TO CLARIFY THE MISTAKES THAT I MADE: - Challenge 70 isn't canon lmao whoops. - SoS was confirmed to have been died before Saint was ever born. Overall this entirely fucks my theory over, but also Saint is so weird that there are at least 3 other solid theories that I could think of to fit it better, maybe I'll make a video on 3 Saint theories or something in the future.
@@Sinnamonsters To be honest with how finished things are at this point where theory can be as satisfying to stick with over actuality. Unless there is somehow another DLC that makes the end of the challenge modes non-cannonicity actually relevant, people believing the saint is some time transcending thing like challenge 70 implies, able to attack things that existed long before its birth, a bizarre bhodisatva thing. Thats about as fine and satisfactory as anything the devs can say until they make something that contradicts the assumptions the challenges cast in a more visceral form. Which probably won't happen but it would be baller.
Honestly, that kinda sucks. I kinda love the idea that SoS created the Saint to ascend the iterators in the same way the ancients made the iterators to ascend themselves (and like the iterators, the Saint is unable to find a way to ascend themself). It would add to the theme of cycles in the game.
Ironic, the ancient created the iterators to help them but aren't allowed to die, and then one iterator did the same to the saint. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
Nobody really knows if Sliver made Saint, its just speculation because of challenge 70. Also how would Saint live for hundreds of cycles without doing anything and dying of old age? EDIT: Also to everyone that thinks Saint ascended SOS, the devs confirmed that challenge 70 is not canon. Saint wasn't even born when SOS gave the triple affirmative
@@cosmo1851 Someone said around that the devs said the "fight" is not cannot, aka the bullet hell, but nothing about whenever the encounter happened or not. So to say, saint styling on sliver isnt cannon but no info on whenever the encounter happened or not Althoug as some say, neither anyone knows if saint was artificially created by sliver or some lucky find
"What happened to our friend that was working on the problem of how to die? .......Oh. She succeeded." Like...did no one consider that maybe she just forgot to write it down?
@@oklafornia3643 I'm curious why it seems no one bothered to investigate what might have happened, it's not like they couldn't have created a creature to go over there and it's not like they didn't know her location, and it's also not like they couldn't observe if they did,it just seems like they chose not to.
@@Nyghtking i think i remember one of the pearls stating that the anti-sliverists were partly concerned that the answer was dangerous. Like the solution Sliver stumbled upon was spontaneous and self-encompassing in the X process. Which is EXACTLY what they're looking for, the bitter irony is that it's blasphemous for them to use it on themselves.
23:29 This isn’t actually why there’s an absurd amount of rain during rivulet’s campaign, at least not from what I interpreted. The excessive rain is caused by Five Pebbles himself, in an attempt to slow down the rot’s progressive takeover of his can. This is said by 5P himself when he gives rivulet the task of retrieving his power cell to give to Moon, as he says that without it, he will lose the power to flush the rot out of his systems, and thus, he will slowly die, consumed by it. He will basically die of cancer faster than he would otherwise. It’s also why the rain returns to normal after the removal of the cell, since, as stated, Pebbles lost the power to pump out such enormous amounts of rain to try to slow his death.
I think the rain is probably more of a side-product of his attempts to flush out the Rot, not the actual attempts themselves in general the rain seems to be produced as a result of them using up a lot of power, the more power they use the more rain they make Pebbles is using up a lot of power in his attempts to slow down the Rot (and the Rot isn't helping as it's making his processes much less efficient), as a result he's simply producing a lot more rain than usual as a side effect kinda leaves me wondering how much rain there would've been when he was doing his experients, and how the rain cycles might've been different when both Pebbles and Moon were fully functional.
Saint being echo makes so much sense, although he's not a normal one for sure I think his main distinction is in his earthly tether to the world is a sort of 6th secret urge. The urge to ascend/help others. One that is virtuous in nature, yet still binds him to the material world, as if a string that let him dip into the turbo acid and get pulled back over and over again, which is how Silver of Straw managed to create the triple affirmative. She created a being that CAN return from the point of no return, which was the most important step to solving the great problem Anyway floofy glock wielding scug is my favorite
didn't the developer say that the challenges are non-canon and silver of straw doesn't have much to doo with saint, though the theory could still be somewhat correct, a being that ascends others would bypass the taboo and help ascend those who had too many vices or not enough karma in line with what you said, the 6th urge is probably the urge of echoes, since they can help other ascend, but they probably lacked full karma unlike saint, there also other things that don't make sense, like why do slugcats find each other in the void sea during the endings, did they also find echeos and ascend, they weren't free of their desires since the only reason why survivor or monk went there would have been to find each other why did artificer have a scar that didn't heal after each cycle, why did she not reunite with her kids when everything just respawns after dying, and how or why did they ascend when they were basically lone pups, did they get to the void and had no earthly urges, pretty sure wanting to reunite with your mother is one another good one is why were the ancients so obsessed with their world, why didn't they look for answer outside their world in space and other worlds, i doubt they couldn't build a space ship when they could build ocean draining super computers, and even more so when they found out that the void is so corrosive it's eating away at their own world also, how are the guardians able to read ones karma, like they are supposedly made by the ancients so they would have also known how to check their own karma and could have easily prevented echoes if they knew who was eligable for ascension and who was not, but there are at least from what we are shown 7 echoes, and probably even more in the rest of the world, so why or how were uneligable people allowed to ascend, since the guardians would have prevented them like they do to the slugcats, the fact that they aren't deactivated in game means that during the mass ascension the guardians were operational.
I find it interesting that the iterators didn't adopt the naming strategies of the ancients. Moon named rivulet Ruffles instead of something obscure like idk pure waters illume or splintering streams.
The slugcats are sapient. They are quite aware of the environment they are in and can use it to their advantage. They can use a variety of tools with each one in versatile ways. And as we see in the advanced movements, they are very aware of what their body is capable of. They are capable of learning behaviors creatures, their strengths and weaknesses. They can trade, even learn the trade values. They can read the hologram picture/symbols the overseers use. They can even listen to complex commands the iterators give them. They can give moon neurons and pearls even though there's no practical benefit. They are capable of seeking vengeance. They are capable of being religious as we see with Saint.
Absolutely, and - They use tools, but some animals do that too. However, they also use tools to make other, better tools - they are technological, something only humans have ever done. And they have a language. A proper one, with all nine characteristics of language. At least, Five Pebbles thinks so! When he asks you to tell the others to not visit him again in the future, he's asking you to demonstrate displacement and productivity with your 'grunts and jestures', which are the two of the nine characteristics that only human languages have. The ability to form new concepts out of old ideas and the ability to talk about things that aren't actually present in this place and/or time. They have an apreciation of art. At least spearmaster doodles with no intention to show anyone else, an activity with zero survival advantage - except insofar as it helps build a culture and comunity. Not only are slugcats sapient, odds are they have a culture too! It may be simple and underdeveloped, but that's likely more due to the harsheness of the enviornment limiting time for non-survival activities. We didn't explode in complexity until after the ice-ages ended for similar reasons.
@@jayycw2105 At the very least, Gourmand's food quest and 5P monologue and Spearmaster's doodles are highly advanced and the fact that Slugcats are viable to use as messengers above all other species in the local iterator group implies quite a big feat, especially in the Hunter and Rivulet campaigns where Moon's life is literally saved by these devious little creatures. They aren't just intelligent by proxy of the player, they are canonically equal intelligence with humanity.
The irony of sliver of straw creating saint as a way to solve their accession the same way the ancients made the iterators is very poetic. There are so many cycles in this game
Its the whole theme, of course. Wonder what the next cycle will be, after saint. Will it be the scavs taking the place of Ancients? They seem to look simmilar
The devs said that specifically the fight wasn't canon, they probably wouldn't have made that distinction if the challenge itself didn't have some lore implications
@@aditx4763 I think they meant many parts of the fight weren’t canon, but I believe there could’ve been canon things, such as saint being the “solution” that freed SoS I would also like a source from @Hecobeco 2 and for them to elaborate more on what they think is “wrong”
A thing to add is something that Five Pebbles says is basically "your problem is the same as everyone's problem, from the microbes in the processing strata to me, who is godlike in comparison." When talking about ascending, implying it happens to everyone, not just semi intelligent creatures.
I think the egg is the universe, judging from how breaking it sucks everything into a massive destabilizing implosion and how Saint ascending it just sort of poofs the game
It's heavily implied that things can still die in the cycle, just from not their own perspective. basically, when you die you get put into a sort of alternate universe back in time where you didnt die yet, however, every creature in the old universe that you died in will still percieve you as dead. This was theorized even before downpour, but downpour does kind of confirm it since we see artificer's pups ACTUALLY dying, as well as other creatures dying forever.
To be fair, even if you’re stuck in a cycle, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll re-appear as what you once were or where you once were, does it? (Yeah the way respawning works ingame sort of contradicts this but eh, gameplay over accuracy? Plus the kind of cycle you spawn into is different each time anyway which implies SOMETHING is changing)
During ascension you can see a lot of copies of the slugcat swimming besides you, I think that might be all versions of the slugcat from the alternate universes meeting in the void, since the end of their journey would be the same for every version.
@@spikkelkip8128 do you mean the end cutscene? I’m pretty sure that’s other slugcats that are ascending/have ascended, especially since when hunter ascends and is suddenly stricken with his affliction, it isn’t like it suddenly starts raining slugcats, they keep swimming even when he does not, which contradicts that theory since all versions of hunter have terminal cancer.
A larger theory i have: The rainworld events of an ancient type race eventually getting ascension have happened hundrets of times. This means there is a larger cycle over the shorter hibernation cycles. This also explains why Karma 6-9 are just circles being more an more crossed out, progressed and why Karma 10 is a crossed circle, a circle that has been xed, a circle that has been broken.(also they reason why saint needs karma 10)
@@arnoldgila9212 because of what i wrote. 1-5 are the basic desires of life, meanwhile 6 is recognizing the bigger picture (circles in a circle) and than they progress to Karma 10. X the Circle aka destroy the circle aka break the circle
here’s my take at the potential timeline of the Saint triple affirmative great problem solution process: •Saint goes to an iterator area •Saint ascends •saints’ greatest wish (and purpose) is to go back and help other’s ascend •the void “brings him back” •Saint is now once again some sort of semi echo •in this semi echo state, he becomes a sort of soul delivery container, which is why his karma goes up when he meets (and then absorbs?) the other echoes •once all echoes in the local iterator area are saved, he achieves max karma and gets cool mind powers (somehow) •he is now able to manually ascend the souls of pretty much whoever he wants, but stronger/higher beings take more attempts •(by what means? I have no clue. maybe he sends their souls directly to the void with his brain? Maybe he absorbs them into his own soul and brings them with him when he ascends?) •once he’s gotten all the souls of everyone, he goes down to where the void SHOULD be •the fact it’s gone maybe being proof he never completely left the void? his return to the surface was partly an illusion? As most of him was still within the void? •Maybe echoes see themselves as normal, while everything else sees them as weird dark squid things •the illusion breaks down and he falls out and past the void sea, to like a weird back rooms esque version of the real world •he climbs upwards to reach the void sea, (I guess since he escaped it it sort of resets?) •while he does not want to ascend, he can give those echoes within him to Another chance at ascension •he swims upwards, and then pisses off the void worms, so they refuse his ascension, and remove all the karma from his soul as he is “clearly not ready” to ascend • what these pissed off eldritch beings do not realize however, is that was NEVER the SAINT’S karma, but the karma of the trapped echoes he absorbed into his being. •when they take away his karma and essentially reset him, they’re just accepting those echoes into ascension. (who are probably more than quailed to ascend by this point) •the worms are mad at him( maybe meaning that the void fluid refuses to take his physical form?), and he doesn’t want to ascend, since both his physical and spiritual parts are intact, he’s back in the proper cycle and is no longer in that half echo limbo •because he’s back in the cycle proper, and can’t/doesn’t want to ascend, he’s spit out into the REAL real world. And goes to another iterator compound • he repeats this general pattern till EVERYONE is ascended
This is a really interesting theory, I do have one question though. In this theory it kinda sounds as if Saint is choosing not to ascend, instead of being forced to continue going on and on like what moon and 5p says. By this logic does it mean that Saint could actually ascend and that moon and 5p are wrong? Or can Saint not actually ascend but is still choosing to piss off the void worms so that the echoes in him can be realized? Not criticism, just something to think about.
