Fun fact: according to the Rivulet campaign commentary the world has not entered an ice age. In Downpour's interpretation of Rain World, the entire planet is already in a perpetual ice age. It is because of the heat that iterators give off as they operate that the local group isn't covered in ice. When Five Pebbles fell so did the snow.
honestly, im not an enjoyer of MSC's world' end. I think that it should really be that the world continues in perpetuity. The "Rain World" sort of has closer in its built world, in the eternal lack-thereof. I think the ending itself is that there will never be an ending. The ancients were never the first civilization, and they should never be the last civilization. To drive the point home, I'll mention that the entirety of Rain World's world (hehe) is made up of cycles. The ground building up and the void dissolving the bottom is and forever will be, and the cycle of life continues just as such.
@@tear959 i feel like you could poke plot holes in it either way, surely if the rain world planet was originally an icy planet, the ancients would have constantly talked and written about it
@@lcdream4213 maybe not, if they were always used to living in that environment then it might not be too important for them and might not even talk about it too much, just like how in normal conversation we arent constantly talking about the temperature of the planet (aside from global warming)
A somewhat common theory for Saint that I agree with is that Saint is a bodhisattva: A being capable of reaching nirvana (ascension) but prolongs the suffering to assist others in reaching Nirvana. Saint is an echo but the vice that binds him is bringing others ascension. What we see in Rubicon and the ending cutscene is what most beings would see if they weren't fit to ascend and the Depths are merely a direct shortcut to the void sea that will eventually dissolve due to the acidic nature of void fluid.
10:15 there's a actually an unused dialogue in the game (I found it using dev tools) that seems to be what this echo would have said if visited by an slugcat other than Artificer: It reads: "What brings you to this lonely place? Do you seek the same isolation that I once did in flesh? An angry fool I was, blinded by fervor and pride! Now here I linger, Chained to the memories of a city I had once struggled to escape! Bound by recollections of those who I could not leave behind. The irony is not lost on me, mouse!" In case you want to read the dialogue by yourselves, it is internally know as 107.text (the normal dialogue for Artificer is 107-artificer.text, further supporting that this dialogue would have belonged to that echo).
You can enter the city using dev tools as any slugcat, you just teleport yourself to the other side of the gate, wait for it to start loading (the animation of the gates to start), and teleport again to the right side to enter the city
I think going along with your theory, saint is basically the opposite of an echo, while echoes are frozen in place, forever unable to move on, saint's forever doomed to continue moving forward.
even before downpour I always wondered if an intense enough desire to ascend could create a echo, as it is a kind of worldly desire. Meaning, in the desire to be free of the ennui of life they chased oblivion and in doing so ended up in an even worse limbo then the one they had started with.
I think the "overlapping of cycles" may be alluding to the idea that echoes may exist at multiple times at once and when your karma is close enough to theirs you slip into their time. Nineteen Spades seems to be saying that they've heard voices across both the past and future.
It makes sense. We know that all living things in rain world undergo the cycle as is the dialogue from 5P even from survivor on seeking a way out. From the gameplay, we still move forwards in time when we see other things die, but I would presume they are 'left behind', running that day over and over until they survive and move on to join the future. I don't really know, the cycles are kind of a temporal nightmare, but that's my interpretation. My guess for the echoes is that since they're partially detached from the cycle, they are able to see themselves in multiple timeframes as you suggest. The idea that the cycle is for each individual is supported by 5P's ascended dialogue as well. As he says that "as if every cycle of my existence has knotted together with another's". Since that's 5P's view of other cycles after ascension, it would make sense if echoes had a similar perception having ascended but not truly divorced from their own cycle.
Now that I know that there where civilizations before the "ancients", I could go full insane mode with the modded campaign(s) for SSneaky. Mm, should he go some point where the ancients were building the iderators, or before/after this 'megacycle' I mean because I am Basically going to have SSneak echo (due to not meeting the karma requirements, due to SSneaky getting held up in a lab [in SSneaky's home universe] that was ran by G.E.N.E.R.I.C [Inc.] [llc.] And he has a grudge against them.) I could just select the option of *YES* Though I do still want to have [ 'edible' ] gravel somewhere in the mod.
I have a theory that the Void Worms are weird versions of Echoes. My belief is that the Echoes become Void Worms once the place that they remember has either become so unrecognizable that they can not even recognize the smallest detail, or once the place they remember has been destroyed by the void sea. This would explain why there don't see to be any Echoes from civilizations prior to the Ancients: their important places had all been destroyed. If the Void Worms are Echoes, then they are clearly not supposed to ascend. So when the Saint ascends a Void Worm, they break some sort of universal law, and then they are punished by having their karma taken away and being thrown back into the cycle again. However, the Saint is still determined to ascend everything alive, and that includes the Void Worms, so they keep going.
do you live in my walls or something, who know what the void sea really is or what's it for, but past echoes not being found anywhere and only ones connected to the current civilization appearing is a really good question to speculate on
You say the Saint is "incapable" of ascending, but are we sure it's not "unwilling"? After all Saint when encountering a void worm, the entities that thus far have assisted other slugcats to ascend if they weren't Artificer, Saint... responds negatively to its presence. I don't think we can give a confident judgment on Saint as long as we don't understand its motivation for entering the void in the first place. Through Artificer we've seen what having a low karma cap means so why does Saint start at the second lowest karma, is the Saint aware of what awaits it at karma ten, and what greater enlightenment grants it such power that no others possess?
So this theory is really stupid but if Saint has been made or at least modified by someone to ascend others as the actual Solution to the great dilemma then it starting at a lower karma level is kind of like "power limiting" itself just enough to be able to reach and gain the capabilities of all the echoes within the general area. It starts at 2 because there's 7 (well, 8, but the last one isn't easy to reach) echoes to boost it to max and because I guess it's easier for it to get around places with 2 starting max karma, from a gameplay standpoint. It's either that or, because Karma level 2 signifies lust, that Saint likes ascending others... a little too much... Truthfully I think it is incapable of ascending and stuck in a greater cycle than just the usual one, like the ending implies. But if Saint was created, then it would kind of be a spearmaster situation, like how Spearmaster's body was mangled to make it create infinite spears at the cost of other things, maybe Saint's personal ascension capabilities have been mangled to make it able to ascend others. And that's a side effect its creator foresaw and just accepted for the greater good of the world. This is most likely all dumb and false but I don't think we have enough information around to get definitive answers on Saint.
Karma 2 isn't explicitly lust, but people like to put Cristian interpretation of it so it's the most popular name. The most likely meaning is the desire for relationships with other people. This is a little fitting for a being that wants to share the ascension. Personally, I like to think Saint is full of rage, and learned how to perform an ascension as a way to be able to kill things. Why else would they get send to a purgatory full of the most aggressive creatures in the game?
Karma 2 is the desire to procreate. To create more of your selves or your kind. Saint is ascended and desires to ascend others. Saint is "procreating" by turning other beings into ascended beings like itself.
This is the coolest way of showing off lore from what I've seen in games. Not only does it give you an insight to the civilisation of past, but even makes you question the ideals of the ancients. The atmosphere is also legendary
I do like the wide variety of attitudes between echos. Some of them are ancients who were vain, rich and adored and obsessed with themselves, and thus were unable to leave their bodies behind(I feel saint aligns somewhat with this, feels it's too important to ascend). But then there's the Chimney and Farm Arrays echoes, who seemingly couldn't bear to leave the world they loved so much, and were trapped there. Also worth noting that the iterators(and likely the ancients) refer to ascending as being "crossed out", such as how sliver crossed herself out. Notice how karma 10 is an X, and after karma 5 all the symbols are building towards or clearing away to reveal the X.
I'm of the opinion that crossing oneself out and ascending are actually two different(but probably related) actions. Note that Five Pebbles's goal is explicitly to kill himself rather than ascending properly, and the local group refers to an "unknown iterator" agmonst them seeking to "cross themselves out". I imagine it's something regarded as kinda in-between death and ascension?
I have found two things relating to saint, that I think are worth mentioning 1: (this needs checking) while ascending as saint, I decided to swim down to see what would happen, but the game still acted like I was swimming upwards. 2: after restarting saint's campaign, I traded with the sky islands scav merchant for a grenade, but when I went to put the grenade in my stomach, I found that the rock that I had affectionately named "rocky" and carried around in my stomach for my first saint playthrough was still in my stomach.
This means that "Restarting" the game doesn't actually restart the timeline like with other slugcats, but is actually the in-world continuation of the endless cycle.
