lore-nerdz

[fluid rivet]

Anyone know where I can find a list of where to get all the lost colony explorer notes?

Been googling like crazy and no luck lol

[granite stump]

He’s awful. Bro legit uses the codex to make an infinite food source for him and his people

[bronze turtle]

Oh makes sense

[granite stump]

He’s got both an infinite army and an infinite food source. Both of which are nonnegotiable. You either die after randomly waking up or you become a mindless member of the horde he has.

[bronze turtle]

Isn't the lost king basically the red element version of rockwell? He injected himself with red element and is obsessed with immortality

No wonder they got along

[granite stump]

The lost king acts like a victim when in reality he could have just you know… NOT went that direction

[granite stump]

No they detest each other

[bronze turtle]

Then why didn't he kill rockwell

[granite stump]

Red and purple element can’t coexist with each other so the lost king was fine with kicking Rockwell to the genesis ship to make it their problem to mitigate the damages and the control the revenants had

[bronze turtle]

Oohhh makes sense

[granite stump]

Because if he tried he would have been corrupted? Mei tried biting Rockwell and she got infected

[bronze turtle]

Rockwell is corrupted in lost colony? In the explorer notes where theyre talking he shows no signs of it

He looks normal

[granite stump]

The whole reason they even interact to begin with is due to Mei yin aka the lost queen being sick and undergoing corruption. Rockwell was the technical only one who could cure her in a timely manner. The lost king could have but it would of taken some time

[bronze turtle]

True

[bronze turtle]

This is true tho, no?

Same motive basically

To rule with element

[granite stump]

It mentions Rockwell still has raw element in his body, in fact it’s his very blood since the instant Mei sunk her fangs into him, she recoiled and tried to spit the element out her mouth but she was infected

[bronze turtle]

Oh okk

For the map with the most lore its sure the most confusing still lol

[granite stump]

He’s technically the only major hive mind connection left for the element to follow so that’s why the revenants follow him. In reality Rockwell would have been an enemy since he had a mind of his own during aberration. Dude legit was ready to fight the titans and use us as his main attack force

[granite stump]

Oh no in reality the lore is just bad. Like really bad

A lot of inconsistencies all over the place

[bronze turtle]

Lolll

Hopefully ark 2 is more clear

[granite stump]

Likely not since it’s such a mess with this dlc

The gameplays fun but YEESH the lore is rough

[granite stump]

To also clarify, there’s a bit more to it then just he’s Rockwell but red

They do share a lot in common but the main difference is

The lost king aka Darius was the first one to realize how red element can modify the genetic genome of beings, he used leech and vampire bat to modify his and his fellow survivors bodies. In a sense they are semi similar but both have way different goals

Rockwell wants to spread and thrive

Darius aka the lost king wants his kingdom to remain and he just wants to exist without any hostility while he does his own thing (Aka eat people with his infinite food glitch basically)

[lean fog]

LK is basically going "i don't wanna conquer the world just be a tyrant over my small part of it go away"

[granite stump]

In a nutshell yeah

[umbral field]

i know it's a fever dream to hope that the "Updated cinematics." patch note means "Fixed the timeline" but let me dream for five mins

[mighty spade]

pray lad

just pray 😭

[mighty spade]

Karmot you've been typing for like 40 minutes

what'cha cookin' lol?

[loud jay]

The timeline has done nothing wrong change my mind--
All joking aside, I'd have a lot more problems if it was between Ext and Gen 1 and not post-Gen 2 lol. At least this way LC's story is easily ignorable and doesn't become a problem for the next thousand years
I do hope they added in the presumed missing cutscene for the Lost Queen and fixed Antarctica turning into a lush forest on ascension though. I'm about to go through the cinematics and find out.

It's convoluted and completely unnecessary to do it like this, of course, but
If this is the writing we receive then thank god it's not even relevant to anything that happens between ext and gen 1/gen 2 (presuming they do not rewrite it. please don't rewrite it. oh god.)

[umbral field]

ehh i don't like that it cuts our character out and says "you can't have done gen1/2 yourself" but...

[loud jay]

To be fair Wildcard has always been cagey on whether or not the ext and genesis survivor were the same, or so I hear
Gen 1 on ASE kind of made it seem like they were the same though which is strange.

[lean fog]

still say lc prob happened after gen 2 cause engram codex got destroyed or so on colony ship so we were needed to get it from arat prime and finish reseed protocol

[umbral field]

it's def. after gen2. "So you can upload the codex to me here on arat, along with your own consciousness"

[umbral field]

They said it was meant to be a different one, BUT that they wanted to leave it open to player interpretation, so everyone was hoping LC would just take place after extinction and let you upload to the ship... there's no reason to skip gen1/gen2 and a thousand years of time (why did they need to do that if the colony's already established fully with the Lost King by the time Mei Yin even turns up), aside from to advertise ark 2 basically lol
Anyway update no the cinematics weren't changed timeline-wise rip, if anyone was wondering

[lean fog]

but was missing part fixed?

[loud jay]

Oh yeah it's incredibly unnecessary. I just think they dropped the ball hard enough with LC that the ASE jump from Ext to Gen 1 is.. Preferable at this point lol.
If it was marketed as an ad for Ark 2 like Legacy for Santiago is apparently going to be I think it would've gone down a lot easier. Instead it feels like they changed a lot of things last minute.