@@ErraticSignal well discussions on free will are often controversial, because what is free will? maybe what hes doing is following his instincts as a purposed creature, whos purpose is to help everyone else ascend, i dont really know, imma keep it real i made this almost as soon as the video was released, im sure some parts of it are wrong, but it could really go both ways! maybe he cant ascend, maybe he doesnt want to ascend, maybe its both, or maybe its something else! i would ask him but, you know, he cant really speak!
@@ErraticSignal Saint is not some half effort boi. He will accend EVERY iterator of EVERY cycle. That is why his cycles never end and fold in on themselves. Saint physically cannot ascend things fast enough to catch up to infinity.
A lore summary truly worthy of a standing ovation. A game truly worthy of the title, "Game Of The Year." Das, thanks for everything. It's been an awesome journey discovering Rain World with you. I look forward to your future content and wish you great success. Also if it wasn't already official, you deserve the title of 'Offical Lore Master'.
29:58 There is cute detail about his ending If you bring 1 or 2 slugpups they will show up in it And Monk ending assumes that you did bringed 2 slugpups with you
This video seems like a good place to put my thoughts at: So the Ancients had a calendar just like any advanced civilization would. A date in that calendar looks like this: "1591.290" or "1650.787". So it's obvious that the bigger the number the more time has passed, but what do these numbers mean exactly? Here's my theory: The second part (like "290" or "787") counts cycles. We do not see this number going above 1000, so I suppose when the count reaches 1000 cycles it adds one number to the first part ("1591" or "1650") and starts counting cycles over again. For instance, Five Pebbles increased his water consumption on 1654.108 and 8 cycles later on 1654.116 Moon used forced communications to contact him. I don't know how good this theory is, so tell me.
@@samuelcrow4701 Well, if we assume a cycle is as long as a day on Earth, then the Ancients have counted for more than twice the amount of time than we did with our modern calendar. And considering that (as this video says) a cycle is probably longer than 24 hours that makes the Ancients really ancient.
28:10 This has probably been already said in the comments, but the devs said that challenge 70 is not canon, and the whole thing is just a touhou reference, with the attack patterns taken directly from one of the games.
i've also said it before in the comments, i think it feels cheap. i think it was just one of the devs, and did they outright deny the triple A saint solution with no explanation, or was it technically just the fight in the challenge (as in sliver didn't actually resist)? how much of the lore did they confirm or deny so far? how involved are the devs in elucidating the in-game world? i think not much at all (tell me if i'm wrong), and generally lore is larger than what devs intend, and larger than games themselves (the line between canon and non-canon can be extremely fine), so it feels almost inappropriate, you know what i mean? detached from what understanding lore entails. we're having an instance of solid reasoning for some aspect of the lore, with no apparent alternative atm, be counteracted with "some dude said nah on discord". i'm not saying it's not "true" canon-wise, i'm just saying that, if i understand it correctly, it's kinda trite. what do you think?
@@calinguga well, fans usually come up with all sorts of theories, and most of them are always going to be wrong, that's just how it goes. The devs generally aren't that involved and prefer not to tell too much to leave things somewhat ambiguous, but what we know for certain is: 1. Challenge 70 is not canon 2. Slugcats aren't significant (and that's a quote) So saint cannot be the triple affirmative. A popular theory rn is that they are an echo experiencing the events of their campaign over and over with no actual influence on the real world. Also, lore cannot be larger than what devs intend, make a step in any direction from certainty and you are in the headcanon territory
@@illum6 with lore being greater than devs i was thinking about all of art, what meaning you derive from it and overall what society gains from it may stand beyond what the artist originally intended (obviously); the latter may not even "matter" in some contexts, especially (and this is what i was thinking) if the message is meant to be ambiguous (as i would have expected from deep lore with little dev intervention). i really do believe canon and non-canon aren't black and white. so i guess what i'm hoping is that there is a "real" explanation for the triple A, and it makes more sense, and it's cooler than saint, and it's not just obfuscating the lore for the sake of it. also: isn't the slugcats aren't significant quote rather old, way before downpour? anyway, that's all i had
@@illum6 they may have said slugcats aren't significant, but that's just patently false. Hunter, Spearmaster, and Rivulet have massive impacts on Pebbles and Moon.
@@chichi2000fgh Yes, but that's a negligible impact, especially so if you compare it to literally being the answer to the ultimate problem of a civilization. Slugcats can be messengers, but not much more than that
The iterator ad absolutely killed me (well, it failed to kill me, but you get what I mean), well done with that I hope you do actually make an echos dialogue video, would love to hear you read them out as dramatically as possible.
I have a theory that the entire saint campaign takes place in the void. Basically the saint has already ascended and there biggest wish is to help others to ascend so the void shows them doing that, but when you try to ascend your self you dont find the void sea because you are already in it, but doing that breaks the illusion. In this theory the Rubicon is you trying to escape the void and you are about to when a void worm stops you putting you back into the illusion. My theory is pretty dark lol
That does explain some things, I feel like this triple affirmative is more complicated than we think: here’s my potential timeline of how the Saint does it: •Saint goes to an iterator area •Saint ascends •saints’ greatest wish (and purpose) is to go back and help other’s ascend •the void “brings him back” •Saint is now once again some sort of semi echo •in this semi echo state, he can’t ascend, but as his wish is to help others ascend, he becomes a sort of soul delivery container, which is why his karma goes up when he meets (and then absorbs?) the other echoes •once all echoes in the local area are saved, his spirit clean, he gains his full capabilities once more •is able to ascends the souls of those who have not ascended, their physical forms going limp •once he’s gotten all the souls of everyone, he goes down to where the void SHOULD be •the fact it’s gone maybe being proof he never completely left the void? •his return to the surface was partly an illusion? As most of him was still within the void? Maybe echoes see themselves as normal, while everything else sees them as weird dark squid things •the illusion breaks down and he falls out and past the void sea, to like a weird back rooms esque version of the real world •he climbs upwards to reach the void sea, (I guess since he escaped it it sort of resets?) while he does not want to ascend, he can give those echoes within him to Another chance at ascension •he swims upwards, and then pisses off the void worms, so they refuse his ascension, and remove all the karma from his soul as he is “clearly not ready” to ascend • what these pissed off eldritch beings do not realize however, is that was NEVER the SAINT’S karma, but the karma of the trapped echoes he absorbed into his being. •when they take away his karma and essentially reset him, they’re just accepting those echoes into ascension. (who are probably more than quailed to ascend by this point) •the worms are mad at him( maybe meaning that the void fluid refuses to take his physical form?), and he doesn’t want to ascend, since both his physical and spiritual parts are intact, he’s back in the proper cycle and is no longer in that half echo limbo •because he’s back in the cycle proper, and can’t/doesn’t want to ascend, he’s spit out into the REAL real world. And goes to another iterator compound • he repeats this general pattern till EVERYONE is ascended
I'm skeptical of how far in the future saint REALLY is. the ice age probably happens because the iterators create so much heat (the water is coolant) and without them, the world is just as cold as it used to be.
Even if that's true, it's long enough that most of the iterators are dead or dying and for their structures to start falling over. I could see it being as short as hundreds of years but probably not shorter than that.
@@_zakk yeah, the Saint has to travel the World by foot, and unless some sort of Iterator-Tracker is part of them, they’d be searching blind. (Admittedly, for mountain-sized superstructures.)
Gourmand actually seems to solve a mystery about rain world that we never even thought to ask about in the first place, being how survivor got past the retaining wall in the first place. Not only that, but accidentally too. At that point, it just must mean that the survivor campaign before you finish Gourmand's is just not canon, given the retaining wall is closed. Which seems obvious in hind sight, I know, but it essentially means videocult retconned the original survivor and monk campaigns from canon even though you still have to play them
@@raul-aurelianserban8295 the gate isn't open ingame if you haven't completed Gourmand's campaign. You can't get to the slug tree as survivor or monk without getting there as gourmand first, so your survivor/monk run before your gourmand run is noncanon because the gate is very very closed. That's why I say the ORIGINAL survivor and monk campaigns aren't canon, not that survivor and monk aren't canon at all
Survivor fell through a hole. You can find this hole in outer expanse. This hole has a gate you can go through to enter outskirts but you cannot go back.
I think the cycles work a little different from how you described them. Nothing is exempt from them and everything wants a way out, even the “microbes in my processing strata” as FP says. Also I think dying creates a “parallel timeline”, where you are reborn in your point of view, but are dead for good in other creatures’ perspective.
I guess that works, but I prefer the idea that reincarnation is a thing, where people return but in a new body with only vague memories of their past life. That's how sometimes death seems to be permanent, like with Artificer's kids, but people still know about the Cycle. As for why that's not how it works in-game, well maybe that's just a case of lore being limited for the sake of gameplay. After all that's how karma works, gameplay-wise you just passively gain karma from surviving cycles and talking to Iterators and Echoes, while in lore it requires a lifetime of fasting and other religious doctrines.
@@archdruidbookwalter951 Oh I 100% agree. That's how it works with irl Buddhism, which is what Rain World is based off of. I was just commenting on what Das said. Tbh, Rain World's game mechanics and lore fit together like off-brand LEGOs.