@@Mroziukz This is further implied by the fact that even after starting a new saint campaign, the campaign icon remains the echo one, whereas for all other campaigns, it resets. You truly are picking off right where the previous run ended.
i would be so down with the concept of the second saint run being the continuation of the first if moon and pebbles didnt also show up in the second playthrough. i thought the whole point was that ascending them would free them from the cycle? which in a way it does. if you die in the same cycle you ascend an iterator and go there again after respawning they will not be there even though you didnt "save". i wonder what this implies about the nature of the cycle and about saint's cycle specifically i was ready to disregard that as just a gameplay thing, if it weren't for the stomach item thing
I do still personally think that the Saint's mission is to ascend everything, every living creature, every void worm and eventually every echo, but to reach it's mission it needs to constantly escape the void every time it ascends void worm, as the karma burns off as the saint swims upwards, it's possible that he has been doing this for a very very long time now. it also probably understands the predicament the echos are in and will not give up until they are ascended fully as well, how the furry green boy would do that I have no idea, probably try to go beyond Karma 10 or something crazy, saint lore is weird, I understand like 10% of it at best.
Considering the buddhist elements in the game, I think saint can be considered a bodhisattva. He CAN ascend, but willingly chooses not to until all else reaches ascension. I think the worms act as judges, more or less, and him using his karmic abilities denies their judgement upon him and allows him to FULLY come back, instead of becoming an echo.
I don't know if it even has any merit, but I like to imagine that the Echo you find as Artificer is named Atop the Tallest Tower, mainly given because each word is starts with a capital letter, which to me suggests it's a name. also because that's an awesome name for an echo.
Something people don't really talk about is that death and revival dont really work how it does in the game. Things that die take awhile before they wake up, and maybe some things die permanently (Like artificer's children?) I'll always be of the opinion that the Void is malicious and ascension through it isnt true ascension, like, say, getting popped out of existence by Saint. Why? Because despite being a divine being with max karma, when you try to ascend a Void Worm, they straight up TAKE AWAY your Karma and try to turn you into an Echo. Why would a divine higher being do that? If you tried to ascend them and it, yknow, didnt work, why would they react as if you're a threat? Unless their ascension is fake, and Saint's existence as a truly higher being that cant be Echo'd scares them.
I always thought the void sea was neither good nor evil, just kinda… there. It eats away at the world without any intentions at all, not good nor evil.
@@ashfur3453 I mean even if the void worms are the representation of the void seas consciousness, it's still probably not evil or at least malicious. I mean is anything an eldritch god does evil? If an entity that has always been and always will be was always consuming the world, even to the detriment of others, but it had no idea those others even existed as they melt away when in contact with itself, why would it think about their struggles? It would just keep on eating at the world forever, and if suddenly one of its little void worms got nuked by something, it couldn't possibly understand what just happened. I don't know if anything I said made any sense, but I hope it's understandable.
@@wyvy7013 it is, arti theoretically could have killed herself to continue with her children but Slugcats are implied to not really understand this whole cycle thing. (Also we personally don't really understand the whole cycle thing)
You forgot Atop the tallest Tower's 3rd dialog option when you show up as a different slug cat. At which point he talks about himself and his angst like the others more than you and he also calls you a mouse.
Love the echoes. I was trying to climb The Wall on my first playthrough as I hadn't found the main 5P entrance, headed to Chimney Canopy and Sky Islands to find another way around but was so sick of and demoralized by The Wall that I was pretty much ready to quit. Grind some Karma to give it a few last attempts, then my boy Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections shows up jamming to ELSE I with their golden scales and a pacified Vulture hanging out at the four way intersection to The Wall. No dialogue, only a two karma bump (which was still sick), nothing. I don't think I'll ever have such an organic and memorable moment in a video game ever again though.
I like to think the unnamed echo in Metropolis is Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, based on the dark pink pearl found in Shaded Citadel. It's a record of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel's ascension process. They're specifically an ancient from the House of Braids and the grand master of the Twelfth Pillar of Community. 12th Council Pillar, the House of Braids is in close proximity to where the echo is found, so I think it's possible they're the same person.
This video gave me an overlooked thought, why are none of the other slugcats not echos? sure they reached max karma but it seems like that's the only requirement the void really wants. All of the slugcats are shown to be materialistic or tied to something in the living world (except those without distinct ascension cutscenes) both monk and survivor want their families, hunter wants his creator and his health, artificer wants her children, in the first 3 after ascension these things are *granted* to the ascender. Artificer is also granted her children, but after that is transformed into an echo due to not having the karma. In this sense the void (and ascension) appear deeply tied to ones wants and inner desires, and it surely can't just be because they're animals that they're given passes by the void. Perhaps reaching max karma is a way of shedding ties to the world, despite still obviously having wants, and that is the only reason artificer is echo'd? she had such karmic ties that it was impossible for her to ascend, however Saint (ignoring most of his other lore) obviously would have gotten to max karma if they simply wished for ascension, but their ties to that made them unascendable. So this really only calls into question how an echo's nature is truly created, and how the void is tied to desires, but also rejects based on them.
My theory on challenge 70 is that while it isn't canon, it represents something that is. I believe that Saint *did* forcibly ascend Sliver of Straw, but that it definitely wasn't a battle as depicted in the challenge. Why would an iterator desiring ascension fight off the one giving it that gift, after all? Also, if Videocult just wanted to give us a non-canon Iterator boss fight with no deeper meaning, they could have picked *any* Iterator as the opponent. So why specifically pick the single most mysterious and lore-important one?
My thinking as well. It would have been easier to make it Pebbles or Moon if it was just supposed to be a cool boss fight, since their models are already in the game. Instead, they made a brand new model for the iterator who found a means of ascension and then immediately died before telling anyone what it was.
With a lot of the game id like to think there's a deeper meaning to it, but what if they did that just to bait fans into theorizing about the meaning of it?
Okay so i have an idea of what arti campaign echo would say if meeting other scugs Itd prolly be simply a warning that if they go too far, too vicious, too violent, theyd be stuck like them Edit: when i say them, im referring to the echo, not artificer, cause i believe the echo was too violent Edit 2: making it more clear who im talking about
Literally going full 'Scared Straight' for the other scugs: "Small beast, do not wipe out the entirety of the scavenger population, otherwise you'll be a ghost that is stuck between layers of reality when you try to yeet yourself into the void sea"
maybe the echo arti meets IS arti? given how some of the other echoes talk, it seems as if they are not exactly lined up with time or reality so its possible that they might meet beings that were around before they ascended and became a echo, including themselves, without causing any paradox issues by virtue of not really existing in a defined timeline. not the most likely of theories, but a fun idea, given that the arti echo tries to get arti to avoid the fate that befell it and laments that arti will be stuck as well if met after the king scav is killed.
@@bananananananabatman8999 interesting, would make sense with how we dont know how the echoes work cycle wise, but her ascension scene is alot different than saint’s. She looked like she was just flaking, not growing intk an echo
For those of us who have been ruminating on Rain World and its lore since the game originally released there's a lot to consider and a wide variety of views on what the Echoes are, why they are how they are, and what the Void Sea is. We know the Void Sea is a real place, as void fluid itself was harvested and used not only to fuel the Ancient society, but eventually used as an "easy out" solution to escaping the Great Cycle. Not transcending, but the Ancients that went into the void baths didn't reincarnate either, so it was SOMETHING. It isn't surprising that such a jaded and opulent society would consider the easy way out when their iterators failed to reach a solution after innumerable cycles of calculation. Now consider just how many void serpents you see in the transcendence ending as you are dragged down deep by the serpent that meets with you. The incalculable amount of such creatures. It isn't a far stretch to imagine where they came from, if not inherent to the void sea naturally. And knowing their appearances, look at the unusual structure and shape of the Echoes themselves, failed transcendent beings who were likewise incapable of escaping the Great Cycle...and yet trapped all the same, above the sea. They appear inconsistently, and only to those with enough karma to be sensitive to them. Their existence is pitiable, perhaps more cursed because they retain their awareness. There is no indication that the void serpents are aware anymore, though the one that assists you, if you can call it that, at least seemed compelled to bring you to your transcendence, such as it is.
I think the notable thing about echoes is that void fluid's ties to karma seem loose at best from lore standards. the only reason you need 10 karma to ascend is to get past the guardians, which are beings made by the ancients to keep people who didn't fit what they thought was "good for ascension" out. Additionally, when you visit Five Pebbles and gain the mark and 10 karma as survivor, he doesn't actually give you 10 karma. Of course, mechanically he does just give you 10 karma, most likely to keep the game a little simpler (idk I can't code for shit) but it doesn't make sense that Pebbs would just be able to shoot you with his brainwaves so hard that you instantly become a better person (or ig a better scug). What Five Pebbles says backs this up further, as he tells you that "The mark [he] gave you will let you through." The way I interpret this is that the mark of communication has some values in it that basically tell the guardians "ok this one's chill you can let them thru."