[mighty spade]

missing part?

if by "missing part" you mean that bugged to hell Lost Queen cutscene

No, it is still broken 💀

[grizzled trench]

Hey there, I have tried googling but keep coming up more confused than I was before. Does anyone mind helping me understand how Lost Colony works? So far, my experience has been the same as any other map but with Voice Acting at some locations

[granite stump]

There was a tweet just released a bit ago mentioning steam has it fixed but Xbox and PS are still broken until they get around to fixing it

[granite stump]

What are you confused by?

[grizzled trench]

I just don't understand how factions work mostly

There's so much new stuff to this but I haven't come across any defense or attack locations even though I've explored the whole map lol

[granite stump]

The faction thing is an illusion of choice.

You just do offensive or defense missions and you get thralls to join your ranks when done.

[grizzled trench]

ohhh okay

so you're not really actually taking any action to join one or the other

[granite stump]

If you’re in single player, it shouldn’t be that hard to find them, just keep searching and don’t do Dino wipes

If you’re in multiplayer… good luck with that

[grizzled trench]

I'm in a multiplayer unofficial server (i own it and it has like 6 total players)

[mighty spade]

anyone have a clip of the new cutscene?

still bugged in menu for me despite my game updating

[indigo vine]

Any news on when a fix is coming for ps5 lost colony map i keep getting beeping that won't stop and crashes anytime u try to enter the city.

[granite stump]

People are likely doing them before you can find them

[granite stump]

For now it’s just best to stay far away from the city and build up. Resources there aren’t worth it if you keep crashing

[grizzled trench]

they're not, i actually realized they were defaulted to 0 spawns. I fixed that setting so now we should see those

[granite stump]

Ah alright

[light slate]

Should I skip Lost Colony in my Ultimate Ark playthrough if it takes place after Gen2?

Doing the story maps in order is important to me

[granite stump]

Probably yeah but there’s nothing as of rn between the events to sink your teeth into so if genesis doesn’t drop here in a respectable time frame when you’re done with all the other maps then I’d say go for it

[light slate]

Somehow I find myself always finding something to do on the existing maps. Valguero’s release prevented me from finishing my Helicoprion breeding project among a few others

[granite stump]

Lost colony has my own progress on my ultimate ark play through on hold as well since I wanted to see how it was

[light slate]

Same here, and I feel bad for abandoning for my lil thatch hut so soon

[native whale]

anyone else crash

[young marten]

Guys

Did they fixed Lost Queen outro cutscene?

If yes, where could i check it? I have no lights rn

Ping me when you'll have the answer

[lean fog]

steam i heard yes xbox and psn not yet

[tame marsh]

yes, syntac has a video on it rn

just to clarify, lost colony us is not the gen 1 and 2 us. it ended with extinction, then either us or a new survivor on gen 1 and 2 and then lost colony is a clone of extinction or genensis us?

who is lc survivor supposed to be?

are diana, helena and Mei-yin in a thruple relationship?

[lean fog]

bruh i say it before but i feel like events are we saved earth in extinction>go to colony ship and kick rockwell primes butt>get brought back to go to arat prime to retrieve a working codex> ark 2 happens

[tame marsh]

That makes sense, weird that we get sent to genesis then come back to earth

To deal with arat

[lean fog]

not if you think more on it

we coulda got revived to go after rockwell assuming the reseed protocol would finish cleansing earth but once it didn't we gotta finish the job

[umbral field]

That's not possible for a number of reasons unless they retcon some things

[umbral field]

This is correct, and the lc survivor is the extinction one cloned 1k years later and sent to arat/ark 2 at the end

[lean fog]

didn't they also say they leave it up to player interpretation?

also do we know how the super luminal link fully works?

[umbral field]

they left it up to player interpretation until lost colony yeah, which is why it sucks that LC butchered that chance

[lean fog]

prob stupid but what if when we use the link we end up 10 some years in the past?

like we got all this sci fi and magic stuff so why not some temporal shennanigans

[umbral field]

the link seems to just be a data stream. given that when mei yin arrives at Lost Colony it's already fully established with the Lost King, vampires, neophytes etc. and that's hundreds of years before -we- arrive on Earth, there's no way we could've gotten uploaded after Extinction without fighting our way through already

Re: time travel you can headcanon whatever, but it's not in the lore at all

[lean fog]

Personally if they wanna 100% say island>se>ab>ext>lc survivor and gen 1>gen 2 survivor are separate fine with me i just hope lore let's us acknowledge it

question is if they go that route wonder how they'd handle it in ark 2 like would it be our main story character ending up on arat given they talking to helena deus etc or not which hope it is

It's a shame LC wasn't before ark 2 time cause then could argue protagonist of ark 2 is child of the one who waits and genesis survivor 😅

[granite stump]

Lost colony is actually the last story map we should be doing in terms of what they explain in lore.

And it’s established the Lost colony survivor is the original one who waits, the one who purified earth which semi implies the survivor on the genesis ship was a whole other survivor

[lean fog]

Imagine if it's the characters relative or even wanna go into deep fanon their partner

like imagine if it was a case of "hey this person badass and did great so maybe this other person related to them just as badass let's have them help with the colony ship" and bam

[granite stump]

Kinda bit much to head canon that. The one on the ship could just be a clone of the one who tries again aka us. After all, the genesis ship and the arks had multiple clones of someone exist, that being Santiago

[lean fog]

one could argue that isn't the whole clones and copy not same person thing a oddity? like doesn't bob say he's not sure if same person or not?

[umbral field]

one who tries again*, one who waits was always helena fyi

[hallow nova]

so where does LC take place in the overall timeline? it seems like it happens AFTER gen2. but is that right?

