Thoughts on the Narrative (Possible Spoilers)

[Solumn Trade]

I haven't beat the game yet, but from snippets I'm getting from books, the behavior and appearance of the Drifters, the ignorance of the traders, the Tinkerer class, and finally the Eldritch-being seems to point to the fact they are not what they seem.

My theory is that the Drifters are creatures similar to those found in the movie '9', which is about tiny burlap dolls possessed by pieces of the inventor's soul to fight against a rouge military AI. But in this case, a clockwork AI was created to assist with stopping a zombie plague. In the end, a search for a cure was abandoned, and instead the inventor and the AI decided on an alternative to save the world: TIME TRAVEL.

However, while the zombie outbreak was stopped via an incursion by Drifters created by the clockwork AI, the AI was driven mad by the suffering the Drifters went through due to paradoxes tearing them apart, multiplying them. The AI realized that, due to the paradox, it had to make a choice: Either it succumbs to being forgotten, and humanity is saved, or seize the future for itself. Considering the pain it was going through (which would normally be impossible for it to feel), it did not feel particularly heroic. Its creator attempted to stop it, but all they could manage was preventing it from escaping. But they themselves were overwhelmed by the Drifters. So, the Drifters replaced the zombies as the threat, and most people assumed the Drifters were related to the zombie plague, because of course they never knew about an AI that was never invented.

Now that time is broken, and the world is slowly falling apart...eventually, the AI will be claimed by the temporal apocalypse itself, and be turned into the eldritch being we see during temporal storms. However, while the end of the world is one possibility, one side effect of time falling apart is people who would've normally been around during the zombie apocalypse have been yanked from that original timeline, to the one where the AI has destroyed civilization.

Now both timelines compete to exist.

This is both a lore theory, and perhaps a suggestion to the developer as to where to take the story. I kinda want multiple endings like Undertale, with the possibility to make peace with the AI (after many attempts, Naruto style). Alas, no matter how hard you try, only one timeline can exist...and the clockwork AI knows this.

[Bumber]

AI is way beyond pre-apocalypse tech level, which was pre-electricity. (Possibly 1400s, the era of Da Vinci.) It was a feudal society on the verge of revolution.

Confirmed lore is that inevitable extinction of all life via plague was traded for the current state of things. Temporal gears were more eldrich alchemy than understood tech, even before.

No indication that time travel was attempted. They decided to take a sledgehammer to the clock instead, upending the natural order to the point where the Rot could no longer progress.

It's not directly hinted at, but I've inferred that drifters are the new state of rot zombies. (Rust is rot for iron.) Everyone who succumbed before the "fix", non-contagious but still deadly. Uncertain if they're theoretically finite in number, or they just endlessly reset like seraphs (players).

Edited November 12, 2024 by Bumber

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Bumber said:

No indication that time travel was attempted. They decided to take a sledgehammer to the clock instead, upending the natural order to the point where the Rot could no longer progress.

Kind of, though I would argue that time travel was a thing, if only an unintentional side effect of whatever that crafty Jonas was up to. The seraphs seem to be the humans who got "lost" to time, changed as a result of whatever shenanigans ensued in the pursuit of saving the world. There do still seem to be other humans remaining in the world, that have just kinda been adjusting to the new reality over however many years the seraphs have been lost in time.

1 hour ago, Bumber said:

It's not directly hinted at, but I've inferred that drifters are the new state of rot zombies. (Rust is rot for iron.) Everyone who succumbed before the "fix", non-contagious but still deadly. Uncertain if they're theoretically finite in number, or they just endlessly reset like seraphs (players).

I do believe you are correct here, in that drifters and their like are the corrupted remains of people and animals that succumbed to the Rot. As for how many there are, I would assume there's a finite number of them, but that number is almost certainly too big for the plan of "kill them all, save world" to be of much use. I'd also wager you're probably correct about them having some sort of respawning ability, similar to the seraphs. If seraphs can respawn, after all, and are the "good" byproduct of tampering with time, then it stands to reason that drifters are the opposite result of that tampering.