The guardians can be fooled, convinced, impressed (or previously even exploited through). But the void worms still have their own judgement and/or adherence to some sort of order, and they seem to not be affiliated with Ancients in any way, since no sentient being that came from the civilization of ancients really knows what's beyond the event horizon of the void sea. And they do seem to be indifferent to Artificer when she attempts to ascend after tricking guardians. They just leave her behind, presumably to dissolve into an echo, as opposed to lending a hand to other slugcats, who achieved that level of enlightenment. Therefore I'd rather count this as a case of a social construct used to describe something that exists in nature. Similar to how we use our methods of measuring time to describe time as a physical phenomenon.
There's one interpretation that a friend of mine posited that I don't entirely disagree with: Void Fluid doesn't *truly* ascend you. It utterly destroys your body -- so utterly that you're not able to come back as cycles would bring you back normally -- but Rain World draws a *lot* of inspiration from Buddhism and a lake which simply skips past everything and allows you to 'cheat' your way into Nirvana is extremely wrong. Rather than ascend you, it gets you close, as close as possible, but most things fail at truly reaching Nirvana. Most have too many worldly bonds to leave, shown by Survivor and Monk who both see what they want most, and reaching out to it. What remains of their spirit is reincarnated into the only thing that can survive in the Void Sea: A void worm. Some particularly unlucky souls are *far* too karmically unbalanced to get there, and they turn into echoes. Ancients, unable to see people becoming void worms (they're impossible to record without going into the Void Sea, which is obviously fatal) but able to see people becoming echoes, built the guardians to try and keep people out. All of this eventually ties into Artificer and Saint, the only Downpour scugs who have unique ascension endings. Artificer might be the only being we see *actually* ascend; she is shown the one thing that she wants most in the world and accepts that it's gone, then fades out, moving on to... whatever it is that lies on the other side, be it Nirvana, or merely the world in its next form. This is supported by the ascension achievement for Artificer being named "Acceptance." Saint, meanwhile, exists as a being who can directly move people on to the next world. They do this to the other iterators, hence why none of their cans are still standing in their time, and eventually make it to Five Pebbles and Moon, crossing them out from the cycle as well. Then they do it to a *Void Worm*, finally removing one of the Ancients (or slugcats) who was led to believe that Void Fluid would ascend them, and they have to do their journey all over again.
Well, pearls mention karma mechanics, suggesting karma is an actual, objective property. Probably a property of the soul rather than the mind. For iterators it's simple physics and yeah, they can just do that
(this might count as a spoiler to some) Actually the ending IS effected by karma now (at least in survivor). If you ascend with the incorrect karma level it plays a separate cutscene.
A Bell, Eighteen Amber Beads knows they'll never be able to be a gamer again. They long to touch grass, but their spiritual prison keeps them bound between being a pro fortnite gamer and abandoning their dreams of gaming to be able to fully ascend
In the semi-canon Sofanthiel dating sequence, there were 3 different triple affirmatives. Five-Pebbles, The Egg, and The Saint when given the Egg. In the challenge game modes, you find Saint fighting Silva... however, these two examples can't be understood as canon as it isn't in the campaign mode..
In response to the slugcat dream interrupting the Saint's ending, I have always seen the sleeping glowing slugcat as a representation that your cycle is overlapping another of your own, much like what is required to in order to see an echo. In the base game/non-saint campaigns, seeing that 'dream' slugcat means that you will be peering into another possibility in your own timeline; a what if, or what will be. I posit that the dream slugcat you see is just another of the cycles of your own, that you are simply in close alignment with. This ties into my perception of the ascension ending as well, as when you see all of the slugcats swimming together to a single point, following your commands as though you are controlling all of them, you can imagine it as all of the other cycles, all of the other possibilities of that particular slugcat, finally arriving at the same place- the present. So with all that in mind, the Saint doesn't ascend properly or become an echo because at least one version of itself is still in the cycle-the one we see in it's ending. Like Pebbles mentions in Rubicon, Saint's timeline is a tangled knot, possibly an ouroboros, and simply can't resolve like the others can because not all of its cycles arrive at the same point in the void.
Your Echo voices are incredible. Well done with the effects! ... I can't help but wonder if even the Echoes will vanish at some point. The way so many during Saint's little adventure discuss the dawn of a new cycle makes me imagine that, perhaps as the world enters a "new era" where no complete memory of the Ancients remain, they'll finally vanish - whatever ties they have to the old world simply not remaining in any way, shape or form. Some human concepts of the afterlife are similar to this: when we are truly forgotten, that is when we succumb to oblivion. There have been stories of ancient kings and the like who have toiled to build some of the greatest monuments that still stand today, such as the Pyramids in Egypt - able to experience the gift (or in some stories, the curse) of being unable to truly leave this world. I also can't help but wonder about the meaning behind Karma 10, in regards to this new theory. Perhaps it is some form of altruism? Giving up one's own purpose to something greater than oneself? Perhaps Saint truly *is* a saint - someone utterly devoted to some larger purpose that it ties them to their Cycle until their task is complete. Perhaps, at some point in their life, they met Sliver of Straw, and instead of being modified or altered into the Triple Affirmative, Saint just... understood the Iterator's plight. Driven to give the Iterators the peace they've been searching for since their inceptions, the fuzzy little green creature has been roaming about, popping minds one after the other, sending them across the Rubicon to whatever fate awaits the old world beyond the border. Once the land has been fully laid bare, and new life can rise from the ash of the old world, our selfless Saint will finally be able to cross the line themselves.
While the saint wasn't what caused Silver Straw to ascended. I like to imagine that something *similar* to the saint, was the cause. This unusual half/ transcendent echo. This could explain why there was debate with the whole "dying was the solution" idea: If SS was ascended by an echo, it likely wouldn't leave much behind, just an empty husk. (as we can see when the saint ascends LTTM and FP) Don't really have much proof, other than grasped straws. I am pretty biased. As I really enjoy the potential poetic irony; that, in Five Pebbles attempt to repel these Slugcat pilgrims (by granting them access to the void sea.) he might have unknowingly created the solution he was looking for (The Saint).
I've always interpreted the Void Sea as the product of an eldritch entity that seeks to consume all of existence, especially with all the tentacles and Void Worms wiggling in the background when you go into the Void Sea.
This is weird to take from this, but here's my theory why the Echoes refer to the Slugcat as a rodent, even though it more closely resembles, well, cat: Lantern Mice. We see nothing that even resembles a feline within the Retaining Wall, but we do see lantern mice in the Shaded Citadel. We know that the Citadel was incredibly important to the Ancients, and therefore would probably have been visited even after Five Pebbles was built on top of it. Therefore, it's likely the Ancients saw lantern mice. Since the Slugcat is both weird, slimy, and has big ole eyes and ears, and even come in an array of colors, it's likely the Echoes just... Don't know of anything else the Slugcat COULD be. They just know lantern mice, rodents.
I still think Saint was SoS's Triple Affirmative. Sure, the challenge isn't canon, but then, all I take that to mean was that there was no fight. After all, SoS had won. They solved the Problem. Why the heck would they resist it once they had confirmed that their little Saint could force ascension on others? managing to find a way to do so was literally their purpose.
Personally not a huge follower of your new theory, but I still congratulate you on the quality of the content. Your videos continue to be as entertaining and informative as always. Thank you.
Im pretty sure Saint's A Bell, Eighteen Amber Beads' (Farm Arrays echo) dialogue about this site still not giving up all its secrets is a reference to the fact that Farm Arrays contains the last remaining coloured lore pearl from the base game. doesnt mean too much, but its still a cool detail!
that does make sense given that all other slugcats are named based on some important facet of their journey or motivations, and also saint is a rather religiously charged and vague word to not have some meaning behind it besides just a name to give the last slugcat.
i think saint can actually ascend, but he just chooses not to by striking the void worm and it being like "u hurted me so fuck you, u go back", reseting saints karma by violating the violence karma or smth like that, sending him to the place where the other echoes were sent to because of violating other karma rules like self preservation or materialism
I don’t know if I’m looking into the wrong thing, but why does Saint start at Karma 2? Like, I’d understand if it started at 1, 5, 10 or even 0, but why 2 specifically? That’s the reproduction karma isn’t it? Is Saint “stuck” on this karma for a particular reason like Artificer or is it just that way because it is? Also, I’ve heard countless times that Challenge 70 isn’t cannon, but where and what exactly did the devs say? Cause they could mean, for example, that the fight didn’t happen that way, but that the event did happen
as far as we can tell, saint mechanically needs to visit all echoes to hit karma 10 so 2 makes sense, as saint has overcome violence by his very nature (karma 1) and so needed a low karma to start on. really probably more game design than anything. Challenge 70 is entirely non-cannon, saint was not even born when sliver of straw died. the devs said it on the discord server, people there probably have the screenshot if you need proof.