This seems as good a place as any to add to the new Downpour theories. WARNING! lotsa reading if you wanna check it out! From what I've gathered, I think the Saint campaign starts at the end of _everything._ More specifically, the end of the _true_ cycle. Moon had mentioned something especially interesting during her dialogue in Rubicon. She says that the Saint's cycle "edges and twists over themselves, like circles within circles, your cycle consumes itself" which really stood out to me. Circles within circles, you say? That sounds an awful lot like each creature having it's own cycle, while a larger, more global cycle occurs. This is why I think the Saint starts at the end of the global cycle, or all-encompassing cycle. A cycle in Rain World seems to entail a specific life-span of whatever creature you observe. If you visit Moon as Saint, she mentions there being other slugcats coming to visit her but by then they have "Long since passed" implying that the other slugcats ARE able to die. I think that in order to end a creature's cycle said creature has to reach a specific goal, similar to the passages you have access to. I mean, look at the Survivor. You can hibernate as many times as you want, spend however much time you want exploring the world, but until you dive into the Void, or journey to the Outer Expanse, the game won't "end". This is where the Survivor's cycle _ends,_ until it's re-born once more when the global cycle loops. This is further supported by Pebble's dialogue, where he mentions seeing his own lifespan over and over again, but nothing outside of it. This would explain why creatures you kill don't just send you back to the beginning of your last save. The creatures you kill don't HAVE an end goal, or maybe, they've already reached it. And what's Saint's main gimmick asides from the tongue? _The inability to kill creatures without ascending them._ When Saint ascends a creature, they don't appear once more after a hibernation, they're _gone._ I even tested this, I spawned myself the usable spears for Saint and killed a bunch of spitter spiders. The next hibernation, they were still there. Saint is at the _END_ of everything. Saint, in their part of the timeline, prevents anything they ascend from coming back. The last big question then is what qualifies as the end of the global cycle? What goal has to be met? Personally, however, I think what Saint is trying to accomplish is the destruction of the global cycle. When Saint ascends a creature, you won't see it again, no matter what you do. What better way to end the global cycle than by leaving nothing left TO loop? Nothing left, except the Saint itself, hunting down every last creature so that when the global cycle resets, it will be broken, no living beings to progress it. That's what I think Moon and Five Pebbles mean when they speak about the Saint's cycle, they say that unlike others, the Saint's cycle has cycles within cycles, going in an infinite spiral with no defined ending. Because unlike every other creature, the Saint _CHANGES_ the global cycle. It starts again, but things have _CHANGED._ It's no longer quite a complete loop, even the echoes can feel it. One of the first echoes you meet says they swear they've seen you before, that a massive change has occurred. This could of course be a reference to the passage of time, but it doesn't feel entirely accurate. The Saint IS the Triple Affirmative. It's why the opening cutscene is of the Saint waking up and _remembering._ Because unlike what we've seen of other slugcats, when the Saint completes a cycle, THEIR cycle, the changes _last._ Their progress isn't entirely reset, their actions _mattered._ The Saint doesn't reach the goal they're assigned to, no, they REJECT the void, they RETURN and swim upwards. The Saint rejects their given goal, and forces the cycle to reset instead, permanently changing it to their whims. The 'cycle" is no longer just a perfect circle anymore, to me, it looks a little more like a _spiral._ Hell, compared to the other slugcat's void adventures, the Void Worms, the one constant, _changed._ Their name is far more accurate than we gave it credit for. The Saint will ascend everything but itself, assuming the true role of a true matyr. _The End Of Everything, even the Void._ Or, at least, that's my theory.
I don't know if this idea is original, but i believe the 5 urges could have multiple different meanings. 1 - violence, maybe anger/aggression too 2 - reproduction, love (for other people, for a beautiful landscape, etc) 3 - greed, materialism, friendship (urge 3 is implied to be tied to trade, and you only trade with those you trust; friends) 4 - probably just gluttony, maybe any other kind of excess vice too (think drinking, smoking, etc) 5 - self-preservation, survival, possibly perseverance/determination as well does anyone else think this is true?
Take these, for easier navigation. 0:00 - Intro 1:20 - The Cycle 4:50 - The Ancients 10:20 - The Iterators 17:04 - The Game Events 24:30 - The Void 26:22 - The Saint 33:00 - Outro
I want to point out for the little drawn slugcat timeline that I'm pretty sure there is implied to be a decent amount of time between survivor and monk's story, as the rot has taken over FP a significant amount since survivor in the monk story, and the Pearls have gone blank. But maybe I've missed this being made not the case by the story.
I've always been under the impression that it's eventually possible for a creature's physical body to eventually become uninhabitable, if you somehow pretty much softlock yourself by age or falling into a hole or something idk. I assume that Hunter is an exception because his body never fully degrades but is basically sustained on auto-pilot and keeping him trapped. But if that happens you eventually just reincarnate as another creature. It would explain why every the ancients were able to all die out despite not all of them wanting to ascend and why the world isnt horribly overpopulated by slugcats stuck in perpectual resurrection. Alternatively, it's a multiverse and from our own perspective everyone else dies perminently but they reincarnate in a new timeline. (this might be more likely based on the More Slugcats stuff?)
I bet the ancients aren’t gone, there’s just way less of them, and they probably gathered to a different location. Hell with how advanced the ancients were it would not surprise me if they have colonised other planets
there is a problem with that theory cause some ancients would forget about some of their people and what if scavengers are ancients just more wild since they lost the technology and society ladders its like imagine if babies or kids dont understand what void fluid is and never entered one so they grew primitive way also if you were a god and mortality is not concern you would just build for fun and make entities so they interact with it for no reason as for iterators i would guess some of them would get sick of trying to solve a unsolvable problem and just do whatever they want
3:50 in samsara concept every creature can be reborn as another creature in the next life. like an animal can be reborn as different specie of animal. I think this concept is what happens with lineage system
also the idea that creatures are not just respawning but reborning makes artificer campaign make sense. if your pups will just respawn in the next cycle after death, why grieve them
Regarding the cycle. The way I understand it (and the way that makes the most logical sense) it that when a creature dies, they are reincarnated as a new, different being. They don’t go back in time or wake up in the same body, but instead are born into a new one. This new body then eventually regains some or all memories of their previous iterations - after all, it they didn’t no one would even know the cycle was a thing. This would account for arti’s slugpups dying and then disappearing, as they actually did die - but via the cycle were reborn as different slugpups elsewhere. This may also explain why the ancients had such long names, how animals evolved over time, and why seven red suns was worried about spearmaster dying. This theory assumes that when the slugcat you’re playing at dies and you reach the game over screen that it is a non-canon death.
Super like this theory. About the last part, would it be unfair to assume everytime you die, you ARE reincarnated as a new, different being? Just the same species. Then this would make for the first theory ive read in these comments without a "except for this one major plotpoint"
23:00 You can return with slugpups to that ending to see them with you. Also, you can find the exact place where survivor slipped and take same route to outskirts via a mini cutscene
I always figured that the Cycle was more than just the gameplay loop of die, try again when you wake up in the same place as before you died. I see it as a reincarnation. Sure, the previous is true as well, but once you get to a certain age, that body dies for good, and you are reborn a baby, knowing who you once were. Everyone knowing who you are. I dunno about you, but being haunted by the memories and consequences of my past actions, ALL my past actions from every life I have lived ad nauseam, would be enough to make me want to take a void bath too.
You forgot what Pebbles tells you as survivor (and monk i think). He says that every living thing shares the same frustration (that being the cycle), from the microbes of his processing strata to him who is, if you excuse, godlike in comparison. So yeah it is stated that every living thing is trapped in the cycle and not just conscious beings. Also challenge mode is not canon, as stated by the devs so we dont actually know if sliver created sait or not. Also also one interesting thing is if saint did ascend other iterators, others would for sure notice and i feel like we'd know about it by the time our campaigns happen. Or maybe its not as obvious who knows.
Perhaps Saint didn't start ascending Iterators until their communications broke down. It's mentioned that it's a small miracle their communications were still up by Spearmaster's campaign, they could easily have lost contact with each other at some point that would still give Saint plenty of time to do their work.
Each campaign explains/shows some of the game's most important factors Spearmaster - The Looks to the Moon facility Artificer - A Natural urge being put to practice Hunter - How Moon came back Gourmand - Where are the other slugcats Rivulet - Five Pebbles collapse Saint - How Sliver of Straw ascended
my favorite interpretation of the Great Cycle is that when you die, instead of waking up where you last slept, you are reincarnated with memories of your last lives. the waking up where you last slept in-game is simply a game mechanic. this is supported by moon telling hunter "...you will wake right back up again." or smth. we can see that hunter very much doesn't wake up again if you die, so it more likely means hunter reincarnates.
Love your community-driven biomes vids that show what new kinds of animals would live in different biomes. Edit: grammar corrections and "yes" to the echoes video.
I don't think the 3rd karma symbol represents materialism, but rather "companionship". We can see it in the glyphs for The Friend, The Mother, and The Chieftan as well as the achievements A New Friend and An Old Friend. The mural does depict barter, so it might be more along the lines of "cooperation" with other living things. But overall, it's other people tying you down to this world.
23:37 You said the rot mimics the functionality of 5 Pebbles, I thought it was just 5 Pebbles desperately trying to keep the rot at bay by flushing his systems with water as often as possible.
I feel like it’s especially sad with Artificer disappearing out of the Void Sea, they probably become an Echo. Not one like Saint, just a normal one. The whole process of what makes people echoes is there’s a part of their very being so strong it tethers them to the physical world, and we see Artificer’s anger and want for violence was incredibly powerful.
imagine what would happen for a mother irl if they visibly witness their children to be mirked by a specific group/gang/faction somewhere on this planet ? do you think she is just gonna sit there for the rest of their life sobbing ? few will, but mostly will acquire such anger and hatred for what took their children they will do anything in their power to destroy that very thing.
as someone who just watched your year old video on rainworld lore, it is. SO IMMENSELY FUNNY to begin watching this one for the dlcs lore and immediately being told that the video i JUST WATCHED is bad. subscribed for that experience alone. i just goddamn transcended.
I think the voidsea allows beings to not only interact with other timelines ( how theres multiple of the slugcats swimming when they ascened) but also become one with them. Fivepebbles talks about saint's cycle intertwining with his so maybe that's a property being carried over from the void?
to my understanding assension is finding true happyness and being willing to sarcafice everything for it (this is true for survivor arti monk and hunter)
I got to the part where Das said “Now it’s time to talk about that fuzzy green elephant in the room” before immediately getting an ad for Zaxby’s Asian Zensation Salad
I really would not like to ascend. I would honestly lock my brain in a giant superstructure, which expands its memory and repairs it. That is how paranoid I am. So basically if I get my way I will become a war fortress iterator. The ancients had a great gift and they didn’t use it. With the technology they had, you could live every possible life you could ever want
yeah the main problem with immortality is that you would have to deal with the death of your loved ones but when everyone is immortal that problem doesn't really exist and now it's just boredom that would become the main problem but hey maybe they should of developed the internet or something they had the tech(idk if they did already there's not really many indications or it to me imo)
Would you just preserve your brain and it's memories or would you let it keep thinking, because if you let it keep thinking, it would probably start rethinking your stand on ascending at some point making you want to ascend.
