Calmest_of_lakes Posted February 2 Report Posted February 2 (edited) one thing that I noticed pretty quickly is that the Rot is probably the putrifaction stage of alchemy? it's all self explanatory, with the game being rife with alchemial references, and alchemy being fundamental to the lore. it's black, and decays all organic matter; before matter can be further refined, it must first be cleansed. it is also seems to be associated with a period of innermost suffering and strife when discussed in the context of Carl Jung. Another thing I wanted to mention is how the surface is (mostly) unaffected by a lot of the timey wimey problems the world is suffering compared to underground. It seems to be correlated with the elevation of TGW, as it was located VERY DEEP below the surface of the earth. It's strange in any case, as the TGW seems to have been designed for the condition of the surface if anything. That being said, the Rot magically vanishing and life returning in a single moment seems too good to be true, and it's even mentioned that it will return. That is to say, the TGW seemed to only delay the inevitable, if anything. Just what did TGW do to get rid of the Rot? Is it basically a causality version of GitHub? In that it created a Git "branch" of the state of life before the Rot, but now the side "branch" and the main "branch" are having a "merge conflict" of sorts? Did TGW manage to treat the world of the Rot's symptoms, but not cure the cause of the disease? Meaning that the Rot will return due to the signs of it being erased, not the origin of it to begin with. Or something else entirely Edited February 2 by Calmest_of_lakes
LadyWYT Posted February 2 Report Posted February 2 Spoilers ahead: if you've not yet played through the available story chapters I recommend doing so if you want to remain spoiler-free. 9 hours ago, Calmest_of_lakes said: Just what did TGW do to get rid of the Rot? Spoiler It didn't. As Tobias will tell you once you've retrieved the Lens for him, the Rot is returning and wasn't truly defeated. I suspect what happened is that the Rot was thrown forward in time, and we're reaching the point in the timeline that it's due to re-emerge. 9 hours ago, Calmest_of_lakes said: Is it basically a causality version of GitHub? In that it created a Git "branch" of the state of life before the Rot, but now the side "branch" and the main "branch" are having a "merge conflict" of sorts? Did TGW manage to treat the world of the Rot's symptoms, but not cure the cause of the disease? Meaning that the Rot will return due to the signs of it being erased, not the origin of it to begin with. Or something else entirely Spoiler The answer to part of this is already contained above, but as to what's going on with temporal storms, stability, and the like: The Rust World is a separate dimension from which Jonas, via the Lens, drew much inspiration for his inventions. It was a marvelous place that turned into the dreadful hell that it is currently, for unknown reasons(presumably due to Jonas and co. messing with temporal power and possibly related to the appearance of the Rot as well, though that's still an unknown). Whatever happened with the Grand Machine project, it destabilized the barrier between dimensions, making some parts of the present unstable and allowing temporary rifts to form between the two dimensions. When a temporal storm occurs, that is the barrier between dimensions growing so thin that they begin to merge; a similar effect will affect seraphs whose stability is too low, as their own foothold in the present is tenuous at best. As for the present reality as a whole...it's our world, but scrambled after the Grand Machine was set off.
nshark Posted February 5 Report Posted February 5 My personal head-canon is that the Rot is entropy given form. As Jonas states, the Rot is "Desolation made manifest"(diet of kings). In the end "In its final stages, the rot consumes the mind and body whole, leaving nothing left of distinction"(diet of kings). The state with the highest entropy is one of sameness, a perfectly equal distribution of energy across all space. The Rot leaves it's victims as a putrid soup of sameness. It reduces organics, perhaps the most ordered things in the universe, into a perfectly entropic state. That raises the question of what the Great Machine did - this is conjecture, but as mentioned, the Rust World has changed from what Jonas saw centuries ago. Jonas saw that [the rust world] shown like gemstones, but the rust world today is rusted beyond recognition. Rusting is (while not scientifically in any way) analogous to rotting. Both are an erosion of something over time. Why then is the dimension across the lens rusting away? My headcanon is the the Great Machine threw the Rot, this manifestion of entropy across the dimensional boundary into the rust world. Thus the Rot, without organics to rot, became the Rust, to rust away this world of metal. The most interesting question, is therefore, why did this manifestation of entropy begin? I don't think it's controversal to say that Jonas, and his look through the Lens are the instigating factor. The Rot manifests itself on account of one of his actions - soon after Jonas has "a breakthrough", the reports of the Rot begin. What action - I believe it was the creation of the Prima Materia, which is mentioned in exactly one tapestry's description I can find, but is some kind of miracle material that makes anything possible. Nothing like that comes for free, and if I had to guess, the price Jonas unwittingly(probably) paid was the Rot manifesting. I think the prima materia(or something Jonas did) is like unto taking a loan of energy(or perhaps time) from the universe, and the Rot is it's debt collector. What the Great Machine did then, is stave off the debt collectors by selling the Rust world to them. Why then is the Rot returning? Because the ledgers are not settled yet, and cannot not be settled until the prima materia is erased.
ifoz Posted February 9 Report Posted February 9 (edited) On 2/5/2026 at 1:41 PM, nshark said: Because the ledgers are not settled yet, and cannot not be settled until the prima materia is erased. I've been thinking the same way, and I wonder what will inevitably happen to the Seraphs at the eventual end of the story. I'm guessing that the prima materia will probably have to be gotten rid of or have to be sealed away somehow, so that the world could return to its neutral state. I also assume that the game will have to continue to allow players to survive (and respawn) after the story, since it is a sandbox game with a focus on building. I wonder if canonically the Seraphs will turn back into altered humans, kind of like how Tobias is. Somewhere halfway between a Seraph and a human. Still unable to die by conventional means, but now technically mortal and stripped of their timeshifting powers. Edited February 9 by ifoz
Teh Pizza Lady Posted March 3 Report Posted March 3 On 2/2/2026 at 12:07 AM, Calmest_of_lakes said: Is it basically a causality version of GitHub? In that it created a Git "branch" of the state of life before the Rot, but now the side "branch" and the main "branch" are having a "merge conflict" of sorts? I'm now imagining someone developing on a side branch and making commits to the main branch which really angers Dave, so he causes a temporal storm while he executes git reset --hard HEAD~. This is now my head canon. Dave isn't just the Thunderlord. He is an irritated Senior Thunderlord trying to figure out which Junior Thunderlord keeps mucking up his main branch! Now I'm imagining a bunch of little Dave's running around monkeying with the code of the universe.
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