturbing lore implications, as they are, well and truly, stuck in a cycle -- one of their own doing (perhaps), so extraordinary that they are nearly disconnected from, only occasionally intersecting with, other creatures' worldlines (or cycles, or spirals). The one thing I'm sad about is, ascended creatures respawn next cycle; surely from your own worldline perspective, they would stay dead. (Iterators and Guardians do!) Is this merely a gameplay compromise? (Most likely; it would be a boring world if you could well and truly empty it out. Actually making progress on global ascension would also imply a (very tedious) possible 2nd ending, which it would be better not to curse players with.) Perhaps it's characteristic of those creatures' cycles -- part of their karmic nature -- that they can't be ascended; at least not in such a manner as Saint possesses. Thus their cycles don't end, they just loop right on back.
If SoS truly did find the solution for global ascension, then wouldn’t there be absolutely nothing left? The metal, the surrounding facility, and everything surrounding it? And if it’s supposedly portable, then why would Sliver immediately use it on herself, instead of giving it to a purposed organism capable of making the journey? I think it’s likely that there was no solution, it really was a faulty signal, perhaps due to a failure in her void-related systems.
I will argue with the triple affirmative part, however. For sure, Saint does not meet the requirements of the Ancients, however, he surely does the job of the triple affirmative. Remember, Saint has infinite amount of time to ascend everything. And considering the law of possiblity that everything is a possiblity when given enough time, Saint will eventually find a way to ascend the world. Saint will also gain the skill to bear through the problems you mentioned in the video, such as cold and long distances, and will eventually master the ability to move. His movement alone proves this, as he is theoritically the fastest slugcat ever. You will probably state an obvious counterpoint, which is about "birth can outpace the ascension power of Saint". A few things that are presented through the game I will point out will answer this. 1. Evolution. Upon meeting with the iterators, you realise that you dont even need the mark of communication as you already have the ability, even though the iterators do not recall a single case of meeting you, although they recall you as *familiar* . Moon acts very peculiarly when we meet her, remember. She constantly speaks about how we must go, and gives clues about our power in the dialogue. And then, she states that, "we will meet again". But in a very odd way again: "... our *cycles* will meet again". Which leads to my second point. 2. Unboundness of the cycle of Saint. Saint is not bound by the cycle, remember. The cycle in which we play as Saint, the iterators as mentioned recall familiarity with us, "predicting" things about to happen. This is seen through Moon's dialogue and the Rubicon dialogue. And in the ending, you are in a place never seen, the empty space. It is abstract, but you exist. Then, you are taken back to the world, to the very beginning, indicating your job will never be over. Saint's this ability alone will eventually break the cycle that keeps the lesser beings bound, the cycle of mortal life, not the unbreakable cycle of macro scale (civilization cycle and ascension being an actual part of the cycle), as there are multiple cycles and freedom of a spirit needs only to ascended in one of the many cycles. This can be seen as many lizards and species go extinct, either evolving to adapted species or dying out, which is only possible if they ascended in another cycle. This, ultimately proves the applicability and portability of Saint as he is not bound by distance. The only things that can be stated as counterpoints are Dream Theory (which is very very very uncertain whether it is true, it is open to intrepertation) and Echo theory, which states Saint had only one try and he did what he could, the new world now rise from the ashes of the previous, and he will be an echo. Thanks for reading.
Wouldn’t the idea of a new world rising from the ashes of the previous one just entirely go against the idea that Saint is a successful triple affirmative? the entire point is to basically mass ascend the entire physical plane forever, eliminating it entirely in a sense
"For sure, Saint does not meet the requirements of the Ancients," this means hes not the triple affirmative "And considering the law of possibility that everything is a possibility when given enough time, Saint will eventually find a way to ascend the world." since when does he have infinite time? "1. Evolution. Upon meeting with the iterators, you realise that you dont even need the mark of communication as you already have the ability, even though the iterators do not recall a single case of meeting you, although they recall you as familiar . Moon acts very peculiarly when we meet her, remember. She constantly speaks about how we must go, and gives clues about our power in the dialogue. And then, she states that, "we will meet again". But in a very odd way again: "... our cycles will meet again". Which leads to my second point." this is not a counter argument to ""birth can outpace the ascension power of Saint"", please elaborate " 2. Unboundness of the cycle of Saint. Saint is not bound by the cycle, remember. The cycle in which we play as Saint, the iterators as mentioned recall familiarity with us, "predicting" things about to happen. This is seen through Moon's dialogue and the Rubicon dialogue. And in the ending, you are in a place never seen, the empty space. It is abstract, but you exist. Then, you are taken back to the world, to the very beginning, indicating your job will never be over. Saint's this ability alone will eventually break the cycle that keeps the lesser beings bound, the cycle of mortal life, not the unbreakable cycle of macro scale (civilization cycle and ascension being an actual part of the cycle), as there are multiple cycles and freedom of a spirit needs only to ascended in one of the many cycles. This can be seen as many lizards and species go extinct, either evolving to adapted species or dying out, which is only possible if they ascended in another cycle. This, ultimately proves the applicability and portability of Saint as he is not bound by distance." this makes zero sense, please not only elaborate but also explain what this means to you, because it is incomprehensible. Credits: aquapotato
although I've always viewed the Saint Triple Affirmative theory as very vague and less likely to be true, it is interesting to view it from the perspective of Sliver of Straw herself. With the VERY BIG IF that Saint even existed before Sliver, I believe she might have "found" it, saw that it was able to walk around and therefore deemed it "portable", and then likely witnessed it ascend any creature that it is capable of ascending and made the swift assumption that it could ascend ANYTHING. We know nothing about Sliver's actual personality but if it really was Saint that she found, then maybe she was overly excited to have possibly found the solution, and instead of doing further experiments and research first, immediately announced her findings to the entire iterator population before being destroyed by an unknown force/thing. Although I think that it was most likely Sliver found something else entirely, its interesting to see what can be theorised with what limited knowledge we have on the Triple Affirmative announcement. ANOTHER thing i feel is important to mention is that it's only ever been recited to us by moon, and she isnt particularly in the perfect condition to talk about memories when she tells us
imo the most satisfying answer is that sos just died and nothing else, the story really hints at no solution existing, if thousands of millions civilisations tried this before the benefactors and the world is still going, what makes you think this will be the right one? It paralels the hopelessness the iterators are feeling in a shorter loop
I feel like the saint one is mostly a technically Yes saint absolutely cannot outpace the world regenerating but giving saint the ability to deatroy terrain and etc would just be insanely stupid from a gameplay perspective, while yes they should had been coded to ascent grass, bugs, proto rot, etc that is most likely just some code that was deemed too frivolous to sink time into it Specially considering a lot of stuff was scraped due to being too much work, like he mushroom layer to treath themes Also saint is absolutely portable slugcats are the size of like a big luggage bag and those are considered portable so of course saint is portable, also saint crossed the whole FP LTTM facility grounds, he can absolutely cross the area between iterators, its not will but about when, for what we know hunter could have 1000 cycles till rot but we only got to play as them when they got to FP LTTM facility grounds
yes! total agree on the slugcat thing especially, I think it might stem from people not actually having read the dialogue themselves. most fans probably aren’t gonna skim the wiki or carry it all the way to moon. another small thing I see repeated often is Hunter’s leg scar being a rot cyst. as cool as rot Hunter is, it seems to be a downpour retcon; in the base game we never get any solid indication that Hunter has more than some nebulous disease. seems more likely to me it’s a scar, they’re already covered in them.
5p absolutely implies that hunter has the rot in the base game. He says "You and I have something in common, little creature. We both have something... unfortunate growing in us." when meeting him without the neuron, and unless you know of something else unfortunate growing in 5p, idk what else it could be.
It could be read that way, though he doesn’t say they have the same unfortunate thing growing inside of them; just that they both have something unfortunate growing inside of them, if that makes sense. It could always be, like, regular cancer.
Om wouldnt saint count as a triple if the itrators make more of him? Make enof saints and it starts to look like they could accend everthing. Time may also be a solution as is it ever confirmed if anything dies from old age in this world? If old age wont kill saint and he just revives when he dies then theres a timeline where he dose accend everything.
Edit: I have since been convinced that my interpretation is wrong and the video is in fact correct on this point At 7:00 I disagree with your interpretation of the dialogue. When it says "unable to reach ascension by itself - being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes - and towards which we thus have obligations", I think the point is that iterators are a constructed being that cannot be easily ascended and therefore the author argues that the constructors have a moral obligation to ensure its corporeal existence is pleasant (it cannot escape like the ancients can). I do not think we can conclude from this that they wanted to ascend rocks and nothing suggests to me that they cared about anything other than living organisms, which also puts your points about saint on a tenuous footing. With regards to saint not being able to ascend things faster than they are born, the statement that "Saint is a solution to the great problem" isn't that the single Saint we see in the game will solve the big problem on their own. It means that the design of Saint can be used to solve the great problem (hence why they care about the implementation of Saint being generally applicable; other iterators could also build Saints).
finally i see someone mentioning it!! when i first watched this video i was like. okay that is noottt what that means lol. but when i checked the comments no one said anything about it and i didnt want to embarrass myself by commenting something stupid
The reason for iterators not being able to ascend doesn’t have to do with being partly inorganic matter, that’s a misinterpretation of the exterior colored pearl; the parentheses are actually discussing the world, not FP. It’s the logical conclusion for a few reasons, being one, that FP is never referred to as “it” anywhere else, two, being that all of rain world fauna already blur the line between flesh and machine, and three, if you look at the structure of the sentence, it makes much less sense when interpreting the parentheses about FP compared to interpreting it as being about the world, one flows very awkwardly and the other is pretty much perfect. However DP kind of misunderstood this, so you could argue it’s canon to just downpour or whatever, but it’s still very odd. I mean, to imply that having microbes prevents one from ascending?? As if every organism doesn’t have microbiomes and microbes within themselves lol
@FiniteSimpleFox okay thanks, i kinda disagree with the point of saint being triple afirmative, but your point make sense about the triple afirmative being the saint design, but nothing in game proves that saint desing is the triple afirmative
"Unfortunately, this world's Big Problem can not be solved by the equivalent of a rat." I mean, Saint does start with Karma 2 which stands for *lust*, and we all know how rodents breed...
great video but i think saint's section wasnt as well structured as the others, ofc you are completely right and anyone who has dived into the story of this game will agree with you but the video does present it in a very passive way with many "what ifs" and subjetive talking inviting ppl to just say dumb stuff to try to counter it, just looking at this comment sections shows how the saint section really needed to be a bit more stoic and tell these people that they are straight up wrong because there is no point in argumenting agains it.
I knew it would be the most contended section, and I had to restart it multiple times after receiving feedback. I find it funny that some people actually had the opposite criticism than you - that I should have presented it less confidently and more as a "what if." I think no matter what, no matter how strong and sound of an argument you present, people will simply still cling to the idea that Saint needs to be this god-like and super important character. But the point of the video isn't necessarily to instantly change everybody's minds, (that's unrealistic) I at least just wanted to plant the ideas and make people think about the misconceptions
This was way more robust than I expected, all I have are small additions: - *TL;DR for the first point* : People call slugcat rat because mean, they more likely raccoon. Slugcats being referred to as rodents is more likely a derogatory/dismissive choice rather than an observation of your biology, similar to how you'd call a human a "rat". And they do show many parallels with felines: not only in behaviour as seen in cutscenes, the way Five Pebbles comments on their "blank expression" (likely an implication that they don't use mouth mimicry to communicate emotions, much like felines); and *critically* how they rely on airborne movement as opposed to the (prominent in this planet) vertical climbing of surfaces when it comes to non-standard mobility, the former rodents _can_ do but don't prefer. The last point is significantly more important than any other as before the story, before the ecosystem, before even the world that it is named after; Rain World is a movement game, and so the player -character- species is fundamentally a vessel to perform it, its compatibility with doing so must be maximised before anything else to reach the most logical conclusion. I am not saying this however to imply that slugcats are most similar to felines, their dexterity and original intent as bears make me think they are closer to an ursid-feline hybrid, the closest real-life parallel being racoons. Racoons are even capable of a relatively competent bipedal waddle, which they use to carry items in their hands (as they will use nearby water to better investigate if food is safe to eat). By coincidence, even the character design is reminiscent with the neck not being visible. -There is reason to believe that slugcats and tube worms share genes, and by extent a common ancestor. The Saint has only two notable abilities, one of which is extremely significant; so for the other to be so simple implies that it was such a small change from a technical standpoint that it was either convenient enough or even accidental to give her (which is unnatural beyond a reasonable doubt) the same tongue as tube worms. And tube worms were most certainly what the pearl "SL_chimeny" dialogue was written with in mind. -There isn't much reason to believe that the first iterators were used to house ancients, instead being a retroactive goal to compensate for making ground level inhabitable. -The Saint probably doesn't ascend creatures; as much as the Rubicon is a mystery, Occam's razor says that instead of believing that Rubicon is fundamentally different from the rest of the world, it is better to assume that it was only created in weird ways but otherwise functions not too dissimilarly from the rest of the world (say for the floating void fluid). This means that the Saint just teleports people to Rubicon as seen by LttM and FP, likely designed to do so under the false assumption that the void fluid was still there. -My headcanon for lizards has always been that they are a testbed for genetic experiments that are to be implemented on other creatures once finalised; hence why they can get quite funky without bionic implants, they were not only specifically designed to be genetically stable (especially retaining the gimmick it is given) but also used for testing a general concept instead of being fine-runed to a final product. Who is to say that cyan lizards weren't proto-vultures in some way?