@@ezersial5559 I thought about that, but if it really was about having to visit all echoes (which it isn’t since there’s the hidden one that I didn’t even know about) they could’ve added another one anywhere. Saint isn’t violent by nature, but it doesn’t seem to be very egotistical or attached to any other of the 5 main karmic things either, it’s confusing. Thank you for the info about Challenge 70 as well
@@titadogelo5090 Saint is going through an endless cycle of reaching max karma, going to the void sea, rejecting ascension and being sent back to the surface with zero karma, which tells me that, unlike Artificer, there isn't any particular relevance to the karma he starts capped at. It's just that his campaign doesn't start immediately after the last time he rejected ascension. He's already begun his climb back to ten karma when the game starts.
@@screamingcactus1753 well, the campaign does begin quite literally the moment a cycle finishes, so it’s not possible for Saint to have visited any Echoes or have done anything at all to go from Karma 0 to 2. Even if we assume that no living creature can be at Karma 0, Saint should then start at 1. Considering how important the karma mechanic is lore-wise to both Arti and Saint, which are the only two who have vastly different ascension scenes from the others, I still won’t be convinced that it’s just a gameplay feature, at least not yet
Will you make lore video for Saint? Because it brings up new questions about the cycle itself. Like when you ascend moon and pebbles, either separately or both, their dialogue gives so much lore. As well as the cycles meeting. Where does it say your cycles have to meet to meet an echo? The only place I've heard cycles meeting was with moon in saint's campaign.
"...it is where we are meant to be." who is the 'we' past echoes is talking about? is it the ancients? him and the other echoes? the creatures that are still living there? the slugcats????
If I may... I love your rain world videos. I would love to see a video showing how to use the survivor or monk to navigate the superstructure to retrieve the cloak. There isn't anything like that I've been able to find yet.
I just had a thought Are the void worms The ascended ancients Because the echos are trapped above And could it be that the ancients just loop constantly in the void Being born and instantly dying in the void sea Existing only in the void sea Their Consciousness Not truly Awake but not dreaming either
I just fucking happened to spiral into a rainworld lore hole, right as this video came out, and clicked it not even knowing it was less than 12 hours old. Fucking stellar content sir!
Do you think we die the same way the iterators do? Moon (while losing a lot contained in the memory conflux) still has her personality and care for pebbs, all of her neurons (brain power) were deactive, this made it so she could not think or observe, but she remained. Do we still remain after death? Our brains rot after deactivation and we cannot think or observe, are we still there? Our minds (like the iteratiors) are a bridge from ourselves to the world outside. I don’t believe we have a soul or energy. we never die or leave to a higher plane. Moon didn’t ascend after her death, neither will we. We will be trapped in nothing with no rope to pull us out.
it's kinda nifty watching you just admit when you were incorrect previously and fleshing out counter evidence to figure out what is probably more correct, keep it up you help make these discussions and arguments digestible and entertaining
Frigid Coast Echo: "I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said-“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
6:33 "I do not need eyes to know that the grasses still sway gently in the winds" 16:23 "I placed my faith into the hands of random gods, now I must endure it to the end."
I know they say challenge 70 isn’t canon, but isn’t a whole dialogue between moon and five pebbles as Saint basically saying that the iterators could never ascend due to their inability to bring information back from beyond the void sea
What I think is going on is that the saint had one thing that was still tying them to the world and that was wanting to ascend all so when he tried to ascend yrrej and it didn’t work they still wanted to ascend all beings so then they became an echo (ending screen) but with echos 50% of them are ascend so I think that the saint’s 50% that is still here is replaying it’s memories and that’s why the start and end cutscene are similar because the saint just replays it’s memories once the last one ends(the entire campaign). Maybe the saint was created by either SRS or NSH because we know they dabbled in making purposed slugcats (spearmaster and hunter) so maybe the saint might of been one of their later creations. Edit: tell me if I got anything wrong please because I must perfect this theory!!!
9:16 This makes me sort of think about someone elses idea on a previous video about each of the five downpour slugcats being the same cycled one, ending in saint and stuck in loop I say this is fortified by the fact they still mention the battle even after artificer killed the king scavenger. To add as well, it could be that after the multitude of actual cycles for the specific slugcat, a sort of desire rose to ascend FIve Pebbles and Moon after "knowing" the pain they're going through
My guess wuld be, since the lore seems to be focused on death=good that the saint, as implied by his name culd habe been made in the void or been some kind of ascended being that is traped untill everything falls in the void
You can meet the Metropolis echo on other slugcats, and he does have different dialogue! Usually you have to teleport in there, but in Expedition mode Monk and Survivor can start in Metropolis
So hang on Echoes are permanently stuck to specific places in the world that bound them in life yeah? The land is constantly super slowly sinking into the void right? What happens to echoes who have had their spot in the world, pulled into the void? I am sure we don't know But perhaps if we want to be optimistic then they get their chance at "redemption" in the end? If other civilizations came before The ancients, they would have been bound to make echoes in their species too after all?
echoes aren't stuck in specific places, I think they all just have an specific place where they prefer to show themselves that can in some cases chabge, the echoes in Lttm and Bitter Aerie weren't there before Saint's campaing, and when 5P collapsed Six Grains of Gravel moved to the remains of The Leg instead of staying in the remains of The Wall.
I think the saint was fully ascended. Going with the Jesus metaphor he is a being that comes back from the great beyond in the form of a slugcat, and the prupose is to ascend everything once everything is done and there's nothing to experience the cycle but echoes, there's even a cycle anymore?
Saint's ascension always turning out to have been a dream and restarting the campaign has huge flavors of the Echoes turning out to have been a dream and restarting the cycle. Idk what to do woth that idea but god Videocult slapped with the parallels
Fun fact: according to the Rivulet campaign commentary the world has not entered an ice age. In Downpour's interpretation of Rain World, the entire planet is already in a perpetual ice age. It is because of the heat that iterators give off as they operate that the local group isn't covered in ice.
When Five Pebbles fell so did the snow.
honestly, im not an enjoyer of MSC's world' end. I think that it should really be that the world continues in perpetuity. The "Rain World" sort of has closer in its built world, in the eternal lack-thereof. I think the ending itself is that there will never be an ending. The ancients were never the first civilization, and they should never be the last civilization.
To drive the point home, I'll mention that the entirety of Rain World's world (hehe) is made up of cycles. The ground building up and the void dissolving the bottom is and forever will be, and the cycle of life continues just as such.
the world might not be in a perpetual ice age. it may just be that five pebbles and moons ground is a tundra
@@notasadvertised617 it is literally stated in a dev commentary
@@tear959 i feel like you could poke plot holes in it either way, surely if the rain world planet was originally an icy planet, the ancients would have constantly talked and written about it
@@lcdream4213 maybe not, if they were always used to living in that environment then it might not be too important for them and might not even talk about it too much, just like how in normal conversation we arent constantly talking about the temperature of the planet (aside from global warming)
A somewhat common theory for Saint that I agree with is that Saint is a bodhisattva: A being capable of reaching nirvana (ascension) but prolongs the suffering to assist others in reaching Nirvana. Saint is an echo but the vice that binds him is bringing others ascension. What we see in Rubicon and the ending cutscene is what most beings would see if they weren't fit to ascend and the Depths are merely a direct shortcut to the void sea that will eventually dissolve due to the acidic nature of void fluid.
This man gets high off of doing rain world voice impressions. I respect it.
10:15 there's a actually an unused dialogue in the game (I found it using dev tools) that seems to be what this echo would have said if visited by an slugcat other than Artificer:
It reads: "What brings you to this lonely place?
Do you seek the same isolation that I once did in flesh?
An angry fool I was, blinded by fervor and pride!
Now here I linger, Chained to the memories of a city I had once struggled to escape!
Bound by recollections of those who I could not leave behind.
The irony is not lost on me, mouse!"
In case you want to read the dialogue by yourselves, it is internally know as 107.text (the normal dialogue for Artificer is 107-artificer.text, further supporting that this dialogue would have belonged to that echo).
Actually, you can visit metropolis as survivor and monk through getting lucky in expedition mode, as it has a chance to randomly spawn them there.