@@VoidWorldGaming I mean the iterators are literally pulling discord meetings, is that not the internet in some form already? Did they not get to make films, art tech? Yet are able to make these building sized supercomputers that somehow didn’t become some skynet arc?
@@forkgodsdescendant2503 i think they had some form of internet but it was more so overlooked and used for more so information transferring/communication with a lack of entertainment and other aspects of our internet like going on a phone connected to the internet and only email and wikipedia existing with no such things as youtube but that's just what i think and i just haven't picked up on the really obvious stuff saying that they had internet and video games alongside things like... twitter
Wow, Saint BEING the Triple Affirmative, as well as it being a true echo is insane to me…Rubicon is so crazy lore-wise too. Wonderful work on the summery, talked thoroughly on a lotta stuff and it’s all very useful ^^💖💕!! Astounding work well done yet again, looking forward to seeing the iterator model more + what the next project could possibly be 👀💫✨!!
If you don't know, you can give pearls to pebbles as artificer. Also when you first increase your karma with an echo, the sixth starts out as the same symbol as the monk achievement. But when you increase your karma again it changes. Can you make video decoding the ancient language including the extra karma symbols?
The extra karma symbols change depending on your current maximum karma. (Afaik, your max karma can never be 6.) At max 7, your top karma symbols are derived by having one "slot," which can be either a circle ◯ (6) or a line - (7). Each subsequent increase to max karma adds an additional "slot," arranged like flower petals. When your max is 8, your karma symbols have two slots, with either 0, 1, or 2 "filled" with lines: ◯◯ (6), ◯- (7), -- (8). Max 7: ◯ (6), - (7) Max 8: ◯◯ (6), ◯- (7), -- (8) Max 9: ◯◯◯ (6), ◯◯- (7), ◯-- (8), --- (9) Max 10: ◯◯◯◯ (6), ◯◯◯- (7), ◯◯-- (8), ◯--- (9), ---- (10)
I find it interesting that this is just "The short version" of it. There's literally a huge amount of information glossed over that I can't wait a for deep dive video sooner or later :D
Perhaps SoS did make Saint, even if Saint wasn't created before SoS' death/collapse. Some other thing must've happened to them, perhaps with their central can collapsing and effectively destroying their personified form and ability to speak. Maybe the remains of their facility carried out the last orders they received, by creating Saint. Perhaps their creation was so taxing on SoS' facility that it was the very thing that caused them to collapse. And then Saint, not knowing what else to do with itself, ventured out into the world to discover its purpose, unable to learn firsthand from its creator.
My first encounter with Void Worm was kinda hilarious, as they kept bumping into me, sending me flying back up and away from them, so the normally 2-3 minute swim to get their attention took nearly twice as long because they kept bumping into me and sending me way off course. It was mildly annoying, but overall just funny to me, because it felt like I was so insignificant to it that it failed to notice me getting flung away when it'd zip by. It almost seemed like by the end it was like "oh shit, sorry about that, here lemme help you traverse the void acid."
I think a cycle only works kinda lime this (my own theory I want to share) When a creature survives they move forward a cycle but if you died your age wouldn't go forward or something explaining how red lizards and King vultures died out because they were apex they rarely died aging so fast they died quickly and the fact they couldn't reproduce was also a factor there extinction anyway what I'm saying is if you don't die you grow and anything that did happen but if you do die then it doesn't grow because for it that cycle didn't happen for that creature and you keep growing till you start dying form age and then your stuck in dying everyday from old age making people really want to die
Sounds a lot like "The King's Great Matter" or whatever it was that used as a euphemism for Henry VIII trying to find a way to ditch Cathrine for Anne.
we probably know this now, but Five Pebbles states later that everything suffers the same cycle, from the bacteria in the processing strata, to the iterators themselves. Certainly, everything wants an escape from it.
The Saint still raises many questions. Why does he start with a maximum of only 2 karma? Why does Sliver of Straw fight back against the Saint if he created the Saint to be the solution and kill him?
I think it's cannon, when you go to the remix menu and click on the slugcats expansion, and try to unlock everything, the option "unlocking all challenges" is marked as a spoiler think about it, WHY would reaching level 70 in challenges would be even considered spoilers by the creators of the dlc if that fight wasn't cannon?
I think the detail of Saint climbing up instead of down maybe hint that he chooses to become an Echo instead of actually ascending. Whether or not Saint ascend is entirely based on his choice, he denies the void 'worms' from dragging him to ascension (downward).
I stumbled into rain world around a month & 1/2 ago, not knowing anything other than that I wanted to buy myself a gift, & that the game had once been recommended to me. Playing it was nightmarish -- I still haven't managed to beat it, in that time. If the gameplay is nightmarish, then I can only describe the lore as hellish & confusing. Thank you, for making these types of vids, & helping me navigate this small hell we find ourselves enamoured with.
Rain world is masterpiece, an absolute masterpiece, I met rain world thanks to you das. I've began playing it after that and it was a long and beautiful journey. This game never ceases to amaze me and I feel so grateful that people like you document this game because that allows new people to find out about this masterpiece! Thank you das for everything you have been doing, it is a beautiful journey.
There are some issues with the theory that Saint is ascending all the iterators (28:00). The cans falling over is consistent with the ravages of time, and is basically just what we see with Pebbles. And neither Moon nor Pebbles says anything about their fellow iterators getting crossed out one-by-one, either before or after Moon's hibernation, even though the iterators are in contact and this seems like it would be remarked on. As for Saint ascending Sliver, one of the More Slugcats devs who worked on Challenge Mode explicitly said on the RW discord that challenge 70 wasn't canon.
I saw a video about FEZ easter egg, where you need: some kind of secret things to make in saints campaign and go to the place, where will be wireframe of 3d blocky heart rotating. If you completed FEZ game(or have save file with game completed), then heart will be filled and after touching it saint is getting resetted(also this can be done only one time). So maybe that what iterators say when saying "you need to wake up from this dream", like, "go to another game or smth"... or it's just an easter egg
TO CLARIFY THE MISTAKES THAT I MADE:
- Challenge 70 isn't canon lmao whoops.
- SoS was confirmed to have been died before Saint was ever born.
Overall this entirely fucks my theory over, but also Saint is so weird that there are at least 3 other solid theories that I could think of to fit it better, maybe I'll make a video on 3 Saint theories or something in the future.
You might wanna pin this
Something tells me that this isn't gonna stop people from constantly claiming that Saint is the triple affirmative lol
@@Sinnamonsters I mean he's _a_ triple affirmative just not the one SoS evidently came up with.
@@Sinnamonsters To be honest with how finished things are at this point where theory can be as satisfying to stick with over actuality.
Unless there is somehow another DLC that makes the end of the challenge modes non-cannonicity actually relevant, people believing the saint is some time transcending thing like challenge 70 implies, able to attack things that existed long before its birth, a bizarre bhodisatva thing. Thats about as fine and satisfactory as anything the devs can say until they make something that contradicts the assumptions the challenges cast in a more visceral form. Which probably won't happen but it would be baller.
Honestly, that kinda sucks. I kinda love the idea that SoS created the Saint to ascend the iterators in the same way the ancients made the iterators to ascend themselves (and like the iterators, the Saint is unable to find a way to ascend themself). It would add to the theme of cycles in the game.
Ironic, the ancient created the iterators to help them but aren't allowed to die, and then one iterator did the same to the saint. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
Nobody really knows if Sliver made Saint, its just speculation because of challenge 70. Also how would Saint live for hundreds of cycles without doing anything and dying of old age?
EDIT: Also to everyone that thinks Saint ascended SOS, the devs confirmed that challenge 70 is not canon. Saint wasn't even born when SOS gave the triple affirmative
@@fridge9734 Purposed organism?
@@fridge9734 i thought challenge 70 was non-canon?
Maybe it is not Saint that kill Silver of staw but one of his ansester like his great-great-great grand father
@@cosmo1851 Someone said around that the devs said the "fight" is not cannot, aka the bullet hell, but nothing about whenever the encounter happened or not. So to say, saint styling on sliver isnt cannon but no info on whenever the encounter happened or not
Althoug as some say, neither anyone knows if saint was artificially created by sliver or some lucky find
Sliver really just "Dont worry guys i have a plan" - "Sliver has left the game:"
Imagine if Sliver didn't actually die and just said she found a solution and watched as the other Iterators went crazy in the group chat
Bros got that NSH genes
"What happened to our friend that was working on the problem of how to die? .......Oh. She succeeded."
Like...did no one consider that maybe she just forgot to write it down?
@@oklafornia3643 I'm curious why it seems no one bothered to investigate what might have happened, it's not like they couldn't have created a creature to go over there and it's not like they didn't know her location, and it's also not like they couldn't observe if they did,it just seems like they chose not to.
@@Nyghtking i think i remember one of the pearls stating that the anti-sliverists were partly concerned that the answer was dangerous. Like the solution Sliver stumbled upon was spontaneous and self-encompassing in the X process.
Which is EXACTLY what they're looking for, the bitter irony is that it's blasphemous for them to use it on themselves.
23:29 This isn’t actually why there’s an absurd amount of rain during rivulet’s campaign, at least not from what I interpreted.
The excessive rain is caused by Five Pebbles himself, in an attempt to slow down the rot’s progressive takeover of his can. This is said by 5P himself when he gives rivulet the task of retrieving his power cell to give to Moon, as he says that without it, he will lose the power to flush the rot out of his systems, and thus, he will slowly die, consumed by it. He will basically die of cancer faster than he would otherwise.
It’s also why the rain returns to normal after the removal of the cell, since, as stated, Pebbles lost the power to pump out such enormous amounts of rain to try to slow his death.
Its like the doctor pumps out blood because it has metastasis, without dealing the tumours.
I think the rain is probably more of a side-product of his attempts to flush out the Rot, not the actual attempts themselves
in general the rain seems to be produced as a result of them using up a lot of power, the more power they use the more rain they make
Pebbles is using up a lot of power in his attempts to slow down the Rot (and the Rot isn't helping as it's making his processes much less efficient), as a result he's simply producing a lot more rain than usual as a side effect
kinda leaves me wondering how much rain there would've been when he was doing his experients, and how the rain cycles might've been different when both Pebbles and Moon were fully functional.