I like to think UI isn’t necessarily mean. They never appear to be in the broadcasts often besides being mentioned, so it could be inferred that not much is known about their personality, except they may not enjoy contacting the broadcasts. While broken broadcasting could be inferred as well, UI seems well enough to send images of Pebbles’s rot. However, they may not be too nice either. Who knows their intentions? Maybe they just wish to spread the word that help is needed? Idk I’m just tired of seeing asshole UI
You missed the single most obvious part of the triple affirmative theory, being the 3 dot mark on its forehead. That is pretty inarguably a symbol of the triple affirmative.
![[OLD] A (not so) Brief History of the Ancients | Rain World Downpour Lore](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tptVamYBXnw/mqdefault.jpg)
I should've mentioned it in the video, but Moon describes also describes how they were "someone to delegate that unrestrained effort to" (from the bright green DS pearl). The earliest iterators would have still served as convenience machines, even before the Ancients/Benefactors moved on top of them. I apologize for not making this clear in the video.
I also should've acknowledged it in the video since it got quite a few votes, but iterators were NOT originally designed to purpose organisms. While they certainly had the capability, it definitely wasn't an intended feature - just think about how long it took for them to purpose anything, and (at least in downpour) how messed up a lot of their experiments eventually turned out (the rot, Hunter, etc)
I agree with you because the ancients had already had the capacity to create purposed organisms exceptionally well already (the iterators being the biggest example).
but.
the examples you used for why purposing organisms isn't an intended bonus feature of the iterators are wrong. The rot seemingly only happened because of an extremely dangerous task pebbles was trying to complete, (buildin a purposed organism randomly and indirectly, while also doing thousands of these processes at once and rapidly). - the rot may not have happened if he just took his time, and it was not the everyday purposed organism he was trying to create it was too extreme of a situation to be considered the norm.
2nd, the hunter could very well be a rush job/been given cancer on purpose/built on limited resources. He was also purposed much later than say spearmaster (a very successful purposed organism by an iterator) so we don't know the condition of the other iterators. but we do know that some of their functions are gradually breaking down so NSH could have been limited in what he could do. That doesn't mean he was always limited in his prime though.
Bretha I walso eat URANIUM
I would say iterators ether being designed to produce purposed organisms or not being designed for it is a matter of tools given to them. 5P was trying to basically perform "give a monkey a type writer, and wait for it to write shake sphere". With countless of these processes running at once, which caused the high water intake that killed moon, and cutting off communication because of how delicate the process is, which caused LTTM's forced communication to cause a disruption in the process, creating the rot.
Them creating purposed organisms I would say is a matter of time given. Spear master is a purposed organism, he had plenty of time to be created since he was sitting around until given the task of being a messenger. Hunter I would say is a rush job, hunter's genetic stability was compromised in exchange for the target changes, being the physical enhancements, as the process of creating only him started after spear master finished his mission.
Creatures like the vultures, miros birds, and leviathan were likely designed by an iterator, then they sent the blueprints to everyone else. As these 3 creatures are designed to help defend the Iterators and ancients structures.
Leviathans defend the water intake pipes.
Vultures defend the exhaust ports and delicate communication equipment.
And miros birds defend the property of ascended ancients, which are stored in the "memory crypts".
And finally, the iterators themselves are colonies of purposed organisms. Which were most likely designed by a more primitive version of the iterators.
Yes, it takes them a long time to design a purposed organism, but iterators themselves were designed without a lifespan. Yes the ancients wanted the solution to the great problem as soon as possible, but they also knew it could take extreme amounts of time. Leading to them being designed to theoretically fiction indefinitely, which adds to the prevention of self termination.
i found the real triple affirmitive
saint ascends INV egg (inv isnt canon, but who cares lol)
I thought that after the ancients built the first dozen of iterators they then had to leave the surface because the rain was too strong.
idk if this is covered in the video, but FP was trying to ascend or die not because he was depressed and felt hopeless about finding the solution, but because he was in some specific Sliverist groups and he thought ascension and/or death was the solution.
YES!! you get it. if anything it was because he wanted to prove himself, it's not at all related to suicide/self harm.
Sliverism was so popular precisely because Iterators CANNOT die!
They had been given a question about life and death yet were physically incapable of understanding half the question!
true but I see where the suicidal pebbles idea comes from because his 'bug in a maze' conversation with seven red suns can pretty easily be interpreted as five pebbles inadvertently saying 'i can't take it anymore'
I personally choose to interpret it this way also for the angst lmao
@@riottherioter I mean, I think there is also the option that he was depressed, but not suicidal.
This makes sense, because sliverism is basically just knowing that the iterators can’t self terminate… but one did. Sliver of Straw broke their code, and now sliverists want to recreate that to prove themselves, as SOS never told them what the solution was.
Long text incoming:
I believe that a reason the ancients came to despise the cycle and wish for something else are the paradoxes it creates. We know that if you die, you will wake up again on the same day as if nothing happened. Yet we also know that Artificer's children didn't come back to life beside her and didn't send her back in time either. For Artificer, they became dead, decomposing bodies and memories to mourn. Her children however, after all we know, must have woken up again, in a shelter next to their mother the morning before it all happened. And they probably live on, each besides another version of their sibling and another version of their mother, but forever out of reach for the Artificer we get to play. The ancients probably didn't have an answer either to how this is possible. We get vague mentions of "other versions of yourself", but it doesn't really answer the question of who and how these versions are. Is there only one real you and those who died keep on living with simply a perfect copy without consciousness? Does your consciousness split, when a being who perceived you dies? How many are there of you? Do your dead children know, that in another life, you are mourning them? Does the other you know? How can you live with that knowledge? How lonely is it to know, that a part of your parent will never see you grow up?
In that regard, ascension may be the wish to become "whole" again. To reunite all the versions of you and meet with all the versions of others, by escaping a world that is evidently broken, as it allows such painful paradoxes to happen. And the void sea somehow offers this chance, because once you go there, all the other "you"s follow and this is what you see, when you encounter all the other slugcats there.
holy hell, I never thought about that. It's so obvious now but these paradoxes were never something I would've pointed out. That's brilliant though, and so consistent with near identical slugcats being present upon Ascension, the only difference being their individual swimming speeds. That could be interpreted as a single grain of personal differences between copies of a single being, perhaps caused by their varied desperation to ascend and escape that world, based on their differing experiences
Nevertheless, thank you for pointing out all these contradictions and questions, however clear they might've seemed to you. I think I just gained a whole new perspective on the cycles, and now am left to feel bad about all those times I got killed while traveling with a slugpup, leaving it alive by itself 😬
maybe the cycle only affects you after a certain age, but that would not make sense for stuff like the bacteria that are also in the cycle.
That makes the echos make more sense. Most fragments of you decide to go to the void, but a portion stays and becomes forever fractured and unable to fully become whole. An echo of the version of themselves who chose to stay.
THE EXPLAINATION FOR THE MANY SLUGCATS IN THE VOID SEA IS SO SMART OH MY GOD
@@phantomgrape YESSSS I never even imagined what that could mean
For the saint point I wanna mention that the "a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable" does not necessarily imply that everything needs to be ascended at once. If that were the case "the solution is portable" would be irrelevant.
I’m not sure if I’m correct but I always interpreted “A technical implantation is possible and generally applicable” as basically whether or not another iterator can recreate it, this is because I doubt there would only be a single triple affirmative. Yes, one of the affirmatives are for it to be portable, but I doubt it would’ve been able to complete its purpose on its own or with only a few of them starting in one spot.
That's a great point. The solution doesn't need to be "portable" (at least in the strictly literal sense that the video assumes) if it could be completed for all entities in one simultaneous action. I think it's also key to recognize that the creators who designed the protocol for the Great Problem-solving Iterators didn't actually know what kind of solution they might find -- they just laid out a set of basic criteria that seemed like prerequisites. If an Iterator came up with a stationary building that could vibrate the entire planet to a higher attunement, I doubt they would be like "Nah, it's not portable enough". I think it would be deemed "portable enough to achieve its purpose".
The fact that Saint can't ascend features of the landscape is an open issue, but I think that Saint is plenty portable. If SOS made Saint, we don't know of any reason why she and other Iterators couldn't make MORE. It's reasonable to assume that she didn't intend Saint to be a solitary solution -- or even that he's only a prototype and his creation was just meant to verify point number one: it is possible -- and an army of Saints could ascend a lot of critters.
I would love for this to become a series. Rain World's lore is super prone to misunderstanding, and it'll only get more so once the Watcher releases.
Is it really misunderstanding or is it just different interpretations. there doesn't always have to be a wrong/right way to view a story
@@kattaplez721 Exactly. The lore of Rain World is left intentionally vague to let players fill in the blanks for themselves
A couple things I wanted to add to your first point. First, we must remember that by the time of Moon’s construction there was “very little primal fauna left.” The purposed organisms of the benefactors were driving out Rain Worlds original wildlife meaning that by the time Five Pebbles was constructed and Public Ascension took place it is not wild to assume that all creatures left were purposed organisms to some extent. At the same time, evolution takes awhile, and I am not sure that enough time could have passed where the Echos and Iterator couldn’t recognize what the Slugcat was because he evolved so far from his original being. Simply I do not think enough time has passed. Besides, we only know that Moon didn’t know whether or not slugcat was a purposed organism or not. The Echos and Five Pebbles might not care either way, and Moon can remember one day from the next since she collapsed. At the same time slugcat might only be a descendant of a purposed organism through cross breeding. Several generations of cross breeding could cause the slugcat to be a different species from his purposed ancestors. Then again, we really don’t know.
In addition I think one of the reasons much of the community thought that slugcat was made to clean pipes was not just due to the magenta pearl but also this broadcast:
Chatlog_GW2)
[LIVE BROADCAST] - PUBLIC GROUP [OMENSCAGE] Wandering Omen, Pleading Intellect
PI: You haven't heard about what No Significant Harassment did?
WO: All I heard was the complaining. Didn't he send an iterator something distasteful?
PI: Well, yes, but more importantly, he trained a purposed organism to deliver it!
WO: Why do that? Was it so distasteful that he was afraid to send it via the broadcast network?
PI: Just forward thinking. He's been experimenting with alternative communication methods.
PI: So that we all may stay in touch even once our broadcast machinery meets its end of life.
WO: What type of organism was it?
PI: It was based on one of those resourceful, wandering ones that go in pipes. An image should reach you in a few moments...
WO: ...
WO: I see...
WO: How do you even get a dull creature such as that to follow orders? I may consider asking him to teach me his ways.
PI: I wouldn't do that right now. Recent broadcasts from NSH seem like he's been on edge and stressed.
PI: I wonder what happened?
It isn’t too far out to assume that the pipe cleaning slug and the resourceful wandering creatures that go through pipes may be the same or similar species. At the same time it is mentioned that NSH purposed and organism based-off the resourceful creature that goes in pipes, and perhaps not the creature itself. Who knows what modifications NHS made.
All in all, largely agree with what you said here. I think we may be talking about as many as four separate creatures. After all, the pipe creature mentioned here may not even be a slugcat since we don’t know what the message referred to in this broadcast even was. If it was one of the messages delivered to FP than it probably would be a slugcat, but we don’t know what other messengers NSH might have experimented with.
Interesting, you made two comments haha! I'm copying and pasting what I said underneath the other comment just in case
very worth mentioning that this is DP dialogue, this misconception has existed for wayyy longer than DP has been out, I think it used to even be on the rain world wiki? also, being a fanmade work, DP reflects many of the headcanons most popular at the time, although it doesn't confirm it, you can see how it nudges theorizing a little more in that direction
shoutout to wandering omen, awesome little background character who appears in a bunch of broadcasts
I’m pretty sure that spearmaster, with the spikes and stuff, is the purposed pipe-cleaning organism that slugcats descended from.
Nah the community assumption came first - the Downpour broadcast is a representation of the fan theory, not the cause of it (like a LOT of the weird lore broadcasts) (putting aside that “goes through pipes” is a meaningless description anyway because everything smaller than a vulture does in rw)
I 100% agree with the point about the slugcats and iterators, and while the Saint doesn't fit the benefactors textbook definition for the triple affirmative, I'm pretty sure it was intentionally meant to evoke the idea of it. However I don't think its possible to definitively say what ascension is, the information about it feels too vague and up to interpretation to confirm whether it's reaching a state of nonexistence or Nirvana. I definitely wouldn't summarize it as just fancy permadeath, but I don't think its a misconception that it's becoming nonexistent.