[umbral field]

yes, for the player

like the flashback stuff where mei yin arrives would happen before genesis1, but the player's arrival is post gen2

[hallow nova]

so extinction -> gen1 -> gen2 -> LC -> Ark2?

[umbral field]

yeah

[hallow nova]

assuming they don't add another prep map prior to ark 2 that is.

they're gonna need to do more prep I think gameplay wise to help make the transition to the new game style. I"m starting to warm to it, but I"m still not sold.

[bold dove]

There's the Legacy of Santiago thing on the roadmap.

[lean fog]

imagine if gen survivor was one of santiago's tek tribemates who died in battle on extinction 😅

[tame marsh]

What is Ark 2’s gaming style again?

[bold dove]

Souls-like

[tame marsh]

That sounds harsh

For us

Like monster Hunter but with dinosaurs and npcs

[bold dove]

I actually play FromSoftware games, so rip to people that never have.

[tame marsh]

I’ll probably just watch the lore videos

[main steppe]

Souls-like combat specifically. Not necessarily world design

I’m imaging they’re doing to spice up player to player combat

[tame marsh]

as long as it ain't unplayable to the majority of the audience

[granite stump]

I hate how similar both are, I got my words twisted lol

[umbral field]

😄

[lean fog]

the tek spear a teaser of that ark 2 style iirc

[main steppe]

Honestly, I can see it. It’s animations are reminiscent of the different types of attacks a spear could have on a fromsoft game

[vital plume]

How does the lore tie the ascension for the road map seeing Gen 1 is next being made

[hollow creek]

sorry i don't get the question, u mean how gen1 being the next remaster ties with the LC ending?

[loud jay]

Gen 1 is likely going to be a prequel to Lost Colony if it doesn't get rewritten for ASA
The missing cutscene that we now have only further confirms us being after gen 2
unless Wildcard does something extremely weird again with the lore.

[hollow creek]

wouldn't call it a prequel for LC, but yeah, everything is pointing to gen1 being before LC

[vital zodiac]

So is it confirmed the genesis survivor is not the same survivor as extinction/lost colony?

[mighty spade]

Yep

and Santiago is the only known duplicate across both systems

thus meaning, yeah, they are.

[vital zodiac]

Also did Diana not get rezzed now?

[mighty spade]

no that is another boring plot for True Tales 💀

[vital zodiac]

??

Maybe I missed something but I thought Diana came back and helped Mei kill king titan, then they went to arat prime. But Diana is nowhere to be seen so I’m confused 😂

[mighty spade]

Oh no, if only it was just that 💀

Diana died at some point between Extinction and LC

Mei-Yin has been alone for 2000 years (a-bloody-pparently)

at least

[umbral field]

the really tragic thing is that the original writer for island -> extinction said that even though it wasn't clarified at the time, he liked to imagine that Mei Yin and Diana deserved to have a peaceful walk off into the sunset and retirement basically RIP

[mighty spade]

but noooooooooo, thanks to Jeremy wanting his ship material, that never came to fruition...

sigh

[lean fog]

yeah but as the opening line ina mv saw once said "let me tell you the first thing about battle, the fight never ends"

[umbral field]

yeah it's just new writer: "Absolutely not"

peace is actually illegal in the Ark universe

[mighty spade]

watch it happen for everyone once the lore ends

at least let it end on somewhat of a sour note; to where while the main goals are complete, the fight for survival still remains...

bruh

it was a gif you clanker

[vital zodiac]

So she died AGAIN?

[granite stump]

No she apparently went into stasis with Bob which makes Mei’s reasoning for going to arat prime alone all the more confusing

[vital zodiac]

Tf?

I gotta catch up on bobs tales. I never really paid attention to all that, I thought they were made up

[granite stump]

Like why does she even know what the codex even is and what it does?

Why is she going along when she had Diana alive and could have just went into stasis with her and Bob?

The only real reason is she wants Helena back but the codex I don’t think can help with that

[granite stump]

It’s explained during lost colony itself

Atleast Diana seemingly remaining alive and going into a cryo sleep. However along the road past that she does meet her end around the time of the genesis ships destruction so I suspect she died during those events

Reasoning is because meeka mentions Diana and wanting to bring her back yet Diana was alive and well at the end of extinction so it makes no actual sense as to when she even died

Confused? yeah we all are… because lost colony’s lore is a mess of retcons and poor writing

[vital zodiac]

So what should I look up online to see how bob and Diana go into cryo sleep? The end cutscene where it shows bob going into cryo I thought that was already on the genesis ship. How did Diana get to the genesis ship? I need ark to make a complete story recap

[granite stump]

No, that was on earth. And all those questions are NEVER answered! 😄

Don’t you loooooove lost colony?

In all seriousness I do enjoy some lore bits but the stuff with Diana, Helena and Mei all make no logical sense

[vital zodiac]

That’s deeply frustrating. Ark has always had a pretty good story so far. This seems too ridiculous to be on purpose

Although I gotta say the voiced explorer notes with rockwells alter ego go hard af

[umbral field]

I think they start off okay and then go full cartoon lunacy. him screaming HeLeNaaAAaaaa at the end is just hilariously bad (the writing, not the VA)

[granite stump]

The only ones with ‘okay’ writing is Rockwell and Darius aka the lost king but even then Rockwell gets character assassinated while the lost king as a few questionable moments

The lost king tho does tickle the funny part of my brain when it comes to goofy villains and I do like him

Sad we won’t ever see him again tho

[umbral field]

The thing that messes me up about lost king is he's blatantly meant to be a villain but when you kill his thralls, raptor claus says you were naughty. literally unplayable

[main steppe]