He did said his systems has a mind of its own if you plug off rarefaction cell first THEN talk to Pebbles
Saint being echo makes so much sense, although he's not a normal one for sure
I think his main distinction is in his earthly tether to the world is a sort of 6th secret urge. The urge to ascend/help others. One that is virtuous in nature, yet still binds him to the material world, as if a string that let him dip into the turbo acid and get pulled back over and over again, which is how Silver of Straw managed to create the triple affirmative. She created a being that CAN return from the point of no return, which was the most important step to solving the great problem
Anyway floofy glock wielding scug is my favorite
Or she just invented a nuke
He's Jesus Cat, sacrificing himself so that the world may be saved
@@marceloantunes998 I love saint
didn't the developer say that the challenges are non-canon and silver of straw doesn't have much to doo with saint, though the theory could still be somewhat correct, a being that ascends others would bypass the taboo and help ascend those who had too many vices or not enough karma
in line with what you said, the 6th urge is probably the urge of echoes, since they can help other ascend, but they probably lacked full karma unlike saint,
there also other things that don't make sense, like why do slugcats find each other in the void sea during the endings, did they also find echeos and ascend, they weren't free of their desires since the only reason why survivor or monk went there would have been to find each other
why did artificer have a scar that didn't heal after each cycle, why did she not reunite with her kids when everything just respawns after dying, and how or why did they ascend when they were basically lone pups, did they get to the void and had no earthly urges, pretty sure wanting to reunite with your mother is one
another good one is why were the ancients so obsessed with their world, why didn't they look for answer outside their world in space and other worlds, i doubt they couldn't build a space ship when they could build ocean draining super computers, and even more so when they found out that the void is so corrosive it's eating away at their own world
also, how are the guardians able to read ones karma, like they are supposedly made by the ancients so they would have also known how to check their own karma and could have easily prevented echoes if they knew who was eligable for ascension and who was not, but there are at least from what we are shown 7 echoes, and probably even more in the rest of the world, so why or how were uneligable people allowed to ascend, since the guardians would have prevented them like they do to the slugcats, the fact that they aren't deactivated in game means that during the mass ascension the guardians were operational.
@@lvadimass the devs only said the fight isn't canon. Which is true, thry never said anything else though so it sounds like the devs baiting us
I find it interesting that the iterators didn't adopt the naming strategies of the ancients. Moon named rivulet Ruffles instead of something obscure like idk pure waters illume or splintering streams.
Devs: we do a little bit of trolling
I mean, who could resist a name like ruffles
Perhaps ruffles is short for something such as moon is short for looks to the moon
@@beawi994 ruffled feathers
@@beawi994 Ruffled Crest, Winding Rivulet
Seems poetic enough for me.
The slugcats are sapient.
They are quite aware of the environment they are in and can use it to their advantage. They can use a variety of tools with each one in versatile ways.
And as we see in the advanced movements, they are very aware of what their body is capable of.
They are capable of learning behaviors creatures, their strengths and weaknesses.
They can trade, even learn the trade values.
They can read the hologram picture/symbols the overseers use. They can even listen to complex commands the iterators give them.
They can give moon neurons and pearls even though there's no practical benefit.
They are capable of seeking vengeance.
They are capable of being religious as we see with Saint.
Absolutely, and -
They use tools, but some animals do that too. However, they also use tools to make other, better tools - they are technological, something only humans have ever done.
And they have a language. A proper one, with all nine characteristics of language. At least, Five Pebbles thinks so! When he asks you to tell the others to not visit him again in the future, he's asking you to demonstrate displacement and productivity with your 'grunts and jestures', which are the two of the nine characteristics that only human languages have. The ability to form new concepts out of old ideas and the ability to talk about things that aren't actually present in this place and/or time.
They have an apreciation of art. At least spearmaster doodles with no intention to show anyone else, an activity with zero survival advantage - except insofar as it helps build a culture and comunity.
Not only are slugcats sapient, odds are they have a culture too! It may be simple and underdeveloped, but that's likely more due to the harsheness of the enviornment limiting time for non-survival activities. We didn't explode in complexity until after the ice-ages ended for similar reasons.
They are capable of adopting a random pup they find for no other reason than because they're babies! Another one I thought of.
crazy almost like they have the same abilities as humans what a coincidence aha
@@connorsniples4010 can’t forget gourmand drawing the stories of its adventures to the other slug cats.
@@jayycw2105
At the very least, Gourmand's food quest and 5P monologue and Spearmaster's doodles are highly advanced and the fact that Slugcats are viable to use as messengers above all other species in the local iterator group implies quite a big feat, especially in the Hunter and Rivulet campaigns where Moon's life is literally saved by these devious little creatures. They aren't just intelligent by proxy of the player, they are canonically equal intelligence with humanity.
The irony of sliver of straw creating saint as a way to solve their accession the same way the ancients made the iterators is very poetic. There are so many cycles in this game
Its the whole theme, of course. Wonder what the next cycle will be, after saint. Will it be the scavs taking the place of Ancients? They seem to look simmilar
Challenge 70 isn’t canon. A lot of the things in this video are just plain wrong
The devs said that specifically the fight wasn't canon, they probably wouldn't have made that distinction if the challenge itself didn't have some lore implications
@@aditx4763 I think they meant many parts of the fight weren’t canon, but I believe there could’ve been canon things, such as saint being the “solution” that freed SoS
I would also like a source from @Hecobeco 2 and for them to elaborate more on what they think is “wrong”
It's all a loop!
A thing to add is something that Five Pebbles says is basically "your problem is the same as everyone's problem, from the microbes in the processing strata to me, who is godlike in comparison." When talking about ascending, implying it happens to everyone, not just semi intelligent creatures.
How dare you not even talk about the super important official dating sim lore that is totally accurate and not made up at all.
Information given from dating sim is most likely real but what happens there isn't i wonder what the egg is tho
@@Reynnan123 egg
And the REAL solution Five Pebbsi
I thought you say five pepsi
I think the egg is the universe, judging from how breaking it sucks everything into a massive destabilizing implosion and how Saint ascending it just sort of poofs the game
The scavengers are effected by the cycle, for instance if a scavenger dies when it wakes up again it will tell its raid party to go get you,
So that's how they know if I've killed one, without there being any witnesses..
also even the "microbes in the strata" are affected by the cycle, as stated by five pebbles
They also have karma points in artificers campaign
"Yo this dick is gonna try and kill me this cycle let's go beat his ass first"
Every single living organisms, presumably even cells and bacteria, are affected by the cycle.
Source: five pebbles
It's heavily implied that things can still die in the cycle, just from not their own perspective.
basically, when you die you get put into a sort of alternate universe back in time where you didnt die yet, however, every creature in the old universe that you died in will still percieve you as dead.
This was theorized even before downpour, but downpour does kind of confirm it since we see artificer's pups ACTUALLY dying, as well as other creatures dying forever.
I have thought of that but seeing now how it makes sense it could be much real
So like reverse Destiny revives. You die forever so your ghost grabs you from a universe where you survived.
To be fair, even if you’re stuck in a cycle, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll re-appear as what you once were or where you once were, does it?
(Yeah the way respawning works ingame sort of contradicts this but eh, gameplay over accuracy? Plus the kind of cycle you spawn into is different each time anyway which implies SOMETHING is changing)
During ascension you can see a lot of copies of the slugcat swimming besides you, I think that might be all versions of the slugcat from the alternate universes meeting in the void, since the end of their journey would be the same for every version.
@@spikkelkip8128 do you mean the end cutscene? I’m pretty sure that’s other slugcats that are ascending/have ascended, especially since when hunter ascends and is suddenly stricken with his affliction, it isn’t like it suddenly starts raining slugcats, they keep swimming even when he does not, which contradicts that theory since all versions of hunter have terminal cancer.
A larger theory i have: The rainworld events of an ancient type race eventually getting ascension have happened hundrets of times. This means there is a larger cycle over the shorter hibernation cycles. This also explains why Karma 6-9 are just circles being more an more crossed out, progressed and why Karma 10 is a crossed circle, a circle that has been xed, a circle that has been broken.(also they reason why saint needs karma 10)
Yeah but why 1-5 have a meaning but those are circles exept 10 which is an X
@@arnoldgila9212 because of what i wrote. 1-5 are the basic desires of life, meanwhile 6 is recognizing the bigger picture (circles in a circle) and than they progress to Karma 10. X the Circle aka destroy the circle aka break the circle
@@fabiopauli420 i see
I mean we know it's happened at least twice, and probably more than that
here’s my take at the potential timeline of the Saint triple affirmative great problem solution process:
•Saint goes to an iterator area
•Saint ascends
•saints’ greatest wish (and purpose) is to go back and help other’s ascend
•the void “brings him back”
•Saint is now once again some sort of semi echo
•in this semi echo state, he becomes a sort of soul delivery container, which is why his karma goes up when he meets (and then absorbs?) the other echoes
•once all echoes in the local iterator area are saved, he achieves max karma and gets cool mind powers (somehow)
•he is now able to manually ascend the souls of pretty much whoever he wants, but stronger/higher beings take more attempts
•(by what means? I have no clue. maybe he sends their souls directly to the void with his brain? Maybe he absorbs them into his own soul and brings them with him when he ascends?)
•once he’s gotten all the souls of everyone, he goes down to where the void SHOULD be
•the fact it’s gone maybe being proof he never completely left the void? his return to the surface was partly an illusion? As most of him was still within the void?
•Maybe echoes see themselves as normal, while everything else sees them as weird dark squid things
•the illusion breaks down and he falls out and past the void sea, to like a weird back rooms esque version of the real world
•he climbs upwards to reach the void sea, (I guess since he escaped it it sort of resets?)
•while he does not want to ascend, he can give those echoes within him to Another chance at ascension
•he swims upwards, and then pisses off the void worms, so they refuse his ascension, and remove all the karma from his soul as he is “clearly not ready” to ascend
• what these pissed off eldritch beings do not realize however, is that was NEVER the SAINT’S karma, but the karma of the trapped echoes he absorbed into his being.
•when they take away his karma and essentially reset him, they’re just accepting those echoes into ascension. (who are probably more than quailed to ascend by this point)
•the worms are mad at him( maybe meaning that the void fluid refuses to take his physical form?), and he doesn’t want to ascend, since both his physical and spiritual parts are intact, he’s back in the proper cycle and is no longer in that half echo limbo
•because he’s back in the cycle proper, and can’t/doesn’t want to ascend, he’s spit out into the REAL real world. And goes to another iterator compound
• he repeats this general pattern till EVERYONE is ascended
This is a really interesting theory, I do have one question though. In this theory it kinda sounds as if Saint is choosing not to ascend, instead of being forced to continue going on and on like what moon and 5p says. By this logic does it mean that Saint could actually ascend and that moon and 5p are wrong? Or can Saint not actually ascend but is still choosing to piss off the void worms so that the echoes in him can be realized? Not criticism, just something to think about.
@@ErraticSignal well discussions on free will are often controversial, because what is free will? maybe what hes doing is following his instincts as a purposed creature, whos purpose is to help everyone else ascend, i dont really know, imma keep it real i made this almost as soon as the video was released, im sure some parts of it are wrong, but it could really go both ways! maybe he cant ascend, maybe he doesnt want to ascend, maybe its both, or maybe its something else! i would ask him but, you know, he cant really speak!
@@ErraticSignal Saint is not some half effort boi. He will accend EVERY iterator of EVERY cycle. That is why his cycles never end and fold in on themselves. Saint physically cannot ascend things fast enough to catch up to infinity.
A lore summary truly worthy of a standing ovation. A game truly worthy of the title, "Game Of The Year." Das, thanks for everything. It's been an awesome journey discovering Rain World with you. I look forward to your future content and wish you great success.