If you ask me, the benefactors idea of becoming enlightened/ascending IS reaching a state of nonexistence, free from the cycle of life and death in the literal sense that they don't exist anymore. The problem comes from the fact that our society associates not existing anymore as a similar thing to dying, hence ascension being glorified as a fancy way to die permanently, but we have to consider that the rules work completely differently in Rain World. From the benefactors perspective dying isn't permanent, its a part of their existence in the same way as eating or sleeping. So summarizing their society as a death cult is blatantly wrong because nonexistence and dying aren't comparable to them.
I could very well be wrong, the fact that the benefactors associate ascension/enlightenment with the karma flower which(from what I can tell) basically makes people go on a crazy hallucinogenic drug trip could be be a point towards ascension being similar to Nirvana since the karma flower would be like a temporary free pass to reaching that state of mind. However I could probably argue that the karma flower makes people so out of it that from their perspective they might as well not exist, but then I'd fall down a rabbit hole arguing about the semantics of existing in perpetual peace without conflict, want or struggle not being any different to just not existing in general, and I don't know enough about actual Buddhism to have a proper debate about that.
In Buddhism, being freed from the self isn't nonexistence, rather it is destruction of the Self and thus becoming something more akin to part of the universal experience of life, able to exist and flow through the world without attachment. It's more comparable to becoming part of a universal mind, as opposed to ceasing to exist. The Karma Flower lore very strongly suggests this to be the case for ascension, especially when combined with the visuals of the Survivor/Monk endings.
something super common i see is the thought that the five natural urges were sins and taboo. this is not necessarily correct, in the memory crypts pearl we see that the benefactor had many enjoyable experiences, and they were notably titled a "warrior". the natural urges were usually only seen as things to get rid of if you wanted to pursue enlightenment, and nothing else. i say usually because there were instances where the local government was strict and authoritarian, such as in rhinestones's dialogue and broadcast #4 in sky islands.
edit: btw those examples were both from downpour, not sure if there's any in vanilla
As far as I understand it, the Five Natural Urges are what ties a being to this world. Karma 2 for example is not lust, it is procreation, having and providing for an offspring or having a partner, which are both attachments that make it harder to let go of the world for ascension. 4 is not just gluttony, it is the basic urge to eat and monks tried to display their willpower and triumph over this basic drive by starving themselves.
Indeed, it's reasonable to suppose the urges were seen as worthwhile experiences, at least to some extent. No value-judgement is indicated, either (not in vanilla; Pebbles' dialog to Arti and Gour bucks this trend). While we might reasonably suppose that some (most?) urges have some element of "sinfulness" to them -- perhaps inherent, perhaps just when taken to a sufficient extreme -- it's important to appreciate this is a human (in particular, western) projection; it reflects our own bias, but is only a _possibility_ to the story.
The most important evidence to me, supporting this interpretation, is the existence and purpose of Shaded Citadel, and the respective pearls concerning it (Seventeen Axes's, and "Apostate Superstructure"). The storage and preservation of effects, experiences -- qualia -- was extremely important to them. The first people to ascend would've been those already nearly ready: the meek, humble, pious. Consequently, the population's psych demographic would shift from humble to egotistical (it's no accident some had trouble with narrow doorways). By the time of mass ascension, the entire process (readying oneself for the journey, clearing urges, voiding out) would've been fully industrialized. Which might include any means necessary to conquer the urges. I can imagine one way to do this: record and archive, essentially every lived experience possible, so that, rather than having to experience existence yourself long-term (among an ever-dwindling population of pompous jerks who, pretty quickly, won't provide each other with a rich spectrum of fulfilling experiences anyway), you can just stop by the machine once in a while, pop in a few pearls, and beam those experiences directly into your brain.
In this way, in time, an individual experiences an exponentially fuller life than anyone before: the lived experience of not just individuals, but an entire society in sum; every relationship, every tragedy, every right wronged (and as seen from all perspectives!), every wrong righted; every greatest success, and every deepest darkest desire. (And when I say "every", I don't mean literally _every possible_, but every one that was _archived_; who knows what level of whitewashing, avoiding of embarrassment, or outright propaganda, might have been involved, by means of selecting or even editing experiences!) Any and all means to produce these pearls would've been justifiable; a society bent on self-extinction will develop a very different moral code from what we consider "moral". Those darkest experiences might impose rather severely onto their victims -- but given the loop of reincarnation, and the greater moral purpose, the "victim" might even consent willingly to participate in such acts (and meaningfully so) -- who knows. (The concept of consent, itself, might end up very different in such a society. Possible dark depths, indeed, from our perspective..!) And after all that -- after every possible experience had been had -- what is there left to hold onto, what ego could possibly stand tall against the accumulated psychic energy of an entire civilization? Surely, you would then take the bath, and disappear from The Cycle.
to add onto this, the 5 natural urges were only considered something to abate in order to ascend BEFORE the void fluid revolution. the discovery of void fluid ended all of that since it didn't require you to do that anymore
@@slugfishh well, this can be argued against, as when you where too tied down to the world through your urges you became an echo, even with the void fluids assistance.
@@Falkflip honestly I see it as representing lust and procreation. I also think of it less as providing and caring for another, but more bringing more life into this world is frowned upon, this idea is reflected in some Buddhist ideas, that it is cruel to bring more life into the cycle of suffering. Of course this does not represent the entire religion as a whole, as many individuals do not believe this! I simply am referencing it as an existing concept.
Also.
"Ascension = final death"
Meanwhile, the scene where you swim to the light is literally called in game files as 'EGG', and swimming slugcats look like... eeeeeeh, you get the idea. And the karma symbols also depict a process of a mitosis, to a certain extent, but people rarely see those because they tend to skip stages 6-7, 6-8 and 6-9 and go straight to 6-10.
rain world birth symbolism my beloved :DDDD the cellular imagery is also so so cool, love seeing someone else point it out!
spermcat
Spermcat
Could this mean when the slugcats reach the egg, a new void worm is born?
@@slugfishh There is more to cellular imagery. If you look at the entire map of Five Pebbles, it actually kinda looks like a brain, from the side view, memory conflux being the back, and recourse transform arrays being the frontal lobes.
The Inspectors/Hydras look like neurons, with their heads resembling axons. Neuron flies probably resemble free-moving hormones or something. Hell, even the rot itself kind-of resembles some single-cell life form, scaled up to humongous proportions.
My opinion on Rain World lore is very similar to my opinion on Hollow Knight lore. That is to say, it's mostly written in poetry and slippery metaphors and double meanings, in such a way that trying to establish 'hard' worldbuilding rules and what is and isn't literally happening is a futile venture. And I like it that way.
it actually has a good amount of hard worldbuilding! Just enough to give you a good basis for speculation and interpretation I'd say :D But things like, why the iterators were made, and aspects of ancient history are pretty directly conveyed. The devs certainly had developed intentions while writing the lore, it's all incredibly concise and intentional, just emphasizing one word of a paragraph can further reveal its entire meaning
@@slugfishh That's all true, but I'm talking more in terms of the metaphysical aspects, and in some cases the actual events of the game - like what the slugcats are thinking is left for you to fill in the blanks. In my opinion there's also a pretty strong meta element, that I picked up from reading the devlogs (creating the game is a constant process of iterating, and so is playing the game - learning through trial and error, over and over) and that Downpour really folded back into the game itself by being a collection of community content turned 'canon'. A lot of the game is in your subjective experience of it, that's why I tell people they can't understand it just by watching lore videos. It must be lived.
@@meganhammer7857 That's incredibly well said! Also always nice to see a fellow dev logs reader :D There is truly something special about actually experiencing it yourself that lore videos cannot nearly accomplish for you, Rain World is very much a mood piece that must be individually experienced
@meganhammer I agree with you. Yes, there is lore that comes from explicit information and hard facts, but as any other well written book or series, not everything needs to be written as an objetive and irrefutable fact. All good stories have elements that are intetionally left up for the audience to interpret, and I agree that aspects like asscention are intetionally left vague. And that it's great too! Not everything needs to be set on stone for something to awesome :)
(I just really love the whole concept and the implications of asscention in rw asdfgds)
@@meganhammer7857 He focuses a lot on the lore as written and doesn’t leave room for environmental storytelling or links that require a small jump. Then he also assumes some things like echo knowledge not being widespread and presents that as fact. He doesn’t give much for gameplay limitations either.
It bothers me a lot that he presents a lot of what should be his theories as indisputable fact.
Yay! It's so nice to see a lore video actually make distinctions between vanilla/DP as well as mentioning the devlog a few times. The concept art appears too!
real though! countless times before have I seen people regard downpour dialogue and bits of lore as completely canon when that isn't really the case, DP is a DLC made almost solely by fan modders.
@@colfy3961 true, but counter argument - if it is in the game it should be considered true to the game (cannon). If external sources didn't exist it would have been considered cannon.
I don't like looking at external sources at all over the actual flipping game/book/movie because otherwise that means creators/authors could say literally anything (like unicorns existed in rain world) and we'd have to go with it.
no, if it is not depicted in the source, then it doesn't exist. If it is depicted in the source material it exists.
Though because downpour is a dlc, one could view it as an alternate game universe than original rain world. viewing the characters from downpour as never existing in og rainworld
@@colfy3961 honestly I disagree, DP is canon, but there is more than one canon to Rain World. There is the base game canon, then DP canon, both are equally and completely canon (as they are, well, in the game), but are nonetheless separate.
@Erratic_Pulse_0758 I do agree!! that was my point but I didn't elaborate on that on my initial comment due to having made that comment on a whim.
rain world vanilla canon and DP canon are two seperate canons, and while making theories, it should be kept in mind some people don't consider DP canon to the base game.
I personally don't think DP is completely canon but instead its own official au of sorts and I like to make theories on DP's canon. Also things that arent canon in vanilla but are in DP (such as moon and pebbles being siblings or the existence of the MSC crew) I sometimes like to treat as canon in whatever I create like art or writing. whether or not DP is canon is obviously up to each person, you're supposed to have fun with it!! but I think that making that clear distinction between the canons of the base game and the DLC is important during certain situations.
additionally, same could be said about the upcoming watcher DLC. I personally think whatever happens there is canon to the base game thanks to joar and James actually developing it alongside the new dev crew, but if some people would rather consider it it's own canon, sure! I'll still make that distinction between base game and DLCs
mfw some random rain world lore vid shows up on my feed, i check the description and its citing my niche reddit post as a source
incredibly well edited and accessibly presented video btw. something like this has been sorely needed in the community i think
another small misconception caused by downpour: it's not stated for certain anywhere in the base game that hunter's infection is specifically the rot. judging by the symptoms, it is obviously cancerous rather than being a simple pathogen, but my interpretation of base game lore is that it was likely just intended to be mostly normal cancer. i don't blame the msc devs for wanting to change it to rot though because that's a lot less boring and provides an explanation for why hunter can use a back spear while none of the downpour slugcats can (small cyst on their back that they stab the spear through)
in the base game Pebbles draws a comparison to Hunters infection and his own rot, it's not 100% stated, but it's definitely implied
@@the_phantom_cat7912 he'd likely still say the same thing regardless of if it's rot or normal cancer. plus as i mentioned it's not stated for certain, he just calls it "something Unfortunate" (like the development) so he could be referring to a tapeworm for all we know
I'd like to share my opinion on the nature of Ascension.
TLDR: I found an unintentional H.P. Lovecraft reference
When I finished my first Survivor playthrough, I was still puzzled by a question of what all other slugcats in the final scene symbolize. Are they a representation of your failed cycles? Or of your past lives? Or are they Survivors from parallel universes who reached the void sea? Or are they just random slugcats and are not related to survivor in any way? And then I realized that the scene looks familliar to me: it actually reminds me of "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", a story written by Lovecraft & Hoffman Price.
I'll compare the plot of the story to Rain World Ascension
The MC of the story, Randolph Carter goes through the process of ascension. He passes the metaphysical structure known as the First Gate [surface of the void sea]. Then he meets meets Umr At-Tawil [the void worm], an ancient being that gives Carter a choice: return back to his physical existance [swimming back is still possible when you see the first worms] or plunge deeper into the void. Carter chooses the later, and Umr At-Tawil guides him to the Ultimate gate [the worm helps you to reach the lower depths]. When he passed the gate, he saw endless stream of creatures walking with him to his destination [like those slugcats]. The creatures were versions of Randolph Carter from another timelines and universes united by the same goal of reaching the multidimentional Archetype of all every Randolph Carter that ever existed or will exist. Carter lost his physical body at this point, but he still had his consciousness. He used the power of his archetype to move his consciousness to the distant world that existed eons ago; to the place that he saw in his dreams countless times and where he wished to live.
Now lets see what slugcats get in their endings:
1. Survivor finally finds home
2. Monk finds his lost brother
3. Hunter... he wishes to be with his creator again, free from the rot. I'm not sure if he chose to be reborn in an alternative timeline of if he finds NSH himself here, because there's no time in the void
So each of them gained what they wished for.
I also think the stream of slugcats that we see in the cutscene is not the same as before it. Before the cutscene we see another iterations of our character, and after it we see some sort of "Archetypes" of other slugcats. Thats why they disappear when the wish of your slugcat comes true.