Maybe raptor claus was the REAL villain…

[granite stump]

We are murdering people technically even if they’re infected with red element aka the thrall virus

[loud jay]

It went downhill when they decided to start putting more of Ark 2 lore into ASA
It would've been a way better transition to slowly incorporate Ark 2 mechanics but focus on ASA's lore up until gen 2
Or at least have advertised Lost Colony to focus more heavily on Ark 2 from the start than "its gonna bridge ext and gen 1"

[umbral field]

but when you kill revenants it's "nice." Therefore, there must be an "acceptable" level of Element corruption for Raptor Claus to define. In this essay I will

[granite stump]

The revenants are like zombies, they’re uncurable but the thralls still have human minds they’re just under the lost kings influence

[orchid kestrel]

so is there a reason why abberation crashed in antartica? or was that just a coincidence that is really, really unfortunate for the genesis crew

[mental basin]

Either it was built there initially, and just returned to it's landing spot, or it just inconveniently crashed there

[granite stump]

The ark was damaged so it could of went off course upon entering the atmosphere and landed relatively close to arat prime. They’re luckily the barrier blocked a lot of the force of the blast but as seen, the element was able to break through and corrupt sections of the area

[orchid kestrel]

also have we ever really figured out where LC happens in the timeline?

[main steppe]

Post Gen 2

Ideally, it’d be pre gen 1, but… yeah.

[orchid kestrel]

and what actually confirms this, may I ask

[main steppe]

During LC, Helena sends us to Arat prime to retrieve the codex so they can use it revive people on Arat

I think

The story is… more confusing than it needed to be

[mental basin]

Intro cutscene

The Genesis Ship is already scuttled

Helena brought us, the OG Survivor BACK from the dead and into her SLAVERY for a second time

For the luls, Survivah

[granite stump]

Which in reality the lost king technically respawned us in his kingdom to have a small bite and wanted us to join him due to being a worthy addition to his forces

[main steppe]

Here’s where I’m confused
The codex was apparently on part of the Genesis ship when it crashed
So why do we need to get it now?

[mental basin]

Ah, the fixed Mei cutscene explains that. It got blown up.

[granite stump]

No, the codex wasn’t on the ship. There was an engram matrix but the codex is a different thing to the EM

[main steppe]

Okay, that makes more sense

[mental basin]

Each ARK has a Codex, and the Ship had one too

[granite stump]

Oh-

[mental basin]

Buttt Arat Prime's is the only one left, after the Ship got blown to smithereens

[granite stump]

I thought the engram matrix and the codex were completely different to each other and not the same thing-

[mental basin]

They are. Engrammic Matrices are a part of the brain you SCAN to get an ENGRAM. Engrams are then stored in the codex.

Then a shitton of duplicates were made of the Codex at Arat Prime, which is the OG.

[granite stump]

Ohhh so it technically goes engram matrix to then upload it into the codex which then makes the person

[mental basin]

Mhm!

Engrammic Matrix, Engram, Codex

[main steppe]

Fascinating.

[granite stump]

The codex is just a USB for human engrams confirmed lol

[hollow creek]

ok, just seem most of it
the rockwell and darius notes are the highlights
the mei yin helena diana love triangles is odd, but i can live with it ||i would have preferred the original yuri but i'll live ||
still don't get the reason to make it a link to ark2 instead of genesis, but fine
but we still get no answer what happens to diana after mei and hers fight against the KT
in the end Helena claims the "core of the genesis ship" is in arat's core, how? shouldn't it be in the planet rockwell prime dies?
also i don't get the part of rockwell "infecting" the core? "past millennium" wtf?
and don't helena dare try to steal credit for HLNA work

overall 7/10 can swing up or down 1

let's pray BTT2 does something good

[main steppe]

I think Bob will tell a tale

And it’ll be pretty tall

[hollow creek]

we get boats

that's enough to make me happy

that and also my ||freedom||

[main steppe]

I’m starting to suspect Bob just binged a bunch of movies from after his original life while in stasis

[hollow creek]

one thing that i alwasy wondered even pre ASA, shouldn't a copy of mei yin and diana and helena have been part of the genesis ship, not with their experiences in the arks, but there should still be one copy

and since the santiago in arat prime seems to have his abb memories from what btt tells

shouldn't the same go for the otheres

even if the 3 women are a exception

[orchid kestrel]

you'd think that they would want to grab that before heading out into space

[granite stump]

No no they all had a codex the one on the genesis ship was destroyed so they need a fresh copy from arat prime

It was a my bad on my own part

[tame marsh]

i feel like they're not doing a good job of meshing the animated series and the game's lore

the mei-yin, diana and helena love triangle makes little sense unless you watched the show, as none of the explorer notes have been updated to hint that Mei-yin and Helena had a thing for each other. they only show Mei-yin and Diana having a thing for each other. I hope they don't bring back Mei-yin's first lover from her time period. would be too much

i think i'm just salty my op ship is getting kinda messed up

[orchid kestrel]

I was unaware that the animated series was canon

[sharp agate]

Rockwell needs to lock in

[mental basin]

It's... not, but

The devs are kinda pushing Animated Series content into the game and

Nobody really likes it BECAUSE The Animated Series isn't canon

Devs, what am I saying, the WRITERS

[main steppe]

Literally, just, have it be two alternate timelines that both end up at Ark 2.

That’s not hard.

One timeline has Helena and Mei Yin get together on the island, and one doesn’t.
There you go, I fixed it.