1 hour ago, Bumber said:

AI is way beyond pre-apocalypse tech level, which was pre-electricity. (Possibly 1400s, the era of Da Vinci.) It was a feudal society on the verge of revolution.

Confirmed lore is that inevitable extinction of all life via plague was traded for the current state of things. Temporal gears were more eldrich alchemy than understood tech, even before.

Pretty much the core of it, though I would argue there was a sort of AI invented as a result of Jonas and his tinkering. Given it's a late medieval setting, "AI" isn't the term that's going to be used in the setting, but given that the mechanical creations of Jonas could operate autonomously in many cases, AI is basically what was driving it. In regards to the temporal alchemy stuff...yeah, that's an apt description of it as well, heh heh. Essentially, somebody scienced too hard, before asking if they should be in the first place.

[ifoz]

7 hours ago, Solumn Trade said:

My theory is that the Drifters are creatures similar to those found in the movie '9', which is about tiny burlap dolls possessed by pieces of the inventor's soul to fight against a rouge military AI. But in this case, a clockwork AI was created to assist with stopping a zombie plague. In the end, a search for a cure was abandoned, and instead the inventor and the AI decided on an alternative to save the world: TIME TRAVEL.

The Rot was much more of a "consume everything and turn it to dead sludge" plague than anything to do with zombies. Drifters themselves are reanimated through the corrupting force of the Rust, not any kind of zombie virus.

Spoiler for a quick rundown of the lore:

Spoiler

Basically Jonas utilised a philosopher's stone, as well as his great machine to make people immortal (turning them into Seraphs) and flinging them into the future so that humanity could survive the Rot. Unfortunately, it only worked for some lucky people. The activation of the machine was such a massive event that it tore holes in space-time, allowing the Rust to influence people and the world at large. This is how drifters came to be - they are warped and twisted humans/human corpses forced back into a terrible existence by the Rust.

While robots/AI do exist in the game and in the canon lore, we do not know the entire part they play. We hear whispers of a strange 'Machine God', which in my eyes could be Jonas' great machine itself, having somehow gained sentience or following out some directive.

Edited November 12, 2024 by ifoz

[Maelstrom]

@ifoz I contend that Falx is not the savior of the human race.  Until about a year ago the website indicated VS has Lovecraftian roots (now changed to eldritch).  Lovecraft wrote about what happens when other dimensions intersect with earth.  My thought is that some extra-dimensional event happened the caused the Rot (see Color out of Space by Lovecraft) to begin with.  Falx, began researching/investigating and came across extra-dimensional knowledge (the Case of Charles Dexter Ward) leading him to create the various machines hinted at but also leading to changing everyone committed to his cause to drifters (see Breakdown and Confession in-game lore).  Those humans that chose paths apart from Jonas survived and rebooted civilization.  Seraphs?  The very name implies an extra-dimensional being that has appeared to somehow fix things (see The Shunned House by Lovecraft) and the in-game script while the game is loading and closing indicate such when the script says, "return once again" and "alone once again."

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

@ifoz I contend that Falx is not the savior of the human race.  Until about a year ago the website indicated VS has Lovecraftian roots (now changed to eldritch).  Lovecraft wrote about what happens when other dimensions intersect with earth.  My thought is that some extra-dimensional event happened the caused the Rot (see Color out of Space by Lovecraft) to begin with.  Falx, began researching/investigating and came across extra-dimensional knowledge (the Case of Charles Dexter Ward) leading him to create the various machines hinted at but also leading to changing everyone committed to his cause to drifters (see Breakdown and Confession in-game lore).  Those humans that chose paths apart from Jonas survived and rebooted civilization.  Seraphs?  The very name implies an extra-dimensional being that has appeared to somehow fix things (see The Shunned House by Lovecraft) and the in-game script while the game is loading and closing indicate such when the script says, "return once again" and "alone once again."