You can enter the city using dev tools as any slugcat, you just teleport yourself to the other side of the gate, wait for it to start loading (the animation of the gates to start), and teleport again to the right side to enter the city
I think going along with your theory, saint is basically the opposite of an echo, while echoes are frozen in place, forever unable to move on, saint's forever doomed to continue moving forward.
even before downpour I always wondered if an intense enough desire to ascend could create a echo, as it is a kind of worldly desire. Meaning, in the desire to be free of the ennui of life they chased oblivion and in doing so ended up in an even worse limbo then the one they had started with.
ive bingewatched an unhealthy amount of daszombes videos for the past 3 days i am going INSANE
Same
Same
Same
Same
Relatable
I think the "overlapping of cycles" may be alluding to the idea that echoes may exist at multiple times at once and when your karma is close enough to theirs you slip into their time. Nineteen Spades seems to be saying that they've heard voices across both the past and future.
It makes sense. We know that all living things in rain world undergo the cycle as is the dialogue from 5P even from survivor on seeking a way out. From the gameplay, we still move forwards in time when we see other things die, but I would presume they are 'left behind', running that day over and over until they survive and move on to join the future.
I don't really know, the cycles are kind of a temporal nightmare, but that's my interpretation. My guess for the echoes is that since they're partially detached from the cycle, they are able to see themselves in multiple timeframes as you suggest.
The idea that the cycle is for each individual is supported by 5P's ascended dialogue as well. As he says that "as if every cycle of my existence has knotted together with another's". Since that's 5P's view of other cycles after ascension, it would make sense if echoes had a similar perception having ascended but not truly divorced from their own cycle.
@@vaultence9859
So that means Artificer's kids are stuck in the past.
Now that I know that there where civilizations before the "ancients", I could go full insane mode with the modded campaign(s) for SSneaky.
Mm, should he go some point where the ancients were building the iderators, or before/after this 'megacycle'
I mean because I am Basically going to have SSneak echo (due to not meeting the karma requirements, due to SSneaky getting held up in a lab [in SSneaky's home universe] that was ran by G.E.N.E.R.I.C [Inc.] [llc.] And he has a grudge against them.) I could just select the option of *YES*
Though I do still want to have [ 'edible' ] gravel somewhere in the mod.
yes!! this! this is my beloved theory.
@@MercurySteel Arguably not, since we can see they ascended in Artificer's ending. I have no idea how, though.
I have a theory that the Void Worms are weird versions of Echoes. My belief is that the Echoes become Void Worms once the place that they remember has either become so unrecognizable that they can not even recognize the smallest detail, or once the place they remember has been destroyed by the void sea. This would explain why there don't see to be any Echoes from civilizations prior to the Ancients: their important places had all been destroyed.
If the Void Worms are Echoes, then they are clearly not supposed to ascend. So when the Saint ascends a Void Worm, they break some sort of universal law, and then they are punished by having their karma taken away and being thrown back into the cycle again. However, the Saint is still determined to ascend everything alive, and that includes the Void Worms, so they keep going.
Whichever god who created the cycle:stop you little shit you are ruining my Fun!
Saint:make me:v
Ascending the unascendable
whoa that is big brain
* Saint is determined to ascend the Void Worms. It fills you with determination.
do you live in my walls or something,
who know what the void sea really is or what's it for,
but past echoes not being found anywhere and only ones connected to the current civilization appearing is a really good question to speculate on
You say the Saint is "incapable" of ascending, but are we sure it's not "unwilling"? After all Saint when encountering a void worm, the entities that thus far have assisted other slugcats to ascend if they weren't Artificer, Saint... responds negatively to its presence. I don't think we can give a confident judgment on Saint as long as we don't understand its motivation for entering the void in the first place. Through Artificer we've seen what having a low karma cap means so why does Saint start at the second lowest karma, is the Saint aware of what awaits it at karma ten, and what greater enlightenment grants it such power that no others possess?
Not a serious comment (unless?) - Arti starting at karma 1 represents her desire for violence, so Saint starting at karma 2 represents...?
So this theory is really stupid but if Saint has been made or at least modified by someone to ascend others as the actual Solution to the great dilemma then it starting at a lower karma level is kind of like "power limiting" itself just enough to be able to reach and gain the capabilities of all the echoes within the general area.
It starts at 2 because there's 7 (well, 8, but the last one isn't easy to reach) echoes to boost it to max and because I guess it's easier for it to get around places with 2 starting max karma, from a gameplay standpoint.
It's either that or, because Karma level 2 signifies lust, that Saint likes ascending others... a little too much...
Truthfully I think it is incapable of ascending and stuck in a greater cycle than just the usual one, like the ending implies. But if Saint was created, then it would kind of be a spearmaster situation, like how Spearmaster's body was mangled to make it create infinite spears at the cost of other things, maybe Saint's personal ascension capabilities have been mangled to make it able to ascend others. And that's a side effect its creator foresaw and just accepted for the greater good of the world.
This is most likely all dumb and false but I don't think we have enough information around to get definitive answers on Saint.
Karma 2 isn't explicitly lust, but people like to put Cristian interpretation of it so it's the most popular name. The most likely meaning is the desire for relationships with other people. This is a little fitting for a being that wants to share the ascension.
Personally, I like to think Saint is full of rage, and learned how to perform an ascension as a way to be able to kill things. Why else would they get send to a purgatory full of the most aggressive creatures in the game?
Perhaps saint responds kindly to it's presence, by ascending one of the ascenders. But the void worm doesn't like it
Karma 2 is the desire to procreate. To create more of your selves or your kind. Saint is ascended and desires to ascend others. Saint is "procreating" by turning other beings into ascended beings like itself.
This is the coolest way of showing off lore from what I've seen in games.
Not only does it give you an insight to the civilisation of past, but even makes you question the ideals of the ancients.
The atmosphere is also legendary
I do like the wide variety of attitudes between echos. Some of them are ancients who were vain, rich and adored and obsessed with themselves, and thus were unable to leave their bodies behind(I feel saint aligns somewhat with this, feels it's too important to ascend). But then there's the Chimney and Farm Arrays echoes, who seemingly couldn't bear to leave the world they loved so much, and were trapped there.
Also worth noting that the iterators(and likely the ancients) refer to ascending as being "crossed out", such as how sliver crossed herself out. Notice how karma 10 is an X, and after karma 5 all the symbols are building towards or clearing away to reveal the X.
Also, the chimney echo had children. That definitely effected their echoness
I'm of the opinion that crossing oneself out and ascending are actually two different(but probably related) actions. Note that Five Pebbles's goal is explicitly to kill himself rather than ascending properly, and the local group refers to an "unknown iterator" agmonst them seeking to "cross themselves out". I imagine it's something regarded as kinda in-between death and ascension?
I have found two things relating to saint, that I think are worth mentioning
1: (this needs checking) while ascending as saint, I decided to swim down to see what would happen, but the game still acted like I was swimming upwards.
2: after restarting saint's campaign, I traded with the sky islands scav merchant for a grenade, but when I went to put the grenade in my stomach, I found that the rock that I had affectionately named "rocky" and carried around in my stomach for my first saint playthrough was still in my stomach.
This means that "Restarting" the game doesn't actually restart the timeline like with other slugcats, but is actually the in-world continuation of the endless cycle.
@@Mroziukz This is further implied by the fact that even after starting a new saint campaign, the campaign icon remains the echo one, whereas for all other campaigns, it resets. You truly are picking off right where the previous run ended.
i would be so down with the concept of the second saint run being the continuation of the first if moon and pebbles didnt also show up in the second playthrough. i thought the whole point was that ascending them would free them from the cycle? which in a way it does. if you die in the same cycle you ascend an iterator and go there again after respawning they will not be there even though you didnt "save". i wonder what this implies about the nature of the cycle and about saint's cycle specifically
i was ready to disregard that as just a gameplay thing, if it weren't for the stomach item thing
@@cuervus_ Saint is stuck in a cycle of ascending our iterators for all eternity.
I do still personally think that the Saint's mission is to ascend everything, every living creature, every void worm and eventually every echo, but to reach it's mission it needs to constantly escape the void every time it ascends void worm, as the karma burns off as the saint swims upwards, it's possible that he has been doing this for a very very long time now.
it also probably understands the predicament the echos are in and will not give up until they are ascended fully as well, how the furry green boy would do that I have no idea, probably try to go beyond Karma 10 or something crazy, saint lore is weird, I understand like 10% of it at best.
Considering the buddhist elements in the game, I think saint can be considered a bodhisattva. He CAN ascend, but willingly chooses not to until all else reaches ascension. I think the worms act as judges, more or less, and him using his karmic abilities denies their judgement upon him and allows him to FULLY come back, instead of becoming an echo.
“A wave sent back” is the definition of an echo; also suggests a wall near in the future, that’s where the timeline ends
I don't know if it even has any merit, but I like to imagine that the Echo you find as Artificer is named Atop the Tallest Tower, mainly given because each word is starts with a capital letter, which to me suggests it's a name. also because that's an awesome name for an echo.