And thats it. Sorry if there are mistakes in my English, I've been writing this for an hour now and there is a high chance I've used some phrases that don't make sense in the language.
This is a really interesting interpretation and I have not seen it before. I will have to give that a read.
@@Erratic_Pulse_0758 I also have an interpritation of Saint's puspose that I've never seen mentioned. I think Saint actually exists to ascend echoes:
1) You can ignore 5P and Moon as Saint but you can't finish his campaign without visiting echoes
2) Saint can feel a presence of an echo in a region you enter
3) In the final scene when your karma is going from 10 to 1 you see screenshots of the rooms you visited before going to echoes
Saint's origins are unknown but I like to think that when they achieved enlightenment, he chose to help those who physically cannot ascend on their own. In other words, they became a bodhisattva (and yes, I know that last part is a popular opinion in the community)
Id like to use this opportunity to just state something I think a lot of people gloss over: we dont even know what the cycle is. ive spent almost a year of my life now trying to figure this out, but from what i can tell there is no succinct summary anywhere that explains the exact mechanics of the cycle. I also am fairly certain that respawning isnt canon like everyone seems to say. anyways rainworld's lore is some of the craziest out there, im glad people are starting to discuss it again.
Although the cycles are inherently obtuse, *there actually IS a baseline of information to go off of!* I have an entire google doc dedicated to it but unfortunately it's much too long to add below haha. Part of the confusion of the cycles stems from the fact that it was much less of some concrete universal understanding and *much more of a subjective feeling!* FP calls understanding of the cycles an "oscillating claustrophobia", and an "elemental desire" while moon calls it an "intuition". We also know that rather than being one great cycle, *it's only ever referred to as cycle(s), plurally, because there are multiple!*
We know *birth and death (clarifying the birth part) are in a cycle,* we know that *the bedrock of the entire physical world itself is in a cycle,* as the void sea eats away down below at an equal rate as the dust from the sky builds up, and even that *the very concept of civilizations are in a cycle,* which we know from listening to the Subterranean Echo dialogue, and from environmental storytelling in the depths, which is very likely the remains of a civilization that predated the ones we're familiar with, who made the iterators.
we also know that *death is real, just not truly the end.* we can garner this both from in-game and textual evidence, as one, creatures that we see die do not ever respawn again from our point of view, this is a known fact, as we never see the same ID resurface. as for textual evidence, both FP and Moon pretty much lay it out for you, FP talks about how iterators have died in his convo with SRS, who even acknowledges that fact as being further motivation for them to work on the big problem. and moon says it all in her reading of the SOS pearl, where she mentions that SOS is one of the few iterators who have died (DP actually got this wrong and said she was the only one lol). ALSO! she even uses the term "lifetimes" as a loose measurement of time in the filtration system colored pearl, and even accuses you of trying to kill her when you eat some of her neurons. so that outright debunks most of the "cycle = traditional immortality" theories, and leans more into reincarnation, though even then I'd argue it's much more complicated :3
karma flower dialogue arguably provides the most insight on the cycles (and proposes the concept of multiple selves across different planes of existence) but that's deeper discussion lol.
No way, real example of the dunning Kruger effect.
Thanks for showing the confidence graph at the end
This is a very important video. I'll be sending it to all my friends who haven't played Rain World
The funny thing about saint lore is that its not even confirmed in the game if his ascension even works, in fact its even questioned. Rubicon dialogue straight up questions if moon and pebbles actually ascended or if its just some sort of dream. And considering the fact his campaign is a time loop, can anything truly be ascended when it everything gets reset back to where it starts from?
A sizeable chunk of lore in rain world is very much up to interpretation I feel like. And at least for now you could read the information given by the game in different ways while not being wrong.
I thought that the line in parentheses "(unable to reach Enlightenment by itself..." at 6:25 was directed to Five Pebbles, a Gift, that the benefactors have obligations towards. And the list of things he's made of is an explanation of why he can't be ascended by regular means, as he's not quite alive in the same way as regular animals are.
The great cycle itself can be interpreted in several ways. Which things and creatures it does and does not affect, and how it even works. Depending on the answer, the meaning of ascension would also have different implications.
I initially thought that The Great Cycle is based around an individual, as in, the creatures experience death in a different way than in our world, "waking up once again" in some kind of way and *experiencing* life again too.
But it could as well be closer to our classic circle of life, basing the cycle on the world itself. You die, and something else is born out of your death, thus giving you "life" in a little different, more spiritual kind of way.
Then breaking out of the cycle could have vastly different meanings, because the process itself isn't that defined, and because the cycle itself doesn't have a specific description.
So I feel like the question of what's the nature/goal of ascension doesn't really have a right or wrong answer.
Now see, if the line in parentheses was truly about FP, *it would be the only time FP is ever referred to as "it" in the games text.*
Also, the idea that having MICROBES gates oneself off from ascension is kind of absurd tbh, like *every single living thing has its own microbiomes and gut bacteria and microbes,* and not to mention how *rain world's organisms already blur the lines between machinery and flesh,* to posit that a mix of the two prevents ascension is really weird. That being said, "Rock, gas, dull witted bugs and microbes" do not even really sound fitting to FP's description, I mean he's a purposed organism and supercomputer, I don't see him being made out of "rock" rather than some kind of metal or concrete.
On the OTHER hand, *it fits much more accurately when applied to the world instead,* which has been ecologically devastated by the ancients, to the point of there not being much life left. The surface is probably somewhat of a battered husk ecologically at this point in the story, and that's reflected in the dialogue.
My last point is that we already know that *the physical bedrock of the world itself is within a cycle,* and we know that the ancients also knew that, since moon tells us all about it it in the filtration system colored pearl.
I feel that Iterators are the Benefactor's attempt to cheat the system: to craft something from sufficiently dull materials, that despite its vast complexity, and specific attunement to (even direct manipulation of?) karmic fields (or whatever mechanism by which this force manifests itself in the universe), nonetheless does not itself possess a "soul" (say, the property of having variable karma level, attachments and the ability to cast them off from time to time, and an at least in-part memory-preserving sort of reincarnation) -- to be something unto which the Benefactors' final burden could be cast, at least if nothing else as a minimization of harm (create perhaps thousands of them, doomed to eternal existence, but ascend billions of citizens in return), but more likely, in their mind, a complete end-run. The relative inefficiency of this method (sufficiently dull, simple materials must be used) perhaps implies the massive scale in size and power consumption necessary to develop useful computation -- the equivalent of using vacuum tubes or relays to build a modern desktop PC (but made of exponentially more reliable, self-regenerating (but still not self-aware!) materials, heh).
This unfortunately doesn't work well when the computer develops ennui...
@@slugfishh
My thought process was that the "it" would refer to the word "gift" in the sentence.
Microbes specifically aren't the problem, the whole picture of being artificial is what makes him not entirely alive.
The rock might have been a very brief way to refer to metal, or whatever else Pebbles is made of. Microbes and bugs would refer to the purposed organisms that are implemented into his systems in order to work. I could see the small white spiders we see in game inside of his memory arrays for example to be called dull whitted bugs.
The whole text of that pearl is centered around Pebbles, so my mind leans towards that reading. But yours also fits well tbf.
The text in the filtration system pearl makes me think of void fluid as a corrosive substance that evaporates matter in just a physical sense, but works differently on sentient beings because they have desires and stuff.
But the rock getting dissolved and the matter coming back in form of dust does also fit in with the idea of a cycle pretty nicely.
@@Gayori_boi Alright, another angle to approach the Exterior dialogue from, would be how its used in the paragraph, which I'll first attach below for clarity:
"The Moral Argument: Five Pebbles is our Creation, and we have Parental Obligations towards him. As an Iterator, he is also a Gift of Charity from Us to The World (unable to reach Enlightenment by itself - being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes - and towards which We thus have Obligations)."
(Exterior colored pearl dialogue)
The argument being made here is that the Benefactors have moral obligations towards Five Pebbles, explaining that they are his parents, and that he is a gift from them to the world. *By having the subject of the parentheses be about FP, it fits in much more awkwardly with the rest of the paragraph.* It becomes a sentence about how the Benefactors are obligated to care for five pebbles because he is unable to ascend.. which doesn't really make sense, and doesn't tie in much at all with the previous sentence attached to it outside of the parentheses. This is how it reads off when put altogether in a more broken down way:
"Five pebbles is our moral obligation, because we are his parents. He is a gift from us to the world (He's not able to ascend by himself, meaning we have obligations to take care of him)"
They already set up in the first sentence that they're morally obligated to care for FP as his parents, and then in the second sentence, instead of having any real connection to the sentence that its directly attached to, the parentheses just repeat the first point in an odd way. This also just isn't really proper use of parentheses, since it doesn't elaborate on what it's connected to.
Now, *if we take the sentence and make it about the world, it actually flows perfectly lol:*
"Five pebbles is our moral obligation, because we are his parents. He is a gift from us to the world (The world is unable to ascend on its own, meaning we were obligated to create the iterators to help it ascend)"
If you take it this way, it literally perfectly expands on what has already been set up, and *provides a direct reason as to why the iterators are a gift from the Benefactors to the world.* The purpose of putting a section into parentheses like that is "to insert a phrase or clause into a sentence as an explanation or afterthought." (googled definition) If the subject of the parentheses were FP, it wouldn't expand on what's been said within the sentence in any real way, and it weirdly clashes with the first sentence of the paragraph. There really isn't any way to justify it without jumping through a few hoops of logic and reasoning, *one option creates a very awkward sentence while the other flows entirely perfectly.*
Also- very quickly regarding your last point, I just wanted to point out that LTTM does in fact present it pretty clearly as a cycle, an equal exchange! It's just much more than just speculation is what I'm trying to say.
"If you leave a stone on the ground, and come back some time later, it's covered in dust. This happens everywhere, and over several lifetimes of creatures such as you, the ground slowly builds upwards.
So why doesn't the ground collide with the sky? Because far down, under the very very old layers of the earth, the rock is being dissolved or removed. The entity which does this is known as the Void Sea."
(Filtration system colored pearl dialogue)
@@slugfishh hey slugfish could you explain to me why the saint cause the arguments used in this video doesn't make sense to me.
this is a smaller one, but the group seven red suns belongs to, because i've seen so many misconceptions that they belong to five pebbles' group, when there's so much dialogue that hints to that not being the case. even the wiki had this wrong until i bapped someone about it and they told a wiki editor
7:39 Iterators were built only for the first purpose, but when their heavy water consumption resulted in deadly rains taking over the surface, they needed to also be repurposed to sustain the benefactors. Otherwise, really good video. Rain World lore is very nuanced with lots of intricate ways different elements interact, and I think you did a good job making that clear.
I had one other person comment about this and it's my fault for not mentioning it in the video, but I'll copy and paste my response here:
I should've mentioned it in the video also, but Moon describes how they were "someone to delegate that unrestrained effort to" (from the bright green DS pear). The earliest iterators would have still served as convenience machines, even before the Ancients/Benefactors moved on top of them
yes i indeed eat, sleep, and breathe rain world lore. thank you.
I don't disagree that challenge 70 can't be used to extrapolate any serious lore information, but I think it's misunderstanding the debate to use "too many inconsistencies" as your main argument for doing so. The rationale would be that challenge 70 is like Gourmand's campaign, a mythical representation of much more mundane events for gameplay reasons. WIth that justification, the number of inconsistencies with canon/common sense logic is completely irrelevant except as a sidenote: the real reason to not use challenge 70 in lore discussions is because the developers have At Best said that only some elements might be based in lore, but given no mention of WHICH elements - and At Worst said that it's completely noncanon. Since we don't have any way of determining WHICH elements of the challenge might POSSIBLY be at all based on lore and which aren't, that's why it's not useful to point at challenge 70 for lore reasons and it should be discarded if your focus is solely "canon".
it's also cut content iirc, was originally supposed to be at the end of the saint campaign early on when it was a super hard challenge campaign
@mxyzptplk As someone who playtested and actively discussed the creation and design of MSC/Downpour behind the scenes with its development team (Darthzz), this is not true at all. Challenge 70 was not at all based on cut content, or even plans for the design direction for Saint's campaign. It was mostly made as a fun poke at a popular theory that Saint might end up being the triple affirmative that people had long before MSC/Downpour was even released. A common theory since 2018.
If you do want a fun behind the scenes fact however, one thing the team joked and considered was having the iterator in challenge 70 sorta randomize its colors since people had wildly different interpretations of what Sliver Of Straw would've looked like.
@thenose7254 oh ok, that's pretty funny. me when i spread misinformation
0:31 oh hey it's one of my scav gifs!! how cool
I didn't even realize, did you want me to credit you for it lol
@UraniumEater i run scav-gifs-daily and scavbot yeah!
also you can if you wanna stick something in the description, but honestly I'm happy just seeing my silly little things out and about :)
@@morebagels how do you make them?