Also if it wasn't already official, you deserve the title of 'Offical Lore Master'.
All hail the rain world lore master
All hail!
All Hail !!
All hail!!!
All hail!
Its so good to see 18 bowls make his return to the series!
Ahem, it's 18-Bowls-Experiencing-Movement. Get it right... JK😆
The Return of the King
I yelled "YES" when he made a return and his name was revealed
were did he use the character before?
@@Anonymouseyoutuber In the first lore video
Rain world lore is very RUclips
RTGame moment, respect
@@anthonythetophatter2834 RTGame is certainly very RUclips
Very RUclips indeed
just got to the last leg of saint and it is so RUclips
quite a youtube
29:58
There is cute detail about his ending
If you bring 1 or 2 slugpups they will show up in it
And Monk ending assumes that you did bringed 2 slugpups with you
I thought slagcats reproduce... asexually or is vegetative, or is it is female or Rain World.
@@HamNurf8 its stated on other parts of the game that Arti is female
But i would like slugcats worked much like or snails having bot genres.
@rissme besce where was it stated the arti is female?
@@stuffstuff3455 MSC Dating Minigame
@@stuffstuff3455 on the date sim from inv campaign!
This video seems like a good place to put my thoughts at:
So the Ancients had a calendar just like any advanced civilization would. A date in that calendar looks like this: "1591.290" or "1650.787". So it's obvious that the bigger the number the more time has passed, but what do these numbers mean exactly? Here's my theory: The second part (like "290" or "787") counts cycles. We do not see this number going above 1000, so I suppose when the count reaches 1000 cycles it adds one number to the first part ("1591" or "1650") and starts counting cycles over again. For instance, Five Pebbles increased his water consumption on 1654.108 and 8 cycles later on 1654.116 Moon used forced communications to contact him.
I don't know how good this theory is, so tell me.
I figured the second number could also be thousandths of a cycle, but that seems like too short a history, so I think your theory makes more sense
@@samuelcrow4701 Well, if we assume a cycle is as long as a day on Earth, then the Ancients have counted for more than twice the amount of time than we did with our modern calendar. And considering that (as this video says) a cycle is probably longer than 24 hours that makes the Ancients really ancient.
@@hlibushok the cycles are not 24 hours long, if you go to the top of the wall you can see the sun set and rise
@@zymosan99 You mean they are actually shorter?
@@hlibushok yea
I feel as though one very important slugcat was missed out...
:(
Thanks Andrew...
sofanthiel is simply too much for even a short-ish summary
sofanthiel obviously requires their own hour long video
Ahyes. Inv. AKA Inverted Slugcat.
28:10 This has probably been already said in the comments, but the devs said that challenge 70 is not canon, and the whole thing is just a touhou reference, with the attack patterns taken directly from one of the games.
i've also said it before in the comments, i think it feels cheap. i think it was just one of the devs, and did they outright deny the triple A saint solution with no explanation, or was it technically just the fight in the challenge (as in sliver didn't actually resist)?
how much of the lore did they confirm or deny so far? how involved are the devs in elucidating the in-game world? i think not much at all (tell me if i'm wrong), and generally lore is larger than what devs intend, and larger than games themselves (the line between canon and non-canon can be extremely fine), so it feels almost inappropriate, you know what i mean? detached from what understanding lore entails.
we're having an instance of solid reasoning for some aspect of the lore, with no apparent alternative atm, be counteracted with "some dude said nah on discord". i'm not saying it's not "true" canon-wise, i'm just saying that, if i understand it correctly, it's kinda trite.
what do you think?
@@calinguga well, fans usually come up with all sorts of theories, and most of them are always going to be wrong, that's just how it goes.
The devs generally aren't that involved and prefer not to tell too much to leave things somewhat ambiguous, but what we know for certain is:
1. Challenge 70 is not canon
2. Slugcats aren't significant (and that's a quote)
So saint cannot be the triple affirmative. A popular theory rn is that they are an echo experiencing the events of their campaign over and over with no actual influence on the real world.
Also, lore cannot be larger than what devs intend, make a step in any direction from certainty and you are in the headcanon territory
@@illum6 with lore being greater than devs i was thinking about all of art, what meaning you derive from it and overall what society gains from it may stand beyond what the artist originally intended (obviously); the latter may not even "matter" in some contexts, especially (and this is what i was thinking) if the message is meant to be ambiguous (as i would have expected from deep lore with little dev intervention). i really do believe canon and non-canon aren't black and white.
so i guess what i'm hoping is that there is a "real" explanation for the triple A, and it makes more sense, and it's cooler than saint, and it's not just obfuscating the lore for the sake of it.
also: isn't the slugcats aren't significant quote rather old, way before downpour?
anyway, that's all i had
@@illum6 they may have said slugcats aren't significant, but that's just patently false. Hunter, Spearmaster, and Rivulet have massive impacts on Pebbles and Moon.
@@chichi2000fgh Yes, but that's a negligible impact, especially so if you compare it to literally being the answer to the ultimate problem of a civilization. Slugcats can be messengers, but not much more than that
The iterator ad absolutely killed me (well, it failed to kill me, but you get what I mean), well done with that
I hope you do actually make an echos dialogue video, would love to hear you read them out as dramatically as possible.
I have a theory that the entire saint campaign takes place in the void.
Basically the saint has already ascended and there biggest wish is to help others to ascend so the void shows them doing that, but when you try to ascend your self you dont find the void sea because you are already in it, but doing that breaks the illusion.
In this theory the Rubicon is you trying to escape the void and you are about to when a void worm stops you putting you back into the illusion.
My theory is pretty dark lol
No I don't think that's true one simple reason is because it was revealed that the saint is a time traveler
@@mrt1880 When is that revealed?
ehh you'd think the whole god damn saint campaign taking place in the void would have more implications
@@mrt1880 I don't think the Dating Sim is cannon dude...
That does explain some things, I feel like this triple affirmative is more complicated than we think: here’s my potential timeline of how the Saint does it:
•Saint goes to an iterator area
•Saint ascends
•saints’ greatest wish (and purpose) is to go back and help other’s ascend
•the void “brings him back”
•Saint is now once again some sort of semi echo
•in this semi echo state, he can’t ascend, but as his wish is to help others ascend, he becomes a sort of soul delivery container, which is why his karma goes up when he meets (and then absorbs?) the other echoes
•once all echoes in the local area are saved, his spirit clean, he gains his full capabilities once more
•is able to ascends the souls of those who have not ascended, their physical forms going limp
•once he’s gotten all the souls of everyone, he goes down to where the void SHOULD be
•the fact it’s gone maybe being proof he never completely left the void? •his return to the surface was partly an illusion? As most of him was still within the void? Maybe echoes see themselves as normal, while everything else sees them as weird dark squid things
•the illusion breaks down and he falls out and past the void sea, to like a weird back rooms esque version of the real world
•he climbs upwards to reach the void sea, (I guess since he escaped it it sort of resets?) while he does not want to ascend, he can give those echoes within him to Another chance at ascension
•he swims upwards, and then pisses off the void worms, so they refuse his ascension, and remove all the karma from his soul as he is “clearly not ready” to ascend
• what these pissed off eldritch beings do not realize however, is that was NEVER the SAINT’S karma, but the karma of the trapped echoes he absorbed into his being.
•when they take away his karma and essentially reset him, they’re just accepting those echoes into ascension. (who are probably more than quailed to ascend by this point)
•the worms are mad at him( maybe meaning that the void fluid refuses to take his physical form?), and he doesn’t want to ascend, since both his physical and spiritual parts are intact, he’s back in the proper cycle and is no longer in that half echo limbo
•because he’s back in the cycle proper, and can’t/doesn’t want to ascend, he’s spit out into the REAL real world. And goes to another iterator compound
• he repeats this general pattern till EVERYONE is ascended
I'm skeptical of how far in the future saint REALLY is. the ice age probably happens because the iterators create so much heat (the water is coolant) and without them, the world is just as cold as it used to be.
Even if that's true, it's long enough that most of the iterators are dead or dying and for their structures to start falling over. I could see it being as short as hundreds of years but probably not shorter than that.
@@_zakk yeah, the Saint has to travel the World by foot, and unless some sort of Iterator-Tracker is part of them, they’d be searching blind. (Admittedly, for mountain-sized superstructures.)
Gourmand actually seems to solve a mystery about rain world that we never even thought to ask about in the first place, being how survivor got past the retaining wall in the first place. Not only that, but accidentally too. At that point, it just must mean that the survivor campaign before you finish Gourmand's is just not canon, given the retaining wall is closed. Which seems obvious in hind sight, I know, but it essentially means videocult retconned the original survivor and monk campaigns from canon even though you still have to play them
No you idiot survivor and monk happen after gourmand so the gate is open
@@raul-aurelianserban8295 the gate isn't open ingame if you haven't completed Gourmand's campaign. You can't get to the slug tree as survivor or monk without getting there as gourmand first, so your survivor/monk run before your gourmand run is noncanon because the gate is very very closed. That's why I say the ORIGINAL survivor and monk campaigns aren't canon, not that survivor and monk aren't canon at all
Wait, that mean in un-existenced Gourmand, 5P just adviced Survivor to literally go killed himself.... While he knew he had other option!
Survivor fell through a hole. You can find this hole in outer expanse. This hole has a gate you can go through to enter outskirts but you cannot go back.
I think the cycles work a little different from how you described them. Nothing is exempt from them and everything wants a way out, even the “microbes in my processing strata” as FP says. Also I think dying creates a “parallel timeline”, where you are reborn in your point of view, but are dead for good in other creatures’ perspective.
It couldn't create a parallel timeline.
If you kill another creature it may come back a few cycles later.
@@strawberrysunriseyt8165 They come back with different colors/species, though. So they're different creatures that have moved in.
@@tartarsauce1495 I presume ones from another timeline that they died in
I guess that works, but I prefer the idea that reincarnation is a thing, where people return but in a new body with only vague memories of their past life. That's how sometimes death seems to be permanent, like with Artificer's kids, but people still know about the Cycle. As for why that's not how it works in-game, well maybe that's just a case of lore being limited for the sake of gameplay. After all that's how karma works, gameplay-wise you just passively gain karma from surviving cycles and talking to Iterators and Echoes, while in lore it requires a lifetime of fasting and other religious doctrines.
@@archdruidbookwalter951 Oh I 100% agree. That's how it works with irl Buddhism, which is what Rain World is based off of. I was just commenting on what Das said. Tbh, Rain World's game mechanics and lore fit together like off-brand LEGOs.
This seems as good a place as any to add to the new Downpour theories.
WARNING! lotsa reading if you wanna check it out!
From what I've gathered, I think the Saint campaign starts at the end of _everything._ More specifically, the end of the _true_ cycle. Moon had mentioned something especially interesting during her dialogue in Rubicon. She says that the Saint's cycle "edges and twists over themselves, like circles within circles, your cycle consumes itself" which really stood out to me. Circles within circles, you say? That sounds an awful lot like each creature having it's own cycle, while a larger, more global cycle occurs.