Most people refers to that echo by that name, including the wiki.
Something people don't really talk about is that death and revival dont really work how it does in the game. Things that die take awhile before they wake up, and maybe some things die permanently (Like artificer's children?) I'll always be of the opinion that the Void is malicious and ascension through it isnt true ascension, like, say, getting popped out of existence by Saint. Why? Because despite being a divine being with max karma, when you try to ascend a Void Worm, they straight up TAKE AWAY your Karma and try to turn you into an Echo. Why would a divine higher being do that? If you tried to ascend them and it, yknow, didnt work, why would they react as if you're a threat? Unless their ascension is fake, and Saint's existence as a truly higher being that cant be Echo'd scares them.
I always thought the void sea was neither good nor evil, just kinda… there. It eats away at the world without any intentions at all, not good nor evil.
Honestly, that interpretation is pretty awesome.
@@ashfur3453 I mean even if the void worms are the representation of the void seas consciousness, it's still probably not evil or at least malicious. I mean is anything an eldritch god does evil? If an entity that has always been and always will be was always consuming the world, even to the detriment of others, but it had no idea those others even existed as they melt away when in contact with itself, why would it think about their struggles? It would just keep on eating at the world forever, and if suddenly one of its little void worms got nuked by something, it couldn't possibly understand what just happened. I don't know if anything I said made any sense, but I hope it's understandable.
Im pretty sure things only permanently die to whoever survived the cycle
@@wyvy7013 it is, arti theoretically could have killed herself to continue with her children but Slugcats are implied to not really understand this whole cycle thing. (Also we personally don't really understand the whole cycle thing)
You forgot Atop the tallest Tower's 3rd dialog option when you show up as a different slug cat. At which point he talks about himself and his angst like the others more than you and he also calls you a mouse.
Love the echoes. I was trying to climb The Wall on my first playthrough as I hadn't found the main 5P entrance, headed to Chimney Canopy and Sky Islands to find another way around but was so sick of and demoralized by The Wall that I was pretty much ready to quit. Grind some Karma to give it a few last attempts, then my boy Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections shows up jamming to ELSE I with their golden scales and a pacified Vulture hanging out at the four way intersection to The Wall.
No dialogue, only a two karma bump (which was still sick), nothing. I don't think I'll ever have such an organic and memorable moment in a video game ever again though.
I like to think the unnamed echo in Metropolis is Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, based on the dark pink pearl found in Shaded Citadel.
It's a record of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel's ascension process. They're specifically an ancient from the House of Braids and the grand master of the Twelfth Pillar of Community. 12th Council Pillar, the House of Braids is in close proximity to where the echo is found, so I think it's possible they're the same person.
Beyond hyped when this popped up in my feed.
Even more hyped to see it a SECOND time.
Same!
9:50 the monoleuge implies that this echo took the same path of revenge and violence as the artificer. He was probably a warlord of some kind
This video gave me an overlooked thought, why are none of the other slugcats not echos? sure they reached max karma but it seems like that's the only requirement the void really wants. All of the slugcats are shown to be materialistic or tied to something in the living world (except those without distinct ascension cutscenes) both monk and survivor want their families, hunter wants his creator and his health, artificer wants her children, in the first 3 after ascension these things are *granted* to the ascender. Artificer is also granted her children, but after that is transformed into an echo due to not having the karma. In this sense the void (and ascension) appear deeply tied to ones wants and inner desires, and it surely can't just be because they're animals that they're given passes by the void. Perhaps reaching max karma is a way of shedding ties to the world, despite still obviously having wants, and that is the only reason artificer is echo'd? she had such karmic ties that it was impossible for her to ascend, however Saint (ignoring most of his other lore) obviously would have gotten to max karma if they simply wished for ascension, but their ties to that made them unascendable. So this really only calls into question how an echo's nature is truly created, and how the void is tied to desires, but also rejects based on them.
YES, dramatic readings of echo dialogue, i love this
Video containing only the echo readings when
Holy moly I love the voice you gave the echoes. Absolutely fits how I heard them in my mind, amazing.
My theory on challenge 70 is that while it isn't canon, it represents something that is. I believe that Saint *did* forcibly ascend Sliver of Straw, but that it definitely wasn't a battle as depicted in the challenge. Why would an iterator desiring ascension fight off the one giving it that gift, after all?
Also, if Videocult just wanted to give us a non-canon Iterator boss fight with no deeper meaning, they could have picked *any* Iterator as the opponent. So why specifically pick the single most mysterious and lore-important one?
My thinking as well. It would have been easier to make it Pebbles or Moon if it was just supposed to be a cool boss fight, since their models are already in the game. Instead, they made a brand new model for the iterator who found a means of ascension and then immediately died before telling anyone what it was.
With a lot of the game id like to think there's a deeper meaning to it, but what if they did that just to bait fans into theorizing about the meaning of it?
Okay so i have an idea of what arti campaign echo would say if meeting other scugs
Itd prolly be simply a warning that if they go too far, too vicious, too violent, theyd be stuck like them
Edit: when i say them, im referring to the echo, not artificer, cause i believe the echo was too violent
Edit 2: making it more clear who im talking about
*her*
Literally going full 'Scared Straight' for the other scugs:
"Small beast, do not wipe out the entirety of the scavenger population, otherwise you'll be a ghost that is stuck between layers of reality when you try to yeet yourself into the void sea"
maybe the echo arti meets IS arti? given how some of the other echoes talk, it seems as if they are not exactly lined up with time or reality so its possible that they might meet beings that were around before they ascended and became a echo, including themselves, without causing any paradox issues by virtue of not really existing in a defined timeline. not the most likely of theories, but a fun idea, given that the arti echo tries to get arti to avoid the fate that befell it and laments that arti will be stuck as well if met after the king scav is killed.
my fellow slugcats, i uhh, i bombed a hospital full of scavs.
@@bananananananabatman8999 interesting, would make sense with how we dont know how the echoes work cycle wise, but her ascension scene is alot different than saint’s. She looked like she was just flaking, not growing intk an echo
For those of us who have been ruminating on Rain World and its lore since the game originally released there's a lot to consider and a wide variety of views on what the Echoes are, why they are how they are, and what the Void Sea is. We know the Void Sea is a real place, as void fluid itself was harvested and used not only to fuel the Ancient society, but eventually used as an "easy out" solution to escaping the Great Cycle. Not transcending, but the Ancients that went into the void baths didn't reincarnate either, so it was SOMETHING. It isn't surprising that such a jaded and opulent society would consider the easy way out when their iterators failed to reach a solution after innumerable cycles of calculation. Now consider just how many void serpents you see in the transcendence ending as you are dragged down deep by the serpent that meets with you. The incalculable amount of such creatures. It isn't a far stretch to imagine where they came from, if not inherent to the void sea naturally. And knowing their appearances, look at the unusual structure and shape of the Echoes themselves, failed transcendent beings who were likewise incapable of escaping the Great Cycle...and yet trapped all the same, above the sea. They appear inconsistently, and only to those with enough karma to be sensitive to them. Their existence is pitiable, perhaps more cursed because they retain their awareness. There is no indication that the void serpents are aware anymore, though the one that assists you, if you can call it that, at least seemed compelled to bring you to your transcendence, such as it is.
I think the notable thing about echoes is that void fluid's ties to karma seem loose at best from lore standards. the only reason you need 10 karma to ascend is to get past the guardians, which are beings made by the ancients to keep people who didn't fit what they thought was "good for ascension" out. Additionally, when you visit Five Pebbles and gain the mark and 10 karma as survivor, he doesn't actually give you 10 karma. Of course, mechanically he does just give you 10 karma, most likely to keep the game a little simpler (idk I can't code for shit) but it doesn't make sense that Pebbs would just be able to shoot you with his brainwaves so hard that you instantly become a better person (or ig a better scug). What Five Pebbles says backs this up further, as he tells you that "The mark [he] gave you will let you through." The way I interpret this is that the mark of communication has some values in it that basically tell the guardians "ok this one's chill you can let them thru."
The guardians don't care about the mark of communication, as demostrated by basically all campaings.
The guardians can be fooled, convinced, impressed (or previously even exploited through). But the void worms still have their own judgement and/or adherence to some sort of order, and they seem to not be affiliated with Ancients in any way, since no sentient being that came from the civilization of ancients really knows what's beyond the event horizon of the void sea. And they do seem to be indifferent to Artificer when she attempts to ascend after tricking guardians. They just leave her behind, presumably to dissolve into an echo, as opposed to lending a hand to other slugcats, who achieved that level of enlightenment.