[tame marsh]

that would be preferable

the wanting to tie the two together is messing up the timeline and relationships a tad

[granite stump]

Someone should totally do a ‘I fixed the ark lore’ series

[main steppe]

There isn’t even much to fix

It’s just ONE map

[vital plume]

Does it mean for Ark 2 that Mei Yin is a element infused survivor now?

[tame marsh]

All they need to do is undo the forcing the animated series lore into the game lore. They said the two were separate but now they’re being merged for some reason and it’s messing with the narrative a little. That or they should double down and go back to the ARKs and mention in the explorer notes, Mei-yin and Helena having a thing for each other. That and Lost Colony doesn’t seem very necessary other than ‘get the codex to arat’

[tame marsh]

I think so but idk if removing the mask removed the red element from her body. I’m not sure, especially since it seems red element healed her tearing her own arm off some how.

Also, if purple and red cancel each other out, what does blue element due to both? Just amplify or morph into the element they come in contact with?

[lean fog]

Hey guys random thought

if we saw bits of colony ship burning up on re entry wonder if that might be a lore type environmental event in ark 2 or so where remains drop down and gotta go collect any loot etc

[umbral field]

i wonder if she's actually like 20 feet tall too with wings lmao

[bold dove]

Really shouldn't do anything, as blue Element is just refined and used for fuel.

[mighty spade]

Blue Element presumably also looses its sapience.

I say presumably given it is most likely so, no evidence to suggest otherwise

[uncut ledge]

Yeah thought about this when ARK 2 was still actually news, and the cinematic in LC seems to reinforce this idea. We will see in 2037 (pending) when ARK 2 comes out in Alpha

[formal mural]

Could someone explain the lore between extinction-LC-gen1&2 because it doesnt make sense to me

[lean fog]

tl:dr atm looks like our ext character got revived to retrieve coded from arat prime while gen 1/2 a different character

[formal mural]

Damn so there is when playing not a real chronological order. Damn, i thought LC was to explain the gap between EXT and gen1

[lean fog]

that seemed like idea but seems like got changed at some point

Personally for my character lore gonna be same person controlling both bodies cause seems some magic/sci fi level stuff homo deus could do

[tame marsh]

man they messed up the lore so much everyone's confused about where LC is supposed to be in the timeline. myself included

[main steppe]

It takes place after Gen 2.

[tame marsh]

so is rockwell just this games version of jekyll and hyde?

with edmund being Jekyll and rockwell being hyde?

[main steppe]

Somewhat. It seems more like Rockwell’s conscious overpowered the clone’s own consciousness and is now in control

[tame marsh]

that sucks

i kinda wanted a rockwell redemption arc but oh well i guess

i think when he says 'Helena, I'm afraid' that was Edmund talking, not Rockwell

since he says I'm afraid in his explorer note in almost the exact same tone

[lyric tendon]

It's too late for redemption at this point

They are gonna milk rockwell as a villain at this point and honestly i am sick and tired of it

[main steppe]

I feel like if they wanted to bring Rockwell back, a better idea than just having him survive the gen 2 explosion in a clone body would’ve been to have him revived using the codex instead on Arat without any of his memories, and exploring what it’s like for this man who’s had massive influence on the galaxy without even knowing it

[granite stump]

Honestly, I think the way they written Rockwell at the end could allude to the Rockwell we know going into that one little remnant section on the Eden ring and hiding away all while the pure Rockwell aka Edmund took the fall

But that’s also assuming they planned ahead for that which I doubt

[sharp mural]

Cough who have ruined the story cough

[tame marsh]

the clone body in LC was for him to survive Aberration crashing, not the colony ship exploding. i think for ark 2 they're hinting that Rockwell did integrate himself into the codex in some manner

[flint ridge]

Ok sooo it’s been a while, but can someone explain how the arks and prime and why Helen needs to get the codex

[tame marsh]

the gensis ship's codex blew up with rockwell so they needed arat primes' codex, even though each ark and i guess maybe the proto arks has one (i think, i'm not sure but it would make sense since we respawn on the arks and earth.)

how do we respawn on earth? is there a codex in sanctuary? or are we able to cause of the proto arks?

we respawn because of the codex, yes?

[granite stump]

There’s a codex in sanctuary but presumably after earths reseed it deactivated since there wasn’t really a need for it anymore since earth was cleaned up

[tame marsh]

that's what i thought cause we lose our implant after we defeat the king titan

[granite stump]

Also sanctuary got flattened due to the one Ark landing nearby and releasing a pulse that destroyed the city so technically it was destroyed

[tame marsh]

oh yeah

was that just bad placement or did sanctuary just have to be destroyed for some reason?

[granite stump]

Bad placement

[tame marsh]

fair

wait so wouldn't sanctuary get damaged from that ark taking off?

[flint ridge]

Ok so extinction? Right? Is set on earth but also lost colony is set on earth??

[tame marsh]

yes

in Antarctica

[granite stump]

Seemingly but it seems fine

[granite stump]

Other side of the planet with arat prime aka lost colony basically

[tame marsh]

final death for the ghost city

where is sanctuary?

[granite stump]

Unsure but with what the devs and some other people who worked on the dlc have said, arat prime is located in Antarctica

So the opposite side from where Antarctica is on earth

[flint ridge]

Ok sooooo where is Helen and the others? Are they on earth on a different side?