This is why I think the Saint starts at the end of the global cycle, or all-encompassing cycle. A cycle in Rain World seems to entail a specific life-span of whatever creature you observe. If you visit Moon as Saint, she mentions there being other slugcats coming to visit her but by then they have "Long since passed" implying that the other slugcats ARE able to die.
I think that in order to end a creature's cycle said creature has to reach a specific goal, similar to the passages you have access to. I mean, look at the Survivor. You can hibernate as many times as you want, spend however much time you want exploring the world, but until you dive into the Void, or journey to the Outer Expanse, the game won't "end". This is where the Survivor's cycle _ends,_ until it's re-born once more when the global cycle loops. This is further supported by Pebble's dialogue, where he mentions seeing his own lifespan over and over again, but nothing outside of it.
This would explain why creatures you kill don't just send you back to the beginning of your last save. The creatures you kill don't HAVE an end goal, or maybe, they've already reached it.
And what's Saint's main gimmick asides from the tongue? _The inability to kill creatures without ascending them._ When Saint ascends a creature, they don't appear once more after a hibernation, they're _gone._ I even tested this, I spawned myself the usable spears for Saint and killed a bunch of spitter spiders. The next hibernation, they were still there. Saint is at the _END_ of everything. Saint, in their part of the timeline, prevents anything they ascend from coming back.
The last big question then is what qualifies as the end of the global cycle? What goal has to be met? Personally, however, I think what Saint is trying to accomplish is the destruction of the global cycle. When Saint ascends a creature, you won't see it again, no matter what you do. What better way to end the global cycle than by leaving nothing left TO loop? Nothing left, except the Saint itself, hunting down every last creature so that when the global cycle resets, it will be broken, no living beings to progress it.
That's what I think Moon and Five Pebbles mean when they speak about the Saint's cycle, they say that unlike others, the Saint's cycle has cycles within cycles, going in an infinite spiral with no defined ending. Because unlike every other creature, the Saint _CHANGES_ the global cycle. It starts again, but things have _CHANGED._ It's no longer quite a complete loop, even the echoes can feel it. One of the first echoes you meet says they swear they've seen you before, that a massive change has occurred. This could of course be a reference to the passage of time, but it doesn't feel entirely accurate.
The Saint IS the Triple Affirmative. It's why the opening cutscene is of the Saint waking up and _remembering._ Because unlike what we've seen of other slugcats, when the Saint completes a cycle, THEIR cycle, the changes _last._ Their progress isn't entirely reset, their actions _mattered._ The Saint doesn't reach the goal they're assigned to, no, they REJECT the void, they RETURN and swim upwards. The Saint rejects their given goal, and forces the cycle to reset instead, permanently changing it to their whims. The 'cycle" is no longer just a perfect circle anymore, to me, it looks a little more like a _spiral._ Hell, compared to the other slugcat's void adventures, the Void Worms, the one constant, _changed._
Their name is far more accurate than we gave it credit for. The Saint will ascend everything but itself, assuming the true role of a true matyr. _The End Of Everything, even the Void._
Or, at least, that's my theory.
Does that mean it's possible to completely empty Saint's world of enemies? Would be interesting to test out
bro i thought its just a game about cute slugboi running around post-apocalyptic world, not a frickin knock-off Evangelion
@@sultan4d169 More like a mutant Buddha willingly reincarnating to show (or in this case, force) others out of the cycle of reincarnation.
I don't know if this idea is original, but i believe the 5 urges could have multiple different meanings.
1 - violence, maybe anger/aggression too
2 - reproduction, love (for other people, for a beautiful landscape, etc)
3 - greed, materialism, friendship (urge 3 is implied to be tied to trade, and you only trade with those you trust; friends)
4 - probably just gluttony, maybe any other kind of excess vice too (think drinking, smoking, etc)
5 - self-preservation, survival, possibly perseverance/determination as well
does anyone else think this is true?
Take these, for easier navigation.
0:00 - Intro
1:20 - The Cycle
4:50 - The Ancients
10:20 - The Iterators
17:04 - The Game Events
24:30 - The Void
26:22 - The Saint
33:00 - Outro
I want to point out for the little drawn slugcat timeline that I'm pretty sure there is implied to be a decent amount of time between survivor and monk's story, as the rot has taken over FP a significant amount since survivor in the monk story, and the Pearls have gone blank. But maybe I've missed this being made not the case by the story.
i think downpour reversed the 'pearls going blank' thing for monk?
i think they made that be the case for saint tho
@@minnarew Hm, interesting, I didn't know that.
I suspect the blank pearls for monk are just a game convenience, or rather inconvenience. As the easy mode, they don't let him get the juicy lore.
i have been waiting for this video for days. i absolutely adore your explanations of rain world.
I've always been under the impression that it's eventually possible for a creature's physical body to eventually become uninhabitable, if you somehow pretty much softlock yourself by age or falling into a hole or something idk.
I assume that Hunter is an exception because his body never fully degrades but is basically sustained on auto-pilot and keeping him trapped.
But if that happens you eventually just reincarnate as another creature. It would explain why every the ancients were able to all die out despite not all of them wanting to ascend and why the world isnt horribly overpopulated by slugcats stuck in perpectual resurrection.
Alternatively, it's a multiverse and from our own perspective everyone else dies perminently but they reincarnate in a new timeline. (this might be more likely based on the More Slugcats stuff?)
I bet the ancients aren’t gone, there’s just way less of them, and they probably gathered to a different location. Hell with how advanced the ancients were it would not surprise me if they have colonised other planets
I'm not sure if there _are_ other planets in this universe. One pearl even mention the stars fixed on a sphere
Well its worth noting amongst the stars in the sky are weird green lights that dont share the same shape as the stars when you're atop the wall
there is a problem with that theory
cause some ancients would forget about some of their people and what if scavengers are ancients just more wild since they lost the technology and society ladders
its like imagine if babies or kids dont understand what void fluid is and never entered one so they grew primitive way
also if you were a god and mortality is not concern you would just build for fun and make entities so they interact with it for no reason
as for iterators i would guess some of them would get sick of trying to solve a unsolvable problem and just do whatever they want
@@samuelcrow4701 oh my goodness it’s a simulation! Or maybe The sky is just like that in their reality?
I'm not convinced that the Scav's aren't remnants of the previous society, whom have chosen not to ascend.
3:50 in samsara concept every creature can be reborn as another creature in the next life. like an animal can be reborn as different specie of animal. I think this concept is what happens with lineage system
also the idea that creatures are not just respawning but reborning makes artificer campaign make sense. if your pups will just respawn in the next cycle after death, why grieve them
@@cat_mintfur513 *Artificer is confused by two very docile Red Lizards looking intently at her.*
“Mom you’re still murdering scavs?”
I think Saint might be a dalai lama sequence figure, one who has escaped the cycle but chooses to remain in it to help others escape it too
Regarding the cycle. The way I understand it (and the way that makes the most logical sense) it that when a creature dies, they are reincarnated as a new, different being. They don’t go back in time or wake up in the same body, but instead are born into a new one. This new body then eventually regains some or all memories of their previous iterations - after all, it they didn’t no one would even know the cycle was a thing. This would account for arti’s slugpups dying and then disappearing, as they actually did die - but via the cycle were reborn as different slugpups elsewhere. This may also explain why the ancients had such long names, how animals evolved over time, and why seven red suns was worried about spearmaster dying. This theory assumes that when the slugcat you’re playing at dies and you reach the game over screen that it is a non-canon death.
Super like this theory. About the last part, would it be unfair to assume everytime you die, you ARE reincarnated as a new, different being? Just the same species. Then this would make for the first theory ive read in these comments without a "except for this one major plotpoint"
Congrats on 20k das, here's to 50 or even 100k or perhaps even further!
Aicent:"i also gave him depresion but he doesnt know it yet!"
Iterator:"wait you gave me what?"
That part had me rolling
23:00
You can return with slugpups to that ending to see them with you.
Also, you can find the exact place where survivor slipped and take same route to outskirts via a mini cutscene
Glad to see you are continuing with the robot mascot thingie. it looks awesome :D
I always figured that the Cycle was more than just the gameplay loop of die, try again when you wake up in the same place as before you died. I see it as a reincarnation. Sure, the previous is true as well, but once you get to a certain age, that body dies for good, and you are reborn a baby, knowing who you once were. Everyone knowing who you are.
I dunno about you, but being haunted by the memories and consequences of my past actions, ALL my past actions from every life I have lived ad nauseam, would be enough to make me want to take a void bath too.
A wonderful summary indeed.
I feel bad for poor Saint and the Iterators in general.
HOLY SHIT IT'S HERE
I've been waiting for this ever since the Saint video omg it feels like it's been ages!
You forgot what Pebbles tells you as survivor (and monk i think). He says that every living thing shares the same frustration (that being the cycle), from the microbes of his processing strata to him who is, if you excuse, godlike in comparison. So yeah it is stated that every living thing is trapped in the cycle and not just conscious beings.
Also challenge mode is not canon, as stated by the devs so we dont actually know if sliver created sait or not.
Also also one interesting thing is if saint did ascend other iterators, others would for sure notice and i feel like we'd know about it by the time our campaigns happen. Or maybe its not as obvious who knows.
Perhaps Saint didn't start ascending Iterators until their communications broke down. It's mentioned that it's a small miracle their communications were still up by Spearmaster's campaign, they could easily have lost contact with each other at some point that would still give Saint plenty of time to do their work.
Each campaign explains/shows some of the game's most important factors
Spearmaster - The Looks to the Moon facility
Artificer - A Natural urge being put to practice
Hunter - How Moon came back
Gourmand - Where are the other slugcats
Rivulet - Five Pebbles collapse
Saint - How Sliver of Straw ascended
We would love the Echo reading. Your voice is really good at it
my favorite interpretation of the Great Cycle is that when you die, instead of waking up where you last slept, you are reincarnated with memories of your last lives. the waking up where you last slept in-game is simply a game mechanic. this is supported by moon telling hunter "...you will wake right back up again." or smth. we can see that hunter very much doesn't wake up again if you die, so it more likely means hunter reincarnates.
oh this also explains why artificer's kids can be killed and why she can murder all the scavs
I just realised the Iterator salesman dude has the karma symbol for commerce on their head.
That's a very nice touch!
Love your community-driven biomes vids that show what new kinds of animals would live in different biomes.
Edit: grammar corrections and "yes" to the echoes video.
I don't think the 3rd karma symbol represents materialism, but rather "companionship". We can see it in the glyphs for The Friend, The Mother, and The Chieftan as well as the achievements A New Friend and An Old Friend.
The mural does depict barter, so it might be more along the lines of "cooperation" with other living things. But overall, it's other people tying you down to this world.
23:37
You said the rot mimics the functionality of 5 Pebbles, I thought it was just 5 Pebbles desperately trying to keep the rot at bay by flushing his systems with water as often as possible.