@JetSetDman greyscreen(mod) + screentogif(program)
Great video. Even though I would consider myself a huge fan of rain world and very familiar with the lore, you managed to change my opinions on some things. What really stood out to me was your interpretation of the Exterior pearl, I had never read it in that way. Now, this does make it very confusing on why iterators where "not built to transcend." Why would the ancients build something unable to ascend if they where trying to ascend the whole word? It's a catch 22 situation. Now wether Pebbles (and by extent other iterators) fits the description of "being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes", it may hold up fairly well. The bright purple pearl reads, "Most of our processing is outsourced to microbe strata which need a flow of clean water or else slag builds up" So, iterators do have microbes inside of them (and so do we!). Well, maybe. When Pebbles references "microbes in the processing strata" he uses "the" rather than "my." So, is he referencing something else? Perhaps he does not consider these microbes to be apart of himself? Yet, (going into Downpour territory now) Pebbles refers to himself as "Composed of specialized organisms, and machinery" (from the reading of the bright magenta pearl) and "While your chains are made of your own natural urges, mine are a duty to my creators. My kind are built unable to ascend, as our minds are not our own. Composed of microbial life, machinery, and electronics" (from the bright red pearl) so we know iterators are composed of many different organisms to create one super-organism, the only real life equivalents are perhaps siphonophores and lichen. This also tells us that they where not built to ascend, as also said by Moon. Its also confusing why they refer to the subject as "it", when in all other instances they use he/him for Pebbles (if someone can find another example please let me know!)
The iterators are unable to ascend in general, but like- if you ascended the whole world, that'd probably ascend everything else in it, iterators included. All the taboos and design choices seem to be intended just to stop iterators from ascending themselves before actually solving the problem.
@@Confused-Rock From one 5P profile pic to another, I understand that they did it in order to stop iterators from ascending themselves first, but it still makes no sense, how can they not be able to ascend in general, yet also be able to ascend?
@@Erratic_Pulse_0758 I guess that'd require you to define exactly how they're prevented from ascending in the first place, which is difficult. But from how I see it, 2 issues keep them from ascending:
-moon talks about how their mantras keep repeating. I guess this is something about their messy interior structure making them too aggressive to ascend by avoiding natural urges, etc. this one makes less sense. this might just be the taboos, the taboos keep them awake and connected to reality. Or maybe it's because they're made of "inanimate" metals etc. if clumps of dirt don't ascend by avoiding urges, maybe pebbles can't.
-obviously, that can is way too big to fit into the void sea without digging a hole the size of your mom.
being too large to dissolve, and unable to avoid natural urges (well, it seems like inanimate objects can't, anyways) means the iterators have the same issues ascending that the world as a whole does. No one knew how to solve the problem, but by stopping iterators from ascending by known methods, this would probably ensure they wouldn't ascend without learning to ascend everything else first.
@@Confused-Rock hm makes sense. Something to add, Pebbles says iterators are unable to ascend due to their minds not being their own, but we know they are actually able to ascend. Its also confusing what the motives of the iterators are after the ascension of all the ancients. Are they still working on the great problem? Or just to ascend themselves? Or maybe, Pebbles is not trying to ascend, but actually kill himself, as if he is dead, then he might, so to speak, see the other side of the coin, and better work towards the solution. But, if you die as an iterator, what happens to you? Can you come back? My brain hurts...
Turns out you actually found one of the few DP contradictions, that pearl dialogue is a weird one. Given the nature of DP's creation as a modded work, it was worked on by many people, and despite some other dialogues getting this stuff right, this one stems from someone misreading the exterior pearl.
Now let me better explain why the exterior pearl parentheses aren't about FP. For starters, *it would be the only time FP is ever referred to as "it" in the games text.*
The idea that having MICROBES gates oneself off from ascension is kind of nonsensical, like *every single living thing has its own microbiomes and gut bacteria and microbes,* and not to mention how *rain world's organisms already blur the lines between machinery and flesh,* to posit that a mix of the two prevents ascension is really weird. That being said, "Rock, gas, dull witted bugs and microbes" do not even really sound fitting to FP's description, I mean he's a purposed organism and supercomputer, I don't see him being made out of "rock" rather than some kind of metal or concrete.
On the OTHER hand, *it fits much more accurately when applied to the world instead,* which has been ecologically devastated by the ancients, to the point of there not being much life left. The surface is probably somewhat of a battered husk ecologically at this point in the story, and that's reflected in the dialogue.
My last point is that we already know that *the physical bedrock of the world itself is within a cycle,* and we know that the ancients also knew that, since moon tells us all about it it in the filtration system colored pearl.
great video! to add to the final question I would say that saint doesn't even fit the criteria for first affirmative. if we look at moon's and pebble's "ascensions" in the campaign they are transported to rubicon, which, to me, is not the same place the ascended slugcats prior to saint and the ancients went. manly because at the end of rubicon you swim up the void sea to ascend as saint. so what is rubicon? imo it's a sort of limbo where all the creatures go that saint tried to ascend. this is mostly because of 5p's dialog "This place is not real, a dream from the outside. As if every cycle of my existence has knotted together with another's, even if for only a fraction of a second it rippled through mine". to me this doesn't rly feel like ascension but more like he's trapped in a place right between the physical and the spiritual world, kinda like an echo. also most of rubicon is made up of altered rooms from all other regions, which could make it an alternate reality or even a dream world of sorts? idk
Also like... how the fuck is Saint going to ascend rocks with that.
i dont tend to comment on a lot of videos, but i cant help but say this whole thing was so nicely done, especially with the the abundance of sources to support all of your claims makes it all the more better!! i would love to say more but you left me in so much awestruck i forgot all of it right as i tried to write it down
One thing to note: when talking about the "portability" of a solution, the iterators may be talking in the sense of software (or in this case, genetic) engineering: a portable solution is one that can be implemented in multiple different environments with no changes; ie: it can be deployed on a mass scale without having to be customized.
If Saint's ability to ascend were engineered, rather than emerging naturally, then he would be a portable solution to ascension. However, he needs to be exposed to multiple echoes in order to be able to ascend things. Echoes are environmental factors which can't be controlled for, I would argue that Saint is not a portable solution, unless echoes are extremely widespread.
Saint is echo himself as we see in ending
As a person who has played RW since 1.5! Thank you for clearing up lore. Even I am very surprised to have details wrong.
I also think most people forget that Downpour was stated as being an AU of the base game. It seems all additions are plausible in universe but not cannon. This hasn't/won't cause any confusion among the community...
What?? Where!
@@TysALTDownpour devs have stated it numerous times, but they’re all random tweets and discord messages so they’re a bit out of the way. Since downpour is fanmade most of the lore drops are headcannons or outright contradictions (like the retaining wall)
@ …huh. Don’t know how to feel about that.
it's an official AU. In other words, it's essentially a second canon. Both vanilla and Downpour are canon, Downpour just isn't canon to the vanilla timeline
@ hm. Interesting.
22:06 I love how even this small analysys shows the dunning-kruger effect of society
One weird thing that stuck out to me for a very long while is just reading one pearl where it's told that the world is constantly building up with ash and being consumed by the voidsea in a loop. Just thought it was weird.
yeah that's why i think the world isn't a planet but a completely different kind of world. maybe the stars are distant void worms...
We have to realize that the iterators never actually figured out a solution, so maybe there IS a whole-world ascension technique involving Saint that just hadn't been developed or discovered yet.
Watching this instead of studying for finals
same here
W use of free will
I think saint being the triple affirmative is still up for debate because it is hard to say what’s a gameplay limitation and what’s a restriction on his abilities because yeah there’s probably going to be more births than deaths in most cases but saint literally has an infinite amount of time figure out how to ascend literally everything since he goes right back to the beginning of the game after he ascends the void worm at the end of the game and at the end of Rubicon when you meet FP/LTTM if you ascended them they describe him as having a cycle which loops into itself forever compared to theirs which eventually ends
ok let me put a simple example why this is not possible.
You have a human who can fly and is inmortal, and he has a gun with infinite ammo, he cannot extinguish all life on earth no matter what, going after every individual one by one is just not going to ever work, kill every ant, every bacteria in a cave, all while the areas start to repopule after you leave.
The solution equivalent in this scenario of "ending all life" would be something more akin to nuclear armagedon, which may not even fully work, if we could blow the entire planet from its core then that could work.
Thats how downright impossible it is to consider saint tripple afirmative, the entire game has always shown this solution as some universal almost magical thing that is even questionable if it exists but they try to find anyways. A rodent with a gun is laughtable awful and is not much more efficient than void fluid.
Not to mention saint story ends up with one of those "all in le head" sort of weird hard to explain thing, thats just pouring saint in the wound at this point, what does being an echo have to do with ascending creatures or rubicon even, is this where you start to notice not even the devs agree on what saint ending is? feels like a safeguard to justify any surreal stuff with "well, maybe is not real"
two lore details i wanna mention that imo downpour fixed, both involving the rain:
- outer expanse, particularly the jungle part of it, is shown having the full death rain in the opening cutscene for survivor and monk, but does not have it in gameplay during gourmand, survivor, and monk's campaigns. though it's a bit too convenient with the timing, this shows that weather patterns and especially the height of the clouds in a given place can vary over time, as clouds do.
- the cycle timer running out also marks sunset and the beginning of night. this coincides with the rain falling at that time because the temperatures begin dropping late in the evening which allows the water to begin condensing into rain. it doesn't go to the next day unless you hibernate purely because of technical limitations, the game can't really save unless you hibernate, die, or trigger a cutscene.
these are pretty much just headcanons though. i guarantee that the outer expanse one was unintentional, maybe both of them
both of these could be considered inconsistencies that downpour added in, especially that first one. If Outer Expanse has death rain in vanilla but not in downpour, that's arguably downpour's problem as it was added later by different devs.
@laurelwillow yeah they're inconsistencies that you can then make actual explanations for that make the world of rain world actually make more sense.
A note on the second, but there’s a lot of implication that the rain cycle is much more than an overnight sleep - even excluding out of game text, it is after all called *hibernation*, not an overnight nap
4:05 to add to this, there is an instance where FP calls Rivulet a "land fish"
This is an incredible analysis! Thank you Uranium, you've done a lot of us loreheads a huge service. The editing is fantastic, and the narration too. :)
There are other inconsistencies of Saint being thought of as the triple affirmative: If Saint was the one that that killed/ascended SoS, he would have to be thousands or even over a million years old and I don't think a standard rodent of Rain World can realistically live that long. Also disregarding gameplay, if he was the one that ascended the other iterators, why doesn't he have his powers from the start? He can't ascend anything without having max karma and he doesn't have that from when the campaign starts.
Something that is strange is that stars are green in rainworld, in real life they can't be green due to the nature of light, the simplest and likely explanation is that they're just green cuz in that universe the laws of physics are different, but some people think they're void worms or some cosmic horror shit, or satélites
Thank you for making this video, it fundamentally changed my perspective on the ancients and ascension.
Amazing video!
Found it really funny that I got all the questions on the poll wrong-
Also, If you don’t mind, Can you do a video covering Rainworld space/ astronomy lore?
There is space/astronomy lore?
I definitely appreciate the suggestion! As much as I like astronomy myself, there unfortunately just isn't a whole lot to it in Rain World... at least in a traditional sense. The devs had intended it to be a sort of fantasy world, akin to something like middle earth in LOTR where planetary aspects weren't really considered. That being said, the Ancients/Benefactors did seem to have more astrological views on the world, referencing celestial spheres and such. And *maybe* downpour wanted to hint at more space stuff. But the point is, it would probably only be like a 3 minute video lol
@@UraniumEater 3 minutes is Better than nothing!
Amazing video! Very well produced, good job :3
Thank you so much for this video, especially the saint section, you have no idea how long i've waited for someone to cover this 🙏
bruh i subbed as soon as i heard this man's immaculate voice. goated thumbnails too👍
Commenting to add that I really love the level of quality and flair put into these videos.
I distincly remember discussing it somewhere on the discord with you about 3 affirmative and yet here it is again. (would be nice if you replied, discord is kinda too spammy for proper conversation)
Portable doesnt mean mobile, it means easy to transport, if you can put saint into a box and then send it to another part of the planet he is portable.
If you have supertrain travelling at 5000mph it is mobile but not portable (it cannot be easily moved off of tracks)
3 rd one is also pretty sketchy, we see saint ascending iterators, part biological and part mechanical beings, if it comes to other matter like rocks you use already incredibly stretched interpretation of "the planet" as literally everything, instead of literally everyone (both are equally plausible i think) unless i missed some dialogue that specifically states the rocks must ascend too.
Still though i would say 1st requirement is not fulfilled because saint is uncapable of ascending everything (time/size constraints) therefore it doesnt qualify as solution to global ascension, so basically your 3rd point.
There's also "portable" in the computer science sense: for iterators, a proper solution must be implementable by all of them so that it can be rolled out globally at once. Even if the solution itself is mobile, it might not be able to outcompete the [re]production of all beings, let alone the dust falling on top of the world, unless enough iterators are able to produce it in enough quantity.
within the video one of the ancients/banifactors state that iterators were a gift to the world and they are to ascend everything, including gases and rocks.