[tame marsh]

so the artic

[tame marsh]

Helena Dues is on Arat. Diana is dead for some reason and Mei-yin is the lost queen, unwillingly enfused with red element to make her a vampire

[granite stump]

They’re on a different planet known as Arat. Helena is a homo deus, she ascended and resides within Meeka, Santiago and Diana’s daughter

Mei yin is MIA

Diana is MIA

Bob is on arat

Santiago is on arat with his and Diana’s daughter (which was a clone version and not born during the events of arat aka after the genesis ships destruction)

[tame marsh]

i want to know why diana didn't come with Mei to Arat tbh

[flint ridge]

Ok so why did earth get reseeded than?

[tame marsh]

did she die again?

[tame marsh]

cause us the one who tries again, defeated the king titan and lowed the element corruption level enough for the arks to come down and initiate the Reseed Protocol

[granite stump]

There were 2 plans. One was the reseed protocol, the other project genesis. The two main factions of earth done two methods to keep humanity alive. The reseed protocol being the main way to keep earth same. The genesis ship was a safety net in case that plan failed

[tame marsh]

Arat Prime didn't get reseeded cause of the red element powered dome they got, which keeps the reseed protocol out, otherwise they would all die

[granite stump]

Mei I assume going off lost colony’s now fixed ending did ascend with Helena but I could be wrong

[tame marsh]

cause the members of the lost colony are infused with red element to become better adapted to the cold

[flint ridge]

Ohhh ok. Soo for the first ark and second ark how did those works? Or more in general how do the arks work?

[tame marsh]

no i mean Diana. did she die before Mei left to go to Arat prime?

[granite stump]

The arks preserve life. They’re safety boats that hover over earth and when they return they release a pulse which purges all harmful element from the soil.

[granite stump]

I got no clue it’s never answered

[tame marsh]

it's basically Helena Dues having us follow in her journey through the arks. that's why we get glitched from one ark to aberration

cause aberration has the 'get to earth' gateway curtisy of the tek tribe aka Diana, Santiago and others

[tame marsh]

it makes me so confused. they really shouldn't have mixed the show and the game lore. it's making Mei's story messy

[granite stump]

The island and scorched earth are simply just normal arks, how they should work. Scorched being a biome that’s more harsh and prone to try and kill you since the overseer of that ark is a lot more aggressive and wanting to see progress made in human survival instead of them settling down

Aberration is the weird one since it’s a broken ark

[tame marsh]

since it's overseer got blown up

[granite stump]

I keep asking myself “How the hell does she even know of the codex and why is she going for it alone without Bob or Diana???”

[tame marsh]

and one of its obelisks was also blown up

[granite stump]

Because Diana with what we know… WAS Alive on extinction at the end and likely went into stasis with Bob. Mei just chose not to

[tame marsh]

i know. i think in the extinction notes it says that both Mei-yin and Diana went to find Arat, with Helena Dues guiding them

[tame marsh]

so they're both still on earth?

[granite stump]

Bob and Diana seemingly are just in stasis rn

[tame marsh]

why would Mei then talk about reviving her then?

she's still alive if that's the case

just go and grab her

[granite stump]

In general it just makes no fricken sense unless somehow an accident happened

[tame marsh]

we don't even see her in extinction, in person i mean

[granite stump]

Wait-

Okay there’s 2 possibilities here… one more of a joke while the other one is kinda annoying

[tame marsh]

yeah, they put the flash backs with Diana in a weird order. first one on earth, then smash cut to her dead on aberration

cause the first one is her in front of a mech

[granite stump]

The annoying theory, they retconned Diana’s respawn which can’t be true since we see her coming out of a mek in her one showing before Mei vs the lost king happens

Or

The lost king mentioning Diana was murdered… what if Bob did it?

[tame marsh]

with her necklace that i guess Mei picked up

[tame marsh]

i doubt bob would do that. he is sexist but he ain't that much of one

[granite stump]

That’s animated series Bob

Asa Bob is different

Bros an actual chad here lol

[tame marsh]

true

still, i doubt dude would murder diana

he would be too afraid of Mei to do so

[granite stump]

It probably wasn’t intentional

[tame marsh]

maybe

[tame marsh]

anythin else you want us to explain?

[granite stump]

It could have been an accident. That or something happened between them which made all of them go their separate ways but then again, I don’t think Bob would be alive if he did do that since we know how vengeful Mei is

[tame marsh]

yeah. they would get so much worse than what happened to Nerva over Wu-zhui

[granite stump]

But as said it was a dumb funny idea lol

[tame marsh]

i think i spelled that right

[granite stump]

Technically a similar rage to what she felt when Rockwell killed Diana

[tame marsh]

still, it feels like they're trying to change the lore but refused to change the notes

[tame marsh]

oh most definitely

that raptor was her best friend

i kinda want him to get reincarnated

that and her shinehorn

[granite stump]

Bro did his best to save Mei but lost his life to the cold regions wildlife… A reasonable end to such a legendary raptor

Mei’s rock drake was a legend too

[tame marsh]

dude was the best raptor a warrior from the three kingdoms era could ask for

i felt so bad about her rock drake

[granite stump]

Held off countless reapers and nameless until it got overrun and torn apart

[tame marsh]

i hated that moment

[flint ridge]

Mmmm why are all the ark different? Like aberration

[tame marsh]

aberration is broken, that's why it's so different

also, the other arks are different to test human survivability. for all we know, every ark, story or not, is canon in the sense that they could exist

[granite stump]

As mentioned, aberration is a broken ark. The people on it thought it would be a good idea to nuke their captors only for them to realize they took out the safety barrier and well… the surface is now just cooked

Each region tho technically is akin to a region on earth back before the corruption spread. Basically maximizing how we humans handle any type of terrain

[tame marsh]

especially if creatures like Deinochyus and the desmodus, creatures on non canon arks, are in lost colony or other maps

they didn't know they were on an ark btw, that's why they did it

[granite stump]

The arks basically accelerate human adaptability and would have come down normally when the stuff is met… but the corruption on earth just kept evolving and growing which kept moving the goal post higher which in turn is why the arks were a flawed idea

[tame marsh]

and why they started to glitch and mess up a little

cause they weren't designed to stay up for as long as they did

a few thousand years i think?