Am i the only one who shed a tear for hunter's ending?
I just came from watching the morbidly obese pole plant video, wondering when the downpour lore was coming out and here it is
Sliver of Straw carrying Saint around the room: THE SOLUTION IS PORTABLE!!!
the story behind artificer hit me so hard, i nearly cried, i still want to, and in my runs, everyone gets to ascend but the youtube scavengers
I feel like it’s especially sad with Artificer disappearing out of the Void Sea, they probably become an Echo. Not one like Saint, just a normal one.
The whole process of what makes people echoes is there’s a part of their very being so strong it tethers them to the physical world, and we see Artificer’s anger and want for violence was incredibly powerful.
imagine what would happen for a mother irl if they visibly witness their children to be mirked by a specific group/gang/faction somewhere on this planet ?
do you think she is just gonna sit there for the rest of their life sobbing ? few will, but mostly will acquire such anger and hatred for what took their children they will do anything in their power to destroy that very thing.
Is it a coincidence that max karma also looks like a no entry symbol
Probably not. Iterators refer to the "taboo" (self-destruction) as "crossing themselves out".
You may have killed the man (removing the Nekopara poster) but you'll never kill the idea 18:36
das taking challenge 70 as canon took about a decade off of my life
Its best explanation for what we got, maybe whole fight is not canon, but general idea makes sense
the challenge itself isnt canon, but what is shown is likely canon. Obviously Saint and SOS didnt fight but SOS dying to the saint likely is canon
"Do you want me dramatically read the eco dia-"
YES!!!
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
I’ve been waiting for this for a while now and I must say it was worth the wait
I absolutely adore the idea of a dramatic echo reading
Saint: '' blows up pancakes with mind''
as someone who just watched your year old video on rainworld lore, it is. SO IMMENSELY FUNNY to begin watching this one for the dlcs lore and immediately being told that the video i JUST WATCHED is bad. subscribed for that experience alone. i just goddamn transcended.
I think the voidsea allows beings to not only interact with other timelines ( how theres multiple of the slugcats swimming when they ascened) but also become one with them.
Fivepebbles talks about saint's cycle intertwining with his so maybe that's a property being carried over from the void?
to my understanding assension is finding true happyness and being willing to sarcafice everything for it (this is true for survivor arti monk and hunter)
18 BOWLS MY BELOVED !!!
The frontier cameo was worth it very very worth it
I love how rain world lore dances the line of cosmically terrifying and wholesome lil guys with its lore.
I got to the part where Das said “Now it’s time to talk about that fuzzy green elephant in the room” before immediately getting an ad for Zaxby’s Asian Zensation Salad
I previously had no idea how much gravity the Saint had in the lore. Awesome!!!
I really would not like to ascend. I would honestly lock my brain in a giant superstructure, which expands its memory and repairs it. That is how paranoid I am. So basically if I get my way I will become a war fortress iterator. The ancients had a great gift and they didn’t use it. With the technology they had, you could live every possible life you could ever want
yeah the main problem with immortality is that you would have to deal with the death of your loved ones but when everyone is immortal that problem doesn't really exist and now it's just boredom that would become the main problem
but hey maybe they should of developed the internet or something they had the tech(idk if they did already there's not really many indications or it to me imo)
Would you just preserve your brain and it's memories or would you let it keep thinking, because if you let it keep thinking, it would probably start rethinking your stand on ascending at some point making you want to ascend.
@@VoidWorldGaming I mean the iterators are literally pulling discord meetings, is that not the internet in some form already?
Did they not get to make films, art tech? Yet are able to make these building sized supercomputers that somehow didn’t become some skynet arc?
@@forkgodsdescendant2503 i think they had some form of internet but it was more so overlooked and used for more so information transferring/communication with a lack of entertainment and other aspects of our internet
like going on a phone connected to the internet and only email and wikipedia existing with no such things as youtube
but that's just what i think and i just haven't picked up on the really obvious stuff saying that they had internet and video games alongside things like... twitter
@@VoidWorldGaming meanwhile in an alternate universe where the Hunter played pong with 5P until he dropped.
I still love you're Girl's last Tour videos ・▽・
Daszombes when he has to explain void fluid for the 30th time
Wow, Saint BEING the Triple Affirmative, as well as it being a true echo is insane to me…Rubicon is so crazy lore-wise too. Wonderful work on the summery, talked thoroughly on a lotta stuff and it’s all very useful ^^💖💕!! Astounding work well done yet again, looking forward to seeing the iterator model more + what the next project could possibly be 👀💫✨!!
If you don't know, you can give pearls to pebbles as artificer.
Also when you first increase your karma with an echo, the sixth starts out as the same symbol as the monk achievement.
But when you increase your karma again it changes.
Can you make video decoding the ancient language including the extra karma symbols?
The extra karma symbols change depending on your current maximum karma. (Afaik, your max karma can never be 6.)
At max 7, your top karma symbols are derived by having one "slot," which can be either a circle ◯ (6) or a line - (7).
Each subsequent increase to max karma adds an additional "slot," arranged like flower petals. When your max is 8, your karma symbols have two slots, with either 0, 1, or 2 "filled" with lines: ◯◯ (6), ◯- (7), -- (8).
Max 7: ◯ (6), - (7)
Max 8: ◯◯ (6), ◯- (7), -- (8)
Max 9: ◯◯◯ (6), ◯◯- (7), ◯-- (8), --- (9)
Max 10: ◯◯◯◯ (6), ◯◯◯- (7), ◯◯-- (8), ◯--- (9), ---- (10)
I find it interesting that this is just "The short version" of it. There's literally a huge amount of information glossed over that I can't wait a for deep dive video sooner or later :D
Wow a new video! You are one of the people who i found out about rain world from!
I was just binging your videos when this dropped, great timing lol
I just love how the ancients referred to themselves with incredibly out there names.
- 7 deadly wanks, exposed foreskin
When you started to talk about the ancients I got an ad.
"We will call them"
"..."
"Sweet Tarts"
the diffrent playable characters being at diffrent points in the timeline is so cool
help Five Pebbles complete his shopping list and finish the oversized errand.
Congrats on 20k gamer
Also hyped for that Echo video
Perhaps SoS did make Saint, even if Saint wasn't created before SoS' death/collapse. Some other thing must've happened to them, perhaps with their central can collapsing and effectively destroying their personified form and ability to speak. Maybe the remains of their facility carried out the last orders they received, by creating Saint. Perhaps their creation was so taxing on SoS' facility that it was the very thing that caused them to collapse. And then Saint, not knowing what else to do with itself, ventured out into the world to discover its purpose, unable to learn firsthand from its creator.
an ad popped up right after he said "lets get started by talking about" and it was a rating pop up saying "blood violence"
My first encounter with Void Worm was kinda hilarious, as they kept bumping into me, sending me flying back up and away from them, so the normally 2-3 minute swim to get their attention took nearly twice as long because they kept bumping into me and sending me way off course. It was mildly annoying, but overall just funny to me, because it felt like I was so insignificant to it that it failed to notice me getting flung away when it'd zip by. It almost seemed like by the end it was like "oh shit, sorry about that, here lemme help you traverse the void acid."
I think a cycle only works kinda lime this (my own theory I want to share)
When a creature survives they move forward a cycle but if you died your age wouldn't go forward or something explaining how red lizards and King vultures died out because they were apex they rarely died aging so fast they died quickly and the fact they couldn't reproduce was also a factor there extinction anyway what I'm saying is if you don't die you grow and anything that did happen but if you do die then it doesn't grow because for it that cycle didn't happen for that creature and you keep growing till you start dying form age and then your stuck in dying everyday from old age making people really want to die
Sounds a lot like "The King's Great Matter" or whatever it was that used as a euphemism for Henry VIII trying to find a way to ditch Cathrine for Anne.
we probably know this now, but Five Pebbles states later that everything suffers the same cycle, from the bacteria in the processing strata, to the iterators themselves.
Certainly, everything wants an escape from it.
The Saint still raises many questions. Why does he start with a maximum of only 2 karma? Why does Sliver of Straw fight back against the Saint if he created the Saint to be the solution and kill him?
I believe the only reason Sliver has a boss fight is for gameplay. The devs said the fight is not really canon.
@@kalamies. they probably could have also said they were programmed to not be able to just let something kill them without resistance
I think it's cannon, when you go to the remix menu and click on the slugcats expansion, and try to unlock everything, the option "unlocking all challenges" is marked as a spoiler
think about it, WHY would reaching level 70 in challenges would be even considered spoilers by the creators of the dlc if that fight wasn't cannon?
@@alejotassile6441 the saints power is spoilers
@@alejotassile6441 devs said its not canon lol
I think the detail of Saint climbing up instead of down maybe hint that he chooses to become an Echo instead of actually ascending.
Whether or not Saint ascend is entirely based on his choice, he denies the void 'worms' from dragging him to ascension (downward).
"was likely made by silver of straw to ascend her"
that makes soooo much sense
I love how the guy that sells iterators has the 3rd karma symbol that means materialism
I stumbled into rain world around a month & 1/2 ago, not knowing anything other than that I wanted to buy myself a gift, & that the game had once been recommended to me. Playing it was nightmarish -- I still haven't managed to beat it, in that time. If the gameplay is nightmarish, then I can only describe the lore as hellish & confusing.
Thank you, for making these types of vids, & helping me navigate this small hell we find ourselves enamoured with.
Rain world is masterpiece, an absolute masterpiece, I met rain world thanks to you das. I've began playing it after that and it was a long and beautiful journey. This game never ceases to amaze me and I feel so grateful that people like you document this game because that allows new people to find out about this masterpiece! Thank you das for everything you have been doing, it is a beautiful journey.
"The Bloated Duty" - That's what I'm going with.
Either that or "The not-at-all insignificant tribulation".
Echos read through??? Incredible voice work and audio design? Totally totally will be here for that when you get to it!!
There are some issues with the theory that Saint is ascending all the iterators (28:00). The cans falling over is consistent with the ravages of time, and is basically just what we see with Pebbles. And neither Moon nor Pebbles says anything about their fellow iterators getting crossed out one-by-one, either before or after Moon's hibernation, even though the iterators are in contact and this seems like it would be remarked on.
As for Saint ascending Sliver, one of the More Slugcats devs who worked on Challenge Mode explicitly said on the RW discord that challenge 70 wasn't canon.
I saw a video about FEZ easter egg, where you need: some kind of secret things to make in saints campaign and go to the place, where will be wireframe of 3d blocky heart rotating. If you completed FEZ game(or have save file with game completed), then heart will be filled and after touching it saint is getting resetted(also this can be done only one time). So maybe that what iterators say when saying "you need to wake up from this dream", like, "go to another game or smth"... or it's just an easter egg
It's just an easter egg, the reset is a reference to the several times FEZ returns you to the title screen after "crashing"
I can't imagine Saint being responsible for the iterators collapsing. Saint doesn't even have that power yet when it started the game.
Yooo u doing the funke badger animation kind thats great