The nature of ascention is purely phylosophical, there is no one answer to what it really is as it's quite literally supposed to be unknown, I find your way of explaining it optimistic at least
I think correct answer to question 3 is both. Like yes people too often simplify ascension to “just” being death, which it isn’t. But it almost certainly involves the death of the physical body. In order for the mind/spirit to ascend to a higher plane of existence, the physical body of this plane needs to be destroyed so there is nothing to tether it to. Also consider that the older method of ascension was starving oneself while drinking a spiritual tea. And I mean karma 10 (the final thing you need to ascend) represents the abandonment of the 5th worldly desire, self-preservation. Id say the first answer to the poll is (probably) correct in regards to the physical body, while the second is (probably) correct in regards to the mind/spirit/inner self. And I say probably because although ascension is important and we have a lot of dialogue about it, the exact details are deliberately left pretty vague and mysterious, I don’t think we really do (or are supposed to) have a full understanding of it.
ok but... the iterators werent built to be lived on, they just took so much water and created the heavy rains so the ancients decided to move there
Woahh, i was just watching the ancient lore video again last night. what a delightful surprise to see more uranium eater the very next morning!
i think i heard in one of the intercepted broadcasts that had the dialogue where seven red suns explained the spear master they said it was one of the creatures meant to clean pipes
13:43 CHAOS, ORDER
I personally don't think it's unreasonable to say that Saint being unable to ascend certain objects can be chalked up to gameplay restrictions, but even with that in mind Saint still fails the third affirmative since there's one thing it can never ascend: itself.
In the final Moon + Pebbles dialogue, they do kinda imply Saint is, or at least found, a way to solve the Great Problem ("Only those who have seen the other side can know the answers"), but that it leads to a catch 22 scenario where you can't go back to apply it - in which case it's only possible to come back as an Echo, a failed ascension.
What's interesting is that Moon does seem to posit that it would've technically been possible for the iterators to "stumble upon" the same solution as Saint did *without* ascending themselves, but that of course they would've had no way to know or confirm that they did.
I'd also like to second the notion that Challenge 70 isn't canon or even a retelling of a canon event. It's not a very decisive argument, but I'd say that Saint's biology seems to clearly indicate it descends from a line of Slugcats that evolved to adapt to the new wintery environment (extra fur, and capability to utilize their tongues to stick to cold surfaces) - similarly to the Strawberry Lizards who only naturally appear in Saint's campaign presumably as a result of the cold climate.
Of course, Saint could have also been modified or purposed by an Iterator to adapt it the new environment, or it could've found some other way to modify itself (Artificer doesn't have the mark of communication and we don't how it gained its abilities), but I feel like that would have needed to happen *before* Saint became an Echo, mostly on account of it always respawning at the same cycle and place after its failed ascension.
this is a great video! :D though i was a little surprised that you didn't mention the cycles/rebirth in lore, since no two people really agree on how it works
12:46 I just realized that the karma flower has a little human shape in it, I dont think it is a part of the lore at all it is just a little design.
to be honest i completely forgot about the karma flower dream memory thing, so i got to reconsider the slugtree at the bottom of the void sea
what i thought before is that these are just like the "life flashing before your eyes" when you die
a neurological thing
no idea why the brain does it but it does it
would hold if we look at the whole void sea trip as more like
your body slowly dissolving in the weird antimatter substance
while that same substance gets in your respiratory system and blood and shit and tickles your brain weirdly and makes you perceive a long long dive down a black void and swimming into a light where you see whatever brings you closure
which would mean the void worms dont exist, which doesnt rly change much since they dont do anything anyway
but everything seeing the same worms in their near death hallucination would be like the benadryl man
that people all over the world have reported seeing when overdosing on benadryl
but we only have record of this from the human species
well we only rly ascend as slugcats only and see the void worms
so it could be a neurobiologically specific thing to slugcats that the void fluid interacting with their brain makes them see the void worms
so maybe the ancients didnt see void worms but smth else
i think saint was created shortly prior to sliver of straws death and spent most of his time around other parts of the world and saints playable campaign is just part of his story upon reaching five pebbles facility grounds
to be fair. being portable usually means that it's ease of transport for objects and systems. assumed to be compact enough to carry, and self contained that it wont rely on any thing else external supplies to function. describing something as portable never actually takes into account the means of transportation, nor to the environments being travelled through nor the final destination of the object being transported.
I understand that Enot/inv is not cannon, but when Saint ascends enot’s egg it ascends the whole world, and I’m not saying that the egg is the solution, but that Saint is perhaps simply a part of it.
Maybe Saint must perform or be a part of some ritual or process.
This is a good video, gosh dang! Something that has always irked at me a little bit are the misconceptions people declare and spread around as though common, obvious fact.
Shoutout to the belief I've seen many people have of the "cycle", rather than being like a bhuddist reincarnation, is apparently literally "when any creature dies they come back at a save point because thats what you experience in the game". Leading to... timeline-branching theories for how it works and...??? I guess that's the woes of letting your game speak for itself rather than over-explaing every bit of minutiae.
The Cycle is deliberately unclear and vague so I find it hilarious you are doing the very thing you're criticizing in this comment. Rain World clearly takes after these Indian religious concepts like Karma and Samsara but does not necessarily work the same way. For example, RW Karma does not really work the same way as Hindu or Buddhist Karma.
Quantum immortality theory is one of many potentially *valid* theories, even if it's not my personal favorite. I feel the only truly concrete evidence for it is the many slugcats in the Void Sea, which seem to represent alternate selves. All of the tangled and interwoven cycles of an individual creature meeting in one place for one grand final rebirth. Either way, please don't discount or discredit interesting theories by mistakenly believing you've already solved it and that everyone else must simply have "missed the point".
@nts0n Hey, fair point.
Oh dang my original comment came off much more vitriolic than I would've liked. So I guess some addendum: I don't mean to declare bhuddist reincarnation as the one truth or whatever. But rather to encourage taking a look into the ideologies that may have inspired the game for some possible insight, as yeah exactly, there are multiple answers. I don't think i've 'solved' anything at all, goodness no. In fact I like discussing the multiple possibilities of rain world lore with others. Its just ive been met with so many "lmao its this, duh" like am an idiot that I've just grown a little dissatisfied.
And all I meant through my disatisfaction is the loss of cohesion in the game's narrative if the quantum immortality as you referred to it is true, and have seen others express that parts of the narrative makes no sense, believing this to be true from the basis. And while yes, maybe it is true and the ancients were worrying about a cycle and not a branching web of parallel selves, that hunter can somehow perma die in all parallels when getting rot. Why would this be considered a burden to escape from if you die but its a different you that lives on like nothing happened? Is that even how that works? How do iterators fit in to this? Like even if another iterator dies, would their thoughts change if they know that there's still another version of them that's fine? What about evolution? How does an evolutionary timeline work, or creatures dying out, both of which can be observed in game? Interesting thought experiments, but perhaps not to be disputed as fact until more solid. And also makes the narrative suddenly really muddy, when trying to take a look at it and appreciate it.
Point is there that the gameplay mechanics of being able to try again after you die should not be evidence in of itself until other proof is given confirming that, even though the game does a good job making things diegetic.
Anyway nonsense rambling aside, theorycrafting can be fun, and ultimately others can think what they want. Although this _is_ on a video about "lore misonceptions" so maybe you can understand my thoughts on well, perceived misconceptions. Though I do not mean to imply "aha yes but _I_ have the answers!" god no.
multiple things to point out at around 9:00
echoes seem rare because there is stuff going on with levels of mind and cycle stuff. it is a pretty rigorous requirement to be on karma 5, visiting the place twice isnt nearly as hard as that but echoes do seem to be placed around pretty lonely places. if one isnt one of the "downpour is just an AU" losers then one would also notice that echoes do move, disappear and new ones appear as time goes on over the different slugcat campaigns, so there is even more going on than that. i guess if you are partially seperated from the cycle you dont have to stick to a certain "coordinate" within it ?
also the horror story is pretty damn accurate, so its not fully unknown, like you point out. i think that would be reason enough to weigh the risks of a 50/50 chance of finally ascending or getting an even "worse" treatment of immortality than before ?
also i do not believe that echoes were rare at all, as we know that being 100% desireless and dead inside as the requirement for ascension is, is practically impossible. i dont even believe that even those who drank bitter tea and starved themselves on gravel got to ascend, i mean how could as outside observer know, to their perspective the person dies either way but there is no way to tell if they woke up again in another parallel universe still trapped by the cycle, or escaped it ?
so echoes would actually be extremely common, caused by if not all instances of void fluid suicide. but like i mentioned, the location that echoes occupy in time and space and in the great cycle isnt 100% strict, the 6 (vanilla) we do meet are just coincidence that we happen to occupy all 3 coordinates with them simultaneously
the line "blessed with an ever shrinking population" still holds up here. some didnt care about the ghost stories, but once dissolved by the void fluid you cant go back, cant go back to tell the others it didnt work. all that people still alive see is that they dissolved, but whether they ascended or stack around as echoes noone can tell
now with the final public ascension thing youre kind of conflicting yourself. we know that the final public ascension took place in a last desperate effort, i dont think anybody cared anymore, they just risked the chance of ascension, cuz its better than nothing right ? risk it or do nothing, they been doing nothing forever by now so the temptation took over them. now why they ordered to harvest even bad crops but not shut off the iterators is still beyond me aswell
the entire point of ascension via void fluid was that you didn’t have to abate your urges to ascend, I recommend checking out bright red farm arrays pearl and filtration system colored pearl
I feel like the game means a lot more thematically if ascension is interpreted as death/cessation of existence, as opposed to some kind of paradise
the benefactors may have kinda seen it as a spiritual continuation of existence, but ascension still maintains its ambiguity, it’s not inherently good or bad, just like, a natural step in one’s life if they choose to take it
also, there is birth symbolism throughout the game that frames ascension in a “final rebirth” sort of sense:
- the light we swim into at the end is called the egg
- void spawn are also encased in an egg which we can free them from (mirroring what happens down in ascension)
- echoes are in a fetal position, symbolizing them being somewhere in-between the physical plane and ascension
- iterators have umbilical cords, a childlike appearance, and their creators are referred to as their parents
- and a bit more but I can’t touch upon it in a comment section unfortunately
YESSSS URANIUMEATER THE GOAT POSTED
I managed to get all question correct. Rain World is incredably complicated and hard to interprate.
I believe you might have misinterpreted the text at 6:35 , where the text is most likely describing what the iterators are made out of. As in "... a Gift of Charity from Us to The World (unable to reach Enlightment by itself - being [5P] composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes)".
That section of dialog is somewhat archaic, the Benefactor could be referring to either the "Gift of Charity" (Five Pebbles) or "The World" when they switch to talking in parenthesis. I think the latter interpretation is the one that actually makes more sense, since if you consider the pearl in its entirety it's clear that the Benefactor is trying to convince someone that they have obligations towards Five Pebbles, and it's not clear why going off on a tangent about his composition would support that argument.
Now see, if this were the case, *it would be the only time FP is ever referred to as "it" in the games text.*
Also, the idea that having MICROBES gates oneself off from ascension is kind of absurd tbh, like *every single living thing has its own microbiomes and gut bacteria and microbes,* and not to mention how *rain world's organisms already blur the lines between machinery and flesh,* to posit that a mix of the two prevents ascension is really weird. That being said, "Rock, gas, dull witted bugs and microbes" do not even really sound fitting to FP's description, I mean he's a purposed organism and supercomputer, I don't see him being made out of "rock" rather than some kind of metal or concrete.
On the OTHER hand, *it fits much more accurately when applied to the world instead,* which has been ecologically devastated by the ancients, to the point of there not being much life left. The surface is probably somewhat of a battered husk ecologically at this point in the story, and that's reflected in the dialogue.
My last point is that we already know that *the physical bedrock of the world itself is within a cycle,* and we know that the ancients also knew that, since moon tells us all about it it in the filtration system colored pearl.
The benefactors never refer to Pebbles as an it. He's very explicitly anthropomorphised in their dialogue, what with him literally being a god to them.
Also it'd be a little mean of them to say Pebbles is incapable of enlightenment when they are literally the ones who made him incapable of enlightenment via the self destruction taboo.
you are incorrect :)
Why would the Sliver of Straw end up as the only one ascended after sending the tripple affirmative, if the solution meant ascending everything?
we didn't if she ascended or just died for a unknow cause.
if saint is able to ascend whole iterators in one pop then they may actually be able to ascend the whole damn world. maybe there's a limit to how much saint can do at once and that limit is somewhere above a city sized biomechanical god but below a whole planet full of them. maybe saint has to ascend all the iterators before he can begin mass ascending the rest of the world. we just dont know.
Saint isn't able to ascend "whole" iterators, only their puppets. After ascending Moon, her actual superstructure remains online. A lot of people seem to forget that 99.9% of an iterator is their actual can/superstructure, not their small puppets.
@@UraniumEater that's kinda bleak then, there'd be a sort of ghost of the iterator still left in the larger computer structure no longer conscious but still vaguely alive.
Signal boosting the point: I feel like it's a serious stretch to say a triple affirmative solution needs to be a single event for the entire planet. After all, if it just needs to trip once and ascend everything, why does it need to be portable?