[granite stump]

Several, atleast 2000+ with what lost colony mentions

Or atleast 1000 I think since it was another 1000 after reseed happened

[tame marsh]

basically the arks are the 'seeds for new life' but the seeds were about to expire by the time we get spawned in on the arks and get down to earth

[tame marsh]

1-2 thousand years seems logical

[granite stump]

Yeah it was just a mess

[granite stump]

Probably longer

[tame marsh]

and now the lore of earth be screwy

[granite stump]

We aren’t actually sure how many years it was

[tame marsh]

why were they saying arat was the origin of the arks? the origin of the idea?

since all they mention is the ship

[granite stump]

Probably the origin in terms of the codex’s creation which they then copied and gave over for the arks

And genesis ship

[tame marsh]

makes sense

they just should have worded that better

along with many other things

i swear, if they are meshing the story of the game and the show, they need to rewrite or add some explorer notes

i'm too salty about this i swear

[granite stump]

They shouldn’t of at all

[tame marsh]

i agree

i wish they would undo the mix

honestly i kinda want them to redo LC

cause Diana was revived on earth. she is not dead and we have not been told she died a second time

she should be with Mei-yin. Helena, for all we know, had no romantic interests whatsoever until the show came along

it just feels like a mess that could have been avoided, LC could have been written better to facilitate this. like notes of Mei and Diana fighting against the Lost King, the Lost King kills Diana and forces Mei to become his queen and Helena (along with us) snap her out of it

[granite stump]

A proper dlc where it doesn’t end up linking to ark 2… Instead it just links between extinction and gen 1 like it was said to do

[tame marsh]

thus giving the reason for Diana to need to be revived on Arat

[tame marsh]

that would also be good. have us travel in Mei and Diana's foot steps

instead of the lost king, we fight robots or something

[main steppe]

We could still fight the lost king, just have it end with us freeing Diana and Mei Yin, and they stay behind to guard Arat Prime while we beam ourselves onto the colony ship after Rockwell

[tame marsh]

that sounds like a good ending

i thought the ending, before i saw it, would be us accidentally sending rockwell to the ship and we have to follow to prevent Rockwell from doing any damage

but the time it takes for us to get there is too long, leading to Rockwell having enough time to get established

[main steppe]

They could also say that the damage to the colony ship was only extensive enough 9/10 years after he arrived on it, that it only then sent an SOS message to Arat prime.

Then Helena could learn of it, and send us out to Arat prime to reunite with Mei Yin and Diana, only to learn they’ve been captured by the lost king

[tame marsh]

Man that sounds better than the actual ending

They should hire one of us to make the story

[main steppe]

You could still keep most of LC’s story intact, all you’d really have to do is change around the opening and ending cutscenes

[tame marsh]

That sounds like an easy fix

Msybe we should petition wild card to change it to that

[gusty turret]

Wildcard writers try to do anything good since extinction challenge: impossible

[safe quail]

I’m glooning

[true sphinx]

I have a question how helena still Alive or she still dead

[granite stump]

She ascended. She’s now a homo deus

[north bear]

Neither

[true sphinx]

Oh ok thanks

[tame marsh]

she exists on a different plane of existence

[main steppe]

The Helena we’re interacting with in Lost Colony is HLNA in a human body

[floral sedge]

Anything I can expect from lost colony lore wise without spoiling too much

?

[restive marsh]

The lore went downhill after extinction, that pretty much sums it up 💔

[floral sedge]

I liked Genesis 1 n 2

[restive marsh]

I mean yeah but Lost Colony mixes things from the animated series (which ruined the lore) it’s buns💔

[grave jungle]

Hey animated series kinda made sense if you listen to all explorer notes in game of those characters at least it did to me

[granite stump]

She also seems to have OG Helena’s memories. If I recall HLN-A didn’t have too many memories of Helena. I suspect it’s both of them technically

[granite stump]

It made 0 sense bro… Rockwell in the animated series was already akin to his scorched earth version where he was willing to commit murder for what he wants

The island Rockwell was actually a rather chill dude. Morally questionable but chill. Then he joined Nerva and things got a bit… hairy. Mostly because he manipulated Nerva into thinking something grand was in the tek cave which turned out to be false atleast for Nerva anyway.

In general a lot of stuff was just… wrong in that series. And in season 2 it gets even more wrong

[grave jungle]

How u see season two already?

[lyric tendon]

Don't forget Charlotte doesnt exist and not even mentioned in the notes until just name dropped in Gen 2

[runic ravine]

I saw the ending for Lost colony, so Its 100% confirmed Helena and Meiyin have had sex along with Diana and Meiyin.

Helena is wanting to respawn Diana and Meiyin, because she loves Meiyin, she is getting Diana because she is Meiyin's most previous lover, so is there gonna be a romantic threesome hinting?????

I truly need to know.

Not in a sexual reason, im actually curious of this love triangle that is happening, do they all love eachother or...