Therefore I'd rather count this as a case of a social construct used to describe something that exists in nature. Similar to how we use our methods of measuring time to describe time as a physical phenomenon.
There's one interpretation that a friend of mine posited that I don't entirely disagree with:
Void Fluid doesn't *truly* ascend you. It utterly destroys your body -- so utterly that you're not able to come back as cycles would bring you back normally -- but Rain World draws a *lot* of inspiration from Buddhism and a lake which simply skips past everything and allows you to 'cheat' your way into Nirvana is extremely wrong.
Rather than ascend you, it gets you close, as close as possible, but most things fail at truly reaching Nirvana. Most have too many worldly bonds to leave, shown by Survivor and Monk who both see what they want most, and reaching out to it. What remains of their spirit is reincarnated into the only thing that can survive in the Void Sea: A void worm. Some particularly unlucky souls are *far* too karmically unbalanced to get there, and they turn into echoes. Ancients, unable to see people becoming void worms (they're impossible to record without going into the Void Sea, which is obviously fatal) but able to see people becoming echoes, built the guardians to try and keep people out.
All of this eventually ties into Artificer and Saint, the only Downpour scugs who have unique ascension endings. Artificer might be the only being we see *actually* ascend; she is shown the one thing that she wants most in the world and accepts that it's gone, then fades out, moving on to... whatever it is that lies on the other side, be it Nirvana, or merely the world in its next form. This is supported by the ascension achievement for Artificer being named "Acceptance." Saint, meanwhile, exists as a being who can directly move people on to the next world. They do this to the other iterators, hence why none of their cans are still standing in their time, and eventually make it to Five Pebbles and Moon, crossing them out from the cycle as well. Then they do it to a *Void Worm*, finally removing one of the Ancients (or slugcats) who was led to believe that Void Fluid would ascend them, and they have to do their journey all over again.
Well, pearls mention karma mechanics, suggesting karma is an actual, objective property. Probably a property of the soul rather than the mind. For iterators it's simple physics and yeah, they can just do that
(this might count as a spoiler to some)
Actually the ending IS effected by karma now (at least in survivor). If you ascend with the incorrect karma level it plays a separate cutscene.
Rain World is full of cool shiz, but echoes are one of the most fascinating concepts in it to me, I'm glad they're getting their own video
HE FINALLY USED REVERSE REVERB (REVERSE ECHO, I DONT KNOW THE FUCKING NAME)
Past Echoes?
Edit: oh you where talking about voice changer
A Bell, Eighteen Amber Beads knows they'll never be able to be a gamer again. They long to touch grass, but their spiritual prison keeps them bound between being a pro fortnite gamer and abandoning their dreams of gaming to be able to fully ascend
In the semi-canon Sofanthiel dating sequence, there were 3 different triple affirmatives. Five-Pebbles, The Egg, and The Saint when given the Egg.
In the challenge game modes, you find Saint fighting Silva... however, these two examples can't be understood as canon as it isn't in the campaign mode..
In response to the slugcat dream interrupting the Saint's ending, I have always seen the sleeping glowing slugcat as a representation that your cycle is overlapping another of your own, much like what is required to in order to see an echo.
In the base game/non-saint campaigns, seeing that 'dream' slugcat means that you will be peering into another possibility in your own timeline; a what if, or what will be. I posit that the dream slugcat you see is just another of the cycles of your own, that you are simply in close alignment with.
This ties into my perception of the ascension ending as well, as when you see all of the slugcats swimming together to a single point, following your commands as though you are controlling all of them, you can imagine it as all of the other cycles, all of the other possibilities of that particular slugcat, finally arriving at the same place- the present.
So with all that in mind, the Saint doesn't ascend properly or become an echo because at least one version of itself is still in the cycle-the one we see in it's ending. Like Pebbles mentions in Rubicon, Saint's timeline is a tangled knot, possibly an ouroboros, and simply can't resolve like the others can because not all of its cycles arrive at the same point in the void.
I find it interesting that all the echoes are making the 'max karma' sign with their bodies.
Question: why does surviving a cycle gain you karma if it is supposed to represent how detached you are from this world?
Having some free time to philosophize does wonders!
This is a super lame answer but i feel like thats not meant to be explained, being just a game mechanic, i would love to see a theory about it tho
You cannot detach yourself from something without knowing how you are connected, a paradox indeed.
Your Echo voices are incredible. Well done with the effects!
... I can't help but wonder if even the Echoes will vanish at some point. The way so many during Saint's little adventure discuss the dawn of a new cycle makes me imagine that, perhaps as the world enters a "new era" where no complete memory of the Ancients remain, they'll finally vanish - whatever ties they have to the old world simply not remaining in any way, shape or form. Some human concepts of the afterlife are similar to this: when we are truly forgotten, that is when we succumb to oblivion. There have been stories of ancient kings and the like who have toiled to build some of the greatest monuments that still stand today, such as the Pyramids in Egypt - able to experience the gift (or in some stories, the curse) of being unable to truly leave this world.
I also can't help but wonder about the meaning behind Karma 10, in regards to this new theory. Perhaps it is some form of altruism? Giving up one's own purpose to something greater than oneself? Perhaps Saint truly *is* a saint - someone utterly devoted to some larger purpose that it ties them to their Cycle until their task is complete. Perhaps, at some point in their life, they met Sliver of Straw, and instead of being modified or altered into the Triple Affirmative, Saint just... understood the Iterator's plight. Driven to give the Iterators the peace they've been searching for since their inceptions, the fuzzy little green creature has been roaming about, popping minds one after the other, sending them across the Rubicon to whatever fate awaits the old world beyond the border. Once the land has been fully laid bare, and new life can rise from the ash of the old world, our selfless Saint will finally be able to cross the line themselves.
God your performance of the echoes is impeccable
While the saint wasn't what caused Silver Straw to ascended. I like to imagine that something *similar* to the saint, was the cause. This unusual half/ transcendent echo.
This could explain why there was debate with the whole "dying was the solution" idea: If SS was ascended by an echo, it likely wouldn't leave much behind, just an empty husk. (as we can see when the saint ascends LTTM and FP)
Don't really have much proof, other than grasped straws. I am pretty biased. As I really enjoy the potential poetic irony; that, in Five Pebbles attempt to repel these Slugcat pilgrims (by granting them access to the void sea.) he might have unknowingly created the solution he was looking for (The Saint).
I've always interpreted the Void Sea as the product of an eldritch entity that seeks to consume all of existence, especially with all the tentacles and Void Worms wiggling in the background when you go into the Void Sea.
genuinly some of the best voice acting ive seen. i fucking love your videos, they are the perfect combination of fun gameplay and shitpost humor.
This is weird to take from this, but here's my theory why the Echoes refer to the Slugcat as a rodent, even though it more closely resembles, well, cat: Lantern Mice. We see nothing that even resembles a feline within the Retaining Wall, but we do see lantern mice in the Shaded Citadel. We know that the Citadel was incredibly important to the Ancients, and therefore would probably have been visited even after Five Pebbles was built on top of it. Therefore, it's likely the Ancients saw lantern mice. Since the Slugcat is both weird, slimy, and has big ole eyes and ears, and even come in an array of colors, it's likely the Echoes just... Don't know of anything else the Slugcat COULD be. They just know lantern mice, rodents.
Dude your voice acting legitimately gave me chills (especially at the artificer echo)
The atmosphere of this video is unparalleled, the reverse reverb is peak vibes 🤌
I still think Saint was SoS's Triple Affirmative. Sure, the challenge isn't canon, but then, all I take that to mean was that there was no fight.
After all, SoS had won. They solved the Problem. Why the heck would they resist it once they had confirmed that their little Saint could force ascension on others? managing to find a way to do so was literally their purpose.
Personally not a huge follower of your new theory, but I still congratulate you on the quality of the content. Your videos continue to be as entertaining and informative as always. Thank you.
What's the deal with Echoes!! *seinfeld laughter*
Im pretty sure Saint's A Bell, Eighteen Amber Beads' (Farm Arrays echo) dialogue about this site still not giving up all its secrets is a reference to the fact that Farm Arrays contains the last remaining coloured lore pearl from the base game. doesnt mean too much, but its still a cool detail!
A Bell, Eighteen Amber Beads loves touching grass so much that he became an echo from it.