And looking at the comments used to support the ascention of everything, the specific text mentioning the rocks and microbes could potentially be ruling those things out as unascendable in the transcending above life sense. After all, most of those things don't really have complex life themselves.
Transcending above life may indeed be the goal of ascension, but it's not the only outcome. The echoes aren't even the only outcome; we see what I believe would be the most common outcome with Artificer's ascension ending, where she's rejected by the void worms for being unable to achieve max karma. The outcome for matter used in mass rarefaction: dissolution.
the reason for iterators not being able to ascend doesn’t have to do with being partly inorganic matter, that’s a misinterpretation of the exterior colored pearl; the parentheses are actually discussing the world, not FP.
It’s the logical conclusion for a few reasons, being one, that FP is never referred to as “it” anywhere else, two, being that all of rain world fauna already blur the line between flesh and machine, and three, if you look at the structure of the sentence, it makes much less sense when interpreting the parentheses about FP compared to interpreting it as being about the world, one flows very awkwardly and the other is pretty much perfect.
However DP kind of misunderstood this, so you could argue it’s canon to just downpour or whatever, but it’s still very odd. I mean, to imply that having microbes prevents one from ascending?? 😭 as if every organism doesn’t have microbiomes and microbes within themselves lol
Thank goodness for you, UE. Rain world is extremely popular among most of my friend groups, and its lore is brought up often. Your videos have saved me many, many silly debates over the lore in the past. I've said this before on past videos, and ill say it again. You are CRIMINALLY underrated, my friend! Another banger from you.
gonna' be honest, this video is great but heavily based on semantics, ESPECIALLY the Triple Affirmative section, and when you reach that point in lore analysis it's just not productive anymore
also I had no idea there was some kind of confusion on the purpose of Iterators, to me their purpose for being built was like super clear lol
Just wanna share a random theory about ascension (spoilers for endings)
I think it gives someone what they wanted most. Survivor sees their family seemingly, monk sees survivor, arti sees her pups, and Inv gets to find a mate.
there does seem to be a continuity between these dreams tho, since survivor is in the same position in her dream as she is in monks dream :D to me it speaks to it being quite real
If saint was actually made by SOS i think he was made with iterators ascencion in mind and not exactly the triple affirmative
I dont understand the need of ascending rocks, gases and other materials. I mean ascend the whole planet means all the living things in the planet for me, not literally ascend atom by atom
i thought the void would just send you into a cycle outside the cycle
it's cycles all the way down
It isn't covered in the video, but are we sure cyclical reincarnation (you die and then go back to the previous cycle) is backed? The main time we hear about the nature of life and death (base game outskirts pearl), Moon specifically says, "Then you know that death isn't the end - *birth and death* are connected to each other like a ring, or some say a spiral. Some say a spiral that in turn forms a ring. Some ramble in agonizing longevity. But the basis is agreed upon: like sleep like death, you wake up again - whether you want to or not." She specifically mentions are birth/death reincarnation cycle. So why do we assume that the gameplay mechanic of respawning is canonical? Maybe it is the "like sleep like death" part, because the cycle starts when we wake up from hibernation. How does this function though? As endless timelines for the billions of creatures that exist within the world that surely die everyday through predation or means besides old age? There isn't really any confirmation that game death is canonical death from what I've seen. When a lizard dies, we do not get the same lizard back the next cycle. When (I know people have differing opinions on downpour, but it is still worth mentioning) when Artificers children die, they are never seen again. Artificer could have died as well, to go back to the last cycle where they were still alive, but did not.
It makes sense to me that, upon cycling (whether by sleep or death), creatures' worldlines can intersect or drift apart. Arti pups could still be out there [during the campaign], but their worldlines don't intersect anymore. Perhaps other beings are aware of their existence, perhaps their worldlines can intersect with Arti's -- or perhaps they're exclusive, in the branching Quantum Worlds sort of meaning.
Whether a given act of success (sheltering) or failure (death) leads to a shift in ones' worldline, is a fair question; failure mostly seems to be answered in-game as, "try again". Killed lizards always come back (eventually), but as different individuals (or species even); yet from their perspective, everything might seem the same from cycle to cycle and the one(s) where they crossed you are just a few among many.
The fact that the game only chooses creature IDs from so-and-so many thousands (if you aren't using expanded IDs mod), is kind of funny to interpret as canon: it means various individuals can indeed be met across different [great] cycles: by different incarnations of the player character, or in different worlds entirely.
Great point with the emphasis on *birth* and death being connected! I believe that the in-game death mechanic has to do with the lore, but that it's not the entire picture as experienced from the perspective of the slugcat, and that's naturally where gameplay limitations come in. The "sleep like death" line sits quite weirdly within it all though
hmm. I’ll give some of my thoughts/theories, though I’m not really sure either way.
one is that the cycle is personal. this seems to line up w/ gameplay. if a creature dies, from its perspective, it begins the cycle anew, but from anothers it is seemingly dead. following this theory, that is why killed creatures get replaced by a different individual; another one is simply taking their niche in the area’s ecosystem. old age is kind of a hard question to answer… perhaps eventually a creature gets so weak it simply dies/starves in its shelter repeatedly? honestly not sure.
karma flowers might give a bit of a hint. Moon says they allow creatures to connect w/ their “selves of other planes,” so perhaps creatures are not fully aware of their previous lives… otherwise they’d already be connected, I guess? they have an innate understanding of the cycle, but the flowers allow them to see their lives and the cycle’s workings with clarity. maybe that’s why Arti didn’t go back for their pups; they’re, after all, just an animal that probably instinctively tries to survive.
the “a creature is reborn as a different creature” being the cycle theory is possible, but doesn’t have much direct commentary in game. it has less holes in it than the cycle being day-to-day like in gameplay, though, since it explains old age and why Artificer didn’t just die on purpose, but I’m honestly not sure. this theory kind of lessens the impact of some dialogue, though. when The Exterior echo asks you if you’re tired of all the cycles and such, this seems to me to be intended to directly relate to the player’s own, cycle-to-cycle struggles in gameplay, not a nebulous lore idea.
there’s also Hunter, who DOES seem to die permanently (at least as a slugcat) w/o ascension, which seems to support reincarnation rather than day-to-day revival. I’m honestly surprised they aren’t brought up more often since they’re the only slugcat that is so heavily implied to be permadead. their whole 19 cycles thing is… weird though, could just be gameplay limitations rather than a lore commentary.
I’d say, overall, day-to-day revival is backed by gameplay and reincarnation is backed by being a bit more logical.
there are, ofc, other interpretations, but these are the big ones I see talked about a lot. sorry for any typos! wrote this out on mobile.
because of karma and wheel flowers.
my own loose interpretation is there are two cycles: reawakening after death after dying post-rest, and rebirthing after true death (e.g. old age or illness), which I personally refer to as karmic death and cyclical death respectively just to differentiate the two. karmic death refers to gameplay death, cyclical death refers to deaths like hunter's "permadeath", karmic death is more of a dreamlike thing where you can reawaken from the last time you rested *peacefully* (starving mechanic...) while cyclical death is like restarting your entire life from the very beginning. karmic death is the "like sleep like death" line, and cyclical death is the "birth and death are connected like a ring". subject to change but yk
@@gdogdogdogdogdogdogdogdogd8948 If we are taking a personal cycle as true, death by old age/terminal illness, ect could be explained by the soul having such a weak grasp on it's body that it could not return to its previous incarnation, but instead has to become something else. I cannot see creatures surviving indefinitely into their old age, otherwise surely by this point most existing creatures would be so old they could not move. I do think reincarnation as traditionally thought is canon for sure tho, due to its direct mention as well as how much the game draws from Buddhist beliefs.
I do like the mention of the echo dialogue, it does seem more impactful if cycle-based reincarnation is true. It could also be because cycles are rw's equivalent of days. It has a double meaning of time passed, and the cyclical nature of life and death.
I'm not sure if Hunter counts as truly dead though, perhaps (although this is horrifying) their mind is intact, but they are stuck in a body that is no longer their own? Their own body is technically alive, although for Hunter it must be agonizing, there would be no need to reincarnate until someone or something takes them out of their misery. Although they could also just be fully dead, and without anything to struggle against the rot has full control, since after the cycle limit hunter still needs to be killed by something in order for the run to end.
That's a really good video there, tho
In spearmaster's campaign there's a transmission in garbage wastes which confirms that slugcats are purposed organisms based on the genome for those pipe cleaners, I don't blame anyone for not finding this because past garbage wastes sucks without arti jump
not quite, it just confirms that nsh purposed at least one organism based on creatures that wander through pipes.
> PI: It was based on one of those resourceful, wandering ones that go in pipes. An image should reach you in a few moments...
it's possible this isn't talking about slugcats at all, though i suspect it is. however, that description also applies to scavengers. and importantly, it never calls them pipe cleaners, just describes where they currently live. it definitely doesn't call them descendants of the pipe cleaning slugs specifically
I feel like saint is not a triple affirmative, but the door to a triple affirmative
Ok, but what if SOS made saint and THOUGHT that it was a triple affirmative, so sent out the broadcast, but was ascended before they realized that saint was did not fit the criteria all the way.
Alternatively, saint could have had more power before the events of their campaign, but because they ascended at the beginning of their campaign they lost all their power. This would mean that Saint could have been able to ascend stuff at a much larger scale before they came to pebbles' facility grounds. This also means that saint could have had more live expectancy because of their stronger powers. I also believe that saint was originally made to withstand a bit of cold because of floof, but they weren't originally purposed for so much cold as a blizzard.
Lizards were used like pets likely so they were probably genetically modified just like we did to dogs through selective breeding, but due to them being pets it's unlikely they would be extremely changed
Implementing tripple affirmative criteria into saint timeline kinda misses the issue that the saying was created in time when climate was warm and creators were still allive. Transportation via trains would be possible. But i agree that third criteria isn't met yet and Sliver was killed before she was able to make more testing. Just like spearmaster, maybe she would make more effective versions.
Saint being the 3T, also seems to not fit from a thematic point. Saint is the first, last, and only scugcat to move the story of the world forward through their own prerogative. Them being a 'tool' progressing the iterator's story, like Hunter, Spearmaster and Ruffles, seems like it would go against the thematic intention of Saint's independence.
The biggest, coolest part about Saint, I think, is that they're kinda the biggest jebait of the story: "become Triple Affirmative!" "This is amazing, I can do anything now!" ... "But wait, are we _really_ the Triple Affirmative..?" It's at once, thematically relevant, a power-fantasy, and an enormous imposition of responsibility (at least, at such point the player becomes aware of the lore implications -- or exceptions thereto!); and also a deep and troubling question -- from where did we come, where do we go, and what is our purpose, really, since we're not actually the thing so prophesied? (And what the hell happened in Rubicon?) :)
Also interesting to pick the Triple Affirmative as an almost-Chekov's Gun, revealed only in the final act; but it's actually a bait-and-switch, kinda.
Or, from your point: that they seem to have their own prerogative. A fact not without its own disturbing lore implications, as they are, well and truly, stuck in a cycle -- one of their own doing (perhaps), so extraordinary that they are nearly disconnected from, only occasionally intersecting with, other creatures' worldlines (or cycles, or spirals).
The one thing I'm sad about is, ascended creatures respawn next cycle; surely from your own worldline perspective, they would stay dead. (Iterators and Guardians do!) Is this merely a gameplay compromise? (Most likely; it would be a boring world if you could well and truly empty it out. Actually making progress on global ascension would also imply a (very tedious) possible 2nd ending, which it would be better not to curse players with.) Perhaps it's characteristic of those creatures' cycles -- part of their karmic nature -- that they can't be ascended; at least not in such a manner as Saint possesses. Thus their cycles don't end, they just loop right on back.
If SoS truly did find the solution for global ascension, then wouldn’t there be absolutely nothing left? The metal, the surrounding facility, and everything surrounding it? And if it’s supposedly portable, then why would Sliver immediately use it on herself, instead of giving it to a purposed organism capable of making the journey? I think it’s likely that there was no solution, it really was a faulty signal, perhaps due to a failure in her void-related systems.