[gusty turret]

The best answer is who knows

[runic ravine]

True

[granite stump]

The teaser trailer we got. Rockwell lost a hand and is getting element into his body even tho it legit never happened on the island…

[grave jungle]

Oh

[main steppe]

At the very most, he touched it and got obsessed with it

If they’re just going to say “oh, it regrew his hand, and he became obsessed with its potential”, that’d probably be fine, but if they’re going to have him go full mutant Rockwell way earlier?

Whyyyyyyy?

[stark pivot]

I liked the ASE story line better than ASA.

[bold dove]

Also should be noted that, unless he somehow reaches the ARK's Element storage. He'd have no way of doing this, since Element's melting temperature is beyond anything he could've done. So he never had the opportunity to get liquid Element until Aberration, where the Element storage was out for all to see in the caverns.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if most modern forges can barely melt Element, like Tungsten.

Tungsten has a melting temp of 6,192F. So I wouldn't be surprised if Element isn't too far ahead of that.

[gusty turret]

Just crunch it up and huff it

Wouldn't be the weirdest thing a rich British person has ever snorted

[bold dove]

Fuck it, do it like Amber from the original ARK mobile and have Rockwell snort it.

[lyric tendon]

Amber is the secret yellow element all along

[granite stump]

Alright. Screw it ima go watch the animated series in its entirety. I only seen major clips and heard details of it but I never fully checked it out

[bold dove]

Good luck

[main steppe]

It’s not a bad show as its own thing, but as an adaption?

It’s definitely rough in parts.

[granite stump]

I will admit, the start is actually really good. Bob and Helena talking to one another is actually entertaining

[main steppe]

Oh, yeah, all the performances are great, and the actual character interactions are as well

The main thing it suffers from is its quality as an adaption

[bold dove]

It's pretty bad on its own, personally

[merry cipher]

yeah it's not a very good show

[granite stump]

Idk if it’s just me but I got hella bored from the Helena back story- and I think the website I was using to watch it just went down for now so I guess I can’t watch it rn- lol

[bold dove]

I think personally it's one of the few good things in the show.
What sours it, is it being only told in flashbacks

No natural exposition that actually works with the story. No moment to just sit down and talk with someone and have a moment.
All just in Helena's head and her remembering 90% of it. And us going for the ride.

[tame marsh]

no, we're talking to Helena Dues. HLN-A dies, or at least that version of her dies, as she did back herself up. This Helena i think is just Helena Dues deciding to stick around and not fade into the ether

[pearl forum]

Is BR and AR in the Lost Colony cutscenes Before and After Rockwell?

[tame marsh]

might be before and after reseeding

[misty wraith]

I have so many questions,

1. does Lost Colony take place after Genesis 2? Or are there only cutscenes that take place afterwards and the gameplay is just after Extinction?
2. How does Rockwell go from Lost Colony to Genesis ship?
3. is the Survivor the same one in Genesis or Extinction? Cus isn’t Genesis clones of the Extinction survivor that started the Reseed Protocol?

4. How did Rockwell become “normal” after Aberration landed on Earth?

[main steppe]

Clone body

[tame marsh]

1. yes it is after gen 2
2. The superliminal link
3. Extinction we think but we don't know if extinction survivor and gen survivor are the same person, increasingly looking like they are not

4. aberration crashed due to being damaged, so Rockwell had a clone he could survive through, which he corrupts over time

[misty wraith]

Thank you

[tame marsh]

no problem

the lore is messed up cause this of this update

so it gets confusing

[misty wraith]

Rockwell exists on both Lost Colony and the Genesis ship yea?

Like he transmits but isnt there Rockwell things still in LC

[tame marsh]

no

[misty wraith]

Kk

[tame marsh]

the game itself if post gen 2

the cutscenes are pre gen 1 and/or pre reseed protocol

[misty wraith]

Ohhhhhh

Meiyin Mappa scebes comes pre reseed?

[tame marsh]

some of the cutscenes i mean. at least with mei. all of the rockwell ones are before gen 1

[misty wraith]

Oh sweet

[tame marsh]

mei shows up pre reseed protocol

diana is for some reason talked about as dead, even though she was revived in extinction

[misty wraith]

The cutscenes with Helena and Meeka are like right at post credits of Gen 2 too right

[misty wraith]

Interesting

[tame marsh]

Helena and Meeka cutscenes are post gen 2

[misty wraith]

Yepppp

[tame marsh]

yeah the lore got f'ed up cause they wanted to mix the show and the game lore and now we don't know why they're trying to revive Diana when he was already revived by Helena Dues in extinction

[misty wraith]

This damn dlc threw scrambled so much

Usually they’ve been just “before you” + whatever the Survivor is doing rn

But this is “long before you” “bit before you” “after you here but before you there” 🫩

[tame marsh]

i think they could have done better with LC's lore

if you scroll up a bit, you'll see me and another talking about how we would change the lore

[umbral field]

All the other lore was hundreds of years before us but we should've been at lost colony WITH Rockwell, but they added 1k more years...

[strong heart]

My guess is the faction system would’ve been how it is now with how we defend/attack outposts but guessing they did that with lost king only.

[lyric tendon]

The gameplay takes before gen2, after extinction (AR) but the "notes" takes place before extinction (BR)

[strong heart]

Surprised no one realized lost colony is just extinction part 2

[umbral field]

i did see someone call it "Cold Extinction" which made me lol

[umbral field]

the mei yin notes are before extinction but rockwell's are after

[lyric tendon]

Oh yeah fair

That is something i really dont like, mixing timelines and adding needless information

What Mei does in Ab is just filler and a waste of space for something more important

Like, i dunno... filling all the plotholes on what is going on in Ext and even the Tek War history

[dawn cove]

Sooo umm lost colony is a story