8:50 im pretty sure the Artificer echo is literally just named Atop The Tallest Tower
i wonder how an echo taste's like
A Bell, 18 Amber Beads is cursed to look at grass but never touch it
Saint being held back ny selflessness and self sacrafice really is true to its name: a saint
that does make sense given that all other slugcats are named based on some important facet of their journey or motivations, and also saint is a rather religiously charged and vague word to not have some meaning behind it besides just a name to give the last slugcat.
i think saint can actually ascend, but he just chooses not to by striking the void worm and it being like "u hurted me so fuck you, u go back", reseting saints karma by violating the violence karma or smth like that, sending him to the place where the other echoes were sent to because of violating other karma rules like self preservation or materialism
distance is the best song for these lore videos
Love to hear the theories! Wonderful readings yet again, great work on the video ^^💫✨! Excited for the region concept 👀💖💕
The tower echo’s name is probably just the same as the area name, atop the tallest tower. It matches the other echo names pretty well
I don’t know if I’m looking into the wrong thing, but why does Saint start at Karma 2? Like, I’d understand if it started at 1, 5, 10 or even 0, but why 2 specifically? That’s the reproduction karma isn’t it? Is Saint “stuck” on this karma for a particular reason like Artificer or is it just that way because it is? Also, I’ve heard countless times that Challenge 70 isn’t cannon, but where and what exactly did the devs say? Cause they could mean, for example, that the fight didn’t happen that way, but that the event did happen
as far as we can tell, saint mechanically needs to visit all echoes to hit karma 10 so 2 makes sense, as saint has overcome violence by his very nature (karma 1) and so needed a low karma to start on. really probably more game design than anything. Challenge 70 is entirely non-cannon, saint was not even born when sliver of straw died. the devs said it on the discord server, people there probably have the screenshot if you need proof.
@@ezersial5559 I thought about that, but if it really was about having to visit all echoes (which it isn’t since there’s the hidden one that I didn’t even know about) they could’ve added another one anywhere. Saint isn’t violent by nature, but it doesn’t seem to be very egotistical or attached to any other of the 5 main karmic things either, it’s confusing. Thank you for the info about Challenge 70 as well
@@titadogelo5090 Saint is going through an endless cycle of reaching max karma, going to the void sea, rejecting ascension and being sent back to the surface with zero karma, which tells me that, unlike Artificer, there isn't any particular relevance to the karma he starts capped at. It's just that his campaign doesn't start immediately after the last time he rejected ascension. He's already begun his climb back to ten karma when the game starts.
@@screamingcactus1753 well, the campaign does begin quite literally the moment a cycle finishes, so it’s not possible for Saint to have visited any Echoes or have done anything at all to go from Karma 0 to 2. Even if we assume that no living creature can be at Karma 0, Saint should then start at 1. Considering how important the karma mechanic is lore-wise to both Arti and Saint, which are the only two who have vastly different ascension scenes from the others, I still won’t be convinced that it’s just a gameplay feature, at least not yet
I hope the echoes get names in an update, I love the random titles they give them
I needed this after a hard, long day. Thanks, Das.
SS echo is awesome because they basically just say "good job 😄you're so awesome!"
Will you make lore video for Saint?
Because it brings up new questions about the cycle itself.
Like when you ascend moon and pebbles, either separately or both, their dialogue gives so much lore.
As well as the cycles meeting.
Where does it say your cycles have to meet to meet an echo?
The only place I've heard cycles meeting was with moon in saint's campaign.
The way I see it is saint is a sign a cycle is ending he wipes the last of a civilization so the next may rise
"...it is where we are meant to be." who is the 'we' past echoes is talking about? is it the ancients? him and the other echoes? the creatures that are still living there? the slugcats????
If I may... I love your rain world videos. I would love to see a video showing how to use the survivor or monk to navigate the superstructure to retrieve the cloak. There isn't anything like that I've been able to find yet.
11:49 in this exact moment, i got an ad for a traveling agency, that is called comedic timing.
I just had a thought
Are the void worms
The ascended ancients
Because the echos are trapped above
And could it be that the ancients just loop constantly in the void
Being born and instantly dying in the void sea
Existing only in the void sea
Their Consciousness
Not truly Awake but not dreaming either
I just fucking happened to spiral into a rainworld lore hole, right as this video came out, and clicked it not even knowing it was less than 12 hours old. Fucking stellar content sir!
Do you think we die the same way the iterators do? Moon (while losing a lot contained in the memory conflux) still has her personality and care for pebbs, all of her neurons (brain power) were deactive, this made it so she could not think or observe, but she remained. Do we still remain after death? Our brains rot after deactivation and we cannot think or observe, are we still there? Our minds (like the iteratiors) are a bridge from ourselves to the world outside. I don’t believe we have a soul or energy. we never die or leave to a higher plane. Moon didn’t ascend after her death, neither will we. We will be trapped in nothing with no rope to pull us out.
best content before sleep at 5am
it's kinda nifty watching you just admit when you were incorrect previously and fleshing out counter evidence to figure out what is probably more correct, keep it up you help make these discussions and arguments digestible and entertaining
Frigid Coast Echo:
"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said-“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
?????
These new lore videos are and will be awesome.
All I want is for a big, flying, jiggly man to call me a little beast.
big floaty golden tentacle men
AYOOOOOO ANOTHER LORE VIDEOOOO
These are always so GREAT
6:33 "I do not need eyes to know that the grasses still sway gently in the winds"
16:23 "I placed my faith into the hands of random gods, now I must endure it to the end."
I know they say challenge 70 isn’t canon, but isn’t a whole dialogue between moon and five pebbles as Saint basically saying that the iterators could never ascend due to their inability to bring information back from beyond the void sea
What I think is going on is that the saint had one thing that was still tying them to the world and that was wanting to ascend all so when he tried to ascend yrrej and it didn’t work they still wanted to ascend all beings so then they became an echo (ending screen) but with echos 50% of them are ascend so I think that the saint’s 50% that is still here is replaying it’s memories and that’s why the start and end cutscene are similar because the saint just replays it’s memories once the last one ends(the entire campaign). Maybe the saint was created by either SRS or NSH because we know they dabbled in making purposed slugcats (spearmaster and hunter) so maybe the saint might of been one of their later creations.
Edit: tell me if I got anything wrong please because I must perfect this theory!!!
I think the unnamed echos are not ancients but something like scavs that accended
Strongly doubt that. The nameless guys might just be echoes that appeared in an unreachable place.
9:16 This makes me sort of think about someone elses idea on a previous video about each of the five downpour slugcats being the same cycled one, ending in saint and stuck in loop
I say this is fortified by the fact they still mention the battle even after artificer killed the king scavenger.
To add as well, it could be that after the multitude of actual cycles for the specific slugcat, a sort of desire rose to ascend FIve Pebbles and Moon after "knowing" the pain they're going through
I LOVE YOUR VOICE, YOU LITERALLY DO VOICE ACTING PERFECTLY😭💕
12:38 "I have existed long enough to hear them all. those who have been *and those who have yet to be"* Are Echoes persistent across space and time?
Seems like it.
Goddamn that’s some top notch echo voice acting!
14:10 I love the echo music. So peaceful
My guess wuld be, since the lore seems to be focused on death=good that the saint, as implied by his name culd habe been made in the void or been some kind of ascended being that is traped untill everything falls in the void
Your back! That means the store must be close by!
Love your videos, man!!!!
Thank you for this video
I feel like if you were an iterator, you would be called: Chasing Lore
Daszombs echo takes are just mwah
*Amazing*
You can meet the Metropolis echo on other slugcats, and he does have different dialogue!
Usually you have to teleport in there, but in Expedition mode Monk and Survivor can start in Metropolis
I clicked on this earlier but it was privated
_Who else was there when the video was deleted?_
*I sure was*
So hang on
Echoes are permanently stuck to specific places in the world that bound them in life yeah?
The land is constantly super slowly sinking into the void right?
What happens to echoes who have had their spot in the world, pulled into the void?
I am sure we don't know
But perhaps if we want to be optimistic then they get their chance at "redemption" in the end?
If other civilizations came before The ancients, they would have been bound to make echoes in their species too after all?
echoes aren't stuck in specific places, I think they all just have an specific place where they prefer to show themselves that can in some cases chabge, the echoes in Lttm and Bitter Aerie weren't there before Saint's campaing, and when 5P collapsed Six Grains of Gravel moved to the remains of The Leg instead of staying in the remains of The Wall.
I think the saint was fully ascended. Going with the Jesus metaphor he is a being that comes back from the great beyond in the form of a slugcat, and the prupose is to ascend everything once everything is done and there's nothing to experience the cycle but echoes, there's even a cycle anymore?
Just finished survivor campaign
Damn.
That was scary and deep
Saint: '' blows up pancakes with mind''
Saint's ascension always turning out to have been a dream and restarting the campaign has huge flavors of the Echoes turning out to have been a dream and restarting the cycle.
Idk what to do woth that idea but god Videocult slapped with the parallels
FINALLY A NEW DASZOMBES VIDEO!!!'