I will argue with the triple affirmative part, however. For sure, Saint does not meet the requirements of the Ancients, however, he surely does the job of the triple affirmative. Remember, Saint has infinite amount of time to ascend everything. And considering the law of possiblity that everything is a possiblity when given enough time, Saint will eventually find a way to ascend the world. Saint will also gain the skill to bear through the problems you mentioned in the video, such as cold and long distances, and will eventually master the ability to move. His movement alone proves this, as he is theoritically the fastest slugcat ever. You will probably state an obvious counterpoint, which is about "birth can outpace the ascension power of Saint". A few things that are presented through the game I will point out will answer this. 1. Evolution. Upon meeting with the iterators, you realise that you dont even need the mark of communication as you already have the ability, even though the iterators do not recall a single case of meeting you, although they recall you as *familiar* . Moon acts very peculiarly when we meet her, remember. She constantly speaks about how we must go, and gives clues about our power in the dialogue. And then, she states that, "we will meet again". But in a very odd way again: "... our *cycles* will meet again". Which leads to my second point. 2. Unboundness of the cycle of Saint. Saint is not bound by the cycle, remember. The cycle in which we play as Saint, the iterators as mentioned recall familiarity with us, "predicting" things about to happen. This is seen through Moon's dialogue and the Rubicon dialogue. And in the ending, you are in a place never seen, the empty space. It is abstract, but you exist. Then, you are taken back to the world, to the very beginning, indicating your job will never be over. Saint's this ability alone will eventually break the cycle that keeps the lesser beings bound, the cycle of mortal life, not the unbreakable cycle of macro scale (civilization cycle and ascension being an actual part of the cycle), as there are multiple cycles and freedom of a spirit needs only to ascended in one of the many cycles. This can be seen as many lizards and species go extinct, either evolving to adapted species or dying out, which is only possible if they ascended in another cycle. This, ultimately proves the applicability and portability of Saint as he is not bound by distance. The only things that can be stated as counterpoints are Dream Theory (which is very very very uncertain whether it is true, it is open to intrepertation) and Echo theory, which states Saint had only one try and he did what he could, the new world now rise from the ashes of the previous, and he will be an echo. Thanks for reading.
Wouldn’t the idea of a new world rising from the ashes of the previous one just entirely go against the idea that Saint is a successful triple affirmative? the entire point is to basically mass ascend the entire physical plane forever, eliminating it entirely in a sense
@@slugfishh Exactly. That is why İ called it a possible counterpoint - although it is very unlikely.
so they are a triple afirmative?
"For sure, Saint does not meet the requirements of the Ancients,"
this means hes not the triple affirmative
"And considering the law of possibility that everything is a possibility when given enough time, Saint will eventually find a way to ascend the world."
since when does he have infinite time?
"1. Evolution. Upon meeting with the iterators, you realise that you dont even need the mark of communication as you already have the ability, even though the iterators do not recall a single case of meeting you, although they recall you as familiar . Moon acts very peculiarly when we meet her, remember. She constantly speaks about how we must go, and gives clues about our power in the dialogue. And then, she states that, "we will meet again". But in a very odd way again: "... our cycles will meet again". Which leads to my second point."
this is not a counter argument to ""birth can outpace the ascension power of Saint"", please elaborate
" 2. Unboundness of the cycle of Saint. Saint is not bound by the cycle, remember. The cycle in which we play as Saint, the iterators as mentioned recall familiarity with us, "predicting" things about to happen. This is seen through Moon's dialogue and the Rubicon dialogue. And in the ending, you are in a place never seen, the empty space. It is abstract, but you exist. Then, you are taken back to the world, to the very beginning, indicating your job will never be over. Saint's this ability alone will eventually break the cycle that keeps the lesser beings bound, the cycle of mortal life, not the unbreakable cycle of macro scale (civilization cycle and ascension being an actual part of the cycle), as there are multiple cycles and freedom of a spirit needs only to ascended in one of the many cycles. This can be seen as many lizards and species go extinct, either evolving to adapted species or dying out, which is only possible if they ascended in another cycle. This, ultimately proves the applicability and portability of Saint as he is not bound by distance."
this makes zero sense, please not only elaborate but also explain what this means to you, because it is incomprehensible.
Credits: aquapotato
@@ricardoribeiro9779 bro just took my comment xd
although I've always viewed the Saint Triple Affirmative theory as very vague and less likely to be true, it is interesting to view it from the perspective of Sliver of Straw herself. With the VERY BIG IF that Saint even existed before Sliver, I believe she might have "found" it, saw that it was able to walk around and therefore deemed it "portable", and then likely witnessed it ascend any creature that it is capable of ascending and made the swift assumption that it could ascend ANYTHING. We know nothing about Sliver's actual personality but if it really was Saint that she found, then maybe she was overly excited to have possibly found the solution, and instead of doing further experiments and research first, immediately announced her findings to the entire iterator population before being destroyed by an unknown force/thing.
Although I think that it was most likely Sliver found something else entirely, its interesting to see what can be theorised with what limited knowledge we have on the Triple Affirmative announcement. ANOTHER thing i feel is important to mention is that it's only ever been recited to us by moon, and she isnt particularly in the perfect condition to talk about memories when she tells us
imo the most satisfying answer is that sos just died and nothing else, the story really hints at no solution existing, if thousands of millions civilisations tried this before the benefactors and the world is still going, what makes you think this will be the right one? It paralels the hopelessness the iterators are feeling in a shorter loop
@@jevmenyt3422 fr it does make a lot of sense. especially since its been said that some iterators think that SOS mightve just malfunctioned iirc
I feel like the saint one is mostly a technically
Yes saint absolutely cannot outpace the world regenerating but giving saint the ability to deatroy terrain and etc would just be insanely stupid from a gameplay perspective, while yes they should had been coded to ascent grass, bugs, proto rot, etc that is most likely just some code that was deemed too frivolous to sink time into it
Specially considering a lot of stuff was scraped due to being too much work, like he mushroom layer to treath themes
Also saint is absolutely portable slugcats are the size of like a big luggage bag and those are considered portable so of course saint is portable, also saint crossed the whole FP LTTM facility grounds, he can absolutely cross the area between iterators, its not will but about when, for what we know hunter could have 1000 cycles till rot but we only got to play as them when they got to FP LTTM facility grounds
yes! total agree on the slugcat thing especially, I think it might stem from people not actually having read the dialogue themselves. most fans probably aren’t gonna skim the wiki or carry it all the way to moon.
another small thing I see repeated often is Hunter’s leg scar being a rot cyst. as cool as rot Hunter is, it seems to be a downpour retcon; in the base game we never get any solid indication that Hunter has more than some nebulous disease. seems more likely to me it’s a scar, they’re already covered in them.
5p absolutely implies that hunter has the rot in the base game. He says "You and I have something in common, little creature. We both have something... unfortunate growing in us." when meeting him without the neuron, and unless you know of something else unfortunate growing in 5p, idk what else it could be.
It could be read that way, though he doesn’t say they have the same unfortunate thing growing inside of them; just that they both have something unfortunate growing inside of them, if that makes sense. It could always be, like, regular cancer.
Om wouldnt saint count as a triple if the itrators make more of him? Make enof saints and it starts to look like they could accend everthing. Time may also be a solution as is it ever confirmed if anything dies from old age in this world? If old age wont kill saint and he just revives when he dies then theres a timeline where he dose accend everything.
I have not played rainworld! 0:06 Simply watched every lore recap, 1-2 play through of each campaign, and seen many a meme. 👍
Edit: I have since been convinced that my interpretation is wrong and the video is in fact correct on this point
At 7:00 I disagree with your interpretation of the dialogue. When it says "unable to reach ascension by itself - being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes - and towards which we thus have obligations", I think the point is that iterators are a constructed being that cannot be easily ascended and therefore the author argues that the constructors have a moral obligation to ensure its corporeal existence is pleasant (it cannot escape like the ancients can).
I do not think we can conclude from this that they wanted to ascend rocks and nothing suggests to me that they cared about anything other than living organisms, which also puts your points about saint on a tenuous footing.
With regards to saint not being able to ascend things faster than they are born, the statement that "Saint is a solution to the great problem" isn't that the single Saint we see in the game will solve the big problem on their own. It means that the design of Saint can be used to solve the great problem (hence why they care about the implementation of Saint being generally applicable; other iterators could also build Saints).
finally i see someone mentioning it!! when i first watched this video i was like. okay that is noottt what that means lol. but when i checked the comments no one said anything about it and i didnt want to embarrass myself by commenting something stupid
thats how i interpreted it too! i almost thought i was WRONG this whole time and that just couldnt be the case cause im always right
The reason for iterators not being able to ascend doesn’t have to do with being partly inorganic matter, that’s a misinterpretation of the exterior colored pearl; the parentheses are actually discussing the world, not FP.
It’s the logical conclusion for a few reasons, being one, that FP is never referred to as “it” anywhere else, two, being that all of rain world fauna already blur the line between flesh and machine, and three, if you look at the structure of the sentence, it makes much less sense when interpreting the parentheses about FP compared to interpreting it as being about the world, one flows very awkwardly and the other is pretty much perfect.
However DP kind of misunderstood this, so you could argue it’s canon to just downpour or whatever, but it’s still very odd. I mean, to imply that having microbes prevents one from ascending?? As if every organism doesn’t have microbiomes and microbes within themselves lol
@@ricardoribeiro9779 I see your point and I think I agree now.
@FiniteSimpleFox okay thanks, i kinda disagree with the point of saint being triple afirmative, but your point make sense about the triple afirmative being the saint design, but nothing in game proves that saint desing is the triple afirmative
considering saint is ONE of the specties
"You probably won't even understand this video if you haven't played Rain World!"
Ain't much of a spoiler then 😎
0:00 the fucking sound made me so triggered
"Unfortunately, this world's Big Problem can not be solved by the equivalent of a rat."
I mean, Saint does start with Karma 2 which stands for *lust*, and we all know how rodents breed...
great video but i think saint's section wasnt as well structured as the others, ofc you are completely right and anyone who has dived into the story of this game will agree with you but the video does present it in a very passive way with many "what ifs" and subjetive talking inviting ppl to just say dumb stuff to try to counter it, just looking at this comment sections shows how the saint section really needed to be a bit more stoic and tell these people that they are straight up wrong because there is no point in argumenting agains it.
I knew it would be the most contended section, and I had to restart it multiple times after receiving feedback. I find it funny that some people actually had the opposite criticism than you - that I should have presented it less confidently and more as a "what if." I think no matter what, no matter how strong and sound of an argument you present, people will simply still cling to the idea that Saint needs to be this god-like and super important character. But the point of the video isn't necessarily to instantly change everybody's minds, (that's unrealistic) I at least just wanted to plant the ideas and make people think about the misconceptions
This was way more robust than I expected, all I have are small additions:
- *TL;DR for the first point* : People call slugcat rat because mean, they more likely raccoon.
Slugcats being referred to as rodents is more likely a derogatory/dismissive choice rather than an observation of your biology, similar to how you'd call a human a "rat".
And they do show many parallels with felines: not only in behaviour as seen in cutscenes, the way Five Pebbles comments on their "blank expression" (likely an implication that they don't use mouth mimicry to communicate emotions, much like felines); and *critically* how they rely on airborne movement as opposed to the (prominent in this planet) vertical climbing of surfaces when it comes to non-standard mobility, the former rodents _can_ do but don't prefer. The last point is significantly more important than any other as before the story, before the ecosystem, before even the world that it is named after; Rain World is a movement game, and so the player -character- species is fundamentally a vessel to perform it, its compatibility with doing so must be maximised before anything else to reach the most logical conclusion.
I am not saying this however to imply that slugcats are most similar to felines, their dexterity and original intent as bears make me think they are closer to an ursid-feline hybrid, the closest real-life parallel being racoons. Racoons are even capable of a relatively competent bipedal waddle, which they use to carry items in their hands (as they will use nearby water to better investigate if food is safe to eat). By coincidence, even the character design is reminiscent with the neck not being visible.
-There is reason to believe that slugcats and tube worms share genes, and by extent a common ancestor. The Saint has only two notable abilities, one of which is extremely significant; so for the other to be so simple implies that it was such a small change from a technical standpoint that it was either convenient enough or even accidental to give her (which is unnatural beyond a reasonable doubt) the same tongue as tube worms. And tube worms were most certainly what the pearl "SL_chimeny" dialogue was written with in mind.
-There isn't much reason to believe that the first iterators were used to house ancients, instead being a retroactive goal to compensate for making ground level inhabitable.
-The Saint probably doesn't ascend creatures; as much as the Rubicon is a mystery, Occam's razor says that instead of believing that Rubicon is fundamentally different from the rest of the world, it is better to assume that it was only created in weird ways but otherwise functions not too dissimilarly from the rest of the world (say for the floating void fluid). This means that the Saint just teleports people to Rubicon as seen by LttM and FP, likely designed to do so under the false assumption that the void fluid was still there.
-My headcanon for lizards has always been that they are a testbed for genetic experiments that are to be implemented on other creatures once finalised; hence why they can get quite funky without bionic implants, they were not only specifically designed to be genetically stable (especially retaining the gimmick it is given) but also used for testing a general concept instead of being fine-runed to a final product. Who is to say that cyan lizards weren't proto-vultures in some way?
I like to think UI isn’t necessarily mean. They never appear to be in the broadcasts often besides being mentioned, so it could be inferred that not much is known about their personality, except they may not enjoy contacting the broadcasts. While broken broadcasting could be inferred as well, UI seems well enough to send images of Pebbles’s rot. However, they may not be too nice either. Who knows their intentions? Maybe they just wish to spread the word that help is needed?
Idk I’m just tired of seeing asshole UI
It doesn't help that that specific naming convention for Iterators is done with irony. NSH has tons of dramatic irony in his name for a reason.
Yeah, that doesn’t help UI’s case either
Let’s see hope I’m not wrong
You missed the single most obvious part of the triple affirmative theory, being the 3 dot mark on its forehead. That is pretty inarguably a symbol of the triple affirmative.