This actually reminds me of one thing that crossed my mind the other day when reading the Quartermaster's Letter. Personally, I think Jonas's discoveries lead to the creation of both seraphs, though I'm of the opinion that the drifters were probably an unfortunate side effect. The seraph turning might have been as well. In any case, after reading the letter again, I'm beginning to wonder if those turned to seraphs and sent forward in time were willing participants, or forced into it. The letter mentions three different people that were taken by force, though it does not indicate where or for what purpose. It could just be that those individuals were infected and removed from the shelter, or it could be that more workers were needed in the mines and they were the unlucky ones chosen. Part of me wonders though, that if these letters were written wherever Jonas was working on his project, if those individuals weren't hauled away to serve as test subjects. If that was going on, it could be one of the reasons Jonas wound up having a mental breakdown.

Speaking of lore though, one thing I do find fascinating is just how much there is to unpack. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, you can go back and read the same old thing again and stumble across a fresh new perspective!

[ifoz]

8 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Seraphs?  The very name implies an extra-dimensional being that has appeared to somehow fix things (see The Shunned House by Lovecraft) and the in-game script while the game is loading and closing indicate such when the script says, "return once again" and "alone once again."

The Seraphs (and much of the lore) is heavily rooted in IRL alchemy myth. Seraphs in alchemy are humans granted a higher form (and immortality) by a philosopher's stone - which Jonas is confirmed to have created by various tapestries, symbols and item descriptions.

Our Seraphs also seem fond of Jonas. There's a tapestry quote from the player character view that describes what Jonas once said in private - indicating a closer relationship than being strangers to him.

Edited November 13, 2024 by ifoz

[Maelstrom]

As @LadyWYT mentioned re-reading lore can uncover newer depths.  I need to do that as the position I stated is one I created during my first discovery of the lore as I found it in game, which as we all know, takes a lot of time.  

[Bumber]

On 11/11/2024 at 8:01 PM, LadyWYT said:

Kind of, though I would argue that time travel was a thing, if only an unintentional side effect of whatever that crafty Jonas was up to. The seraphs seem to be the humans who got "lost" to time, changed as a result of whatever shenanigans ensued in the pursuit of saving the world. There do still seem to be other humans remaining in the world, that have just kinda been adjusting to the new reality over however many years the seraphs have been lost in time.

[...]

Pretty much the core of it, though I would argue there was a sort of AI invented as a result of Jonas and his tinkering. Given it's a late medieval setting, "AI" isn't the term that's going to be used in the setting, but given that the mechanical creations of Jonas could operate autonomously in many cases, AI is basically what was driving it. In regards to the temporal alchemy stuff...yeah, that's an apt description of it as well, heh heh. Essentially, somebody scienced too hard, before asking if they should be in the first place.

Well, they possibly got sent forward in time. Lore (Seraphim tapestry, not sure if there's another) implies they may have been brought to the present from the moment of their natural deaths, which would tie directly to the respawn mechanic. However, it's uncertain if they experienced the intermediate time or not. If their consciousness was drifting through the aether at a rate of 1 second per second, then it's not meaningful time travel.

Did Jonas invent a mechanical intelligence, or did he shove an existing ghost into a machine? "Eidolon" means "spirit", which may imply they're just possessed, like a golem. Frankenstein created life, but he used Abby Normal's an existing brain.

On 11/12/2024 at 8:59 AM, Maelstrom said:

Seraphs?  The very name implies an extra-dimensional being that has appeared to somehow fix things (see The Shunned House by Lovecraft) and the in-game script while the game is loading and closing indicate such when the script says, "return once again" and "alone once again."

It seems to be the world addressing the player (who is basically analogous to the seraph, so yeah).

Edited November 17, 2024 by Bumber

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Bumber said:

Did Jonas invent a mechanical intelligence, or did he shove an existing ghost into a machine? "Eidolon" means "spirit", which may imply they're just possessed, like a golem. Frankenstein created life, but he used Abby Normal's an existing brain.

I think it's likely he kinda did both, in that he started with basic mechanical intelligence, and then ended up shoving(perhaps unintentionally) entities from the "other world" into his devices to achieve the higher functionality. What he probably didn't count on was the machines turning on him, and potentially multiplying themselves.

3 hours ago, Bumber said:

It seems to be the world addressing the player (who is basically analogous to the seraph, so yeah).

I get similar impressions. It's like a more polished form of the wall of ending text from the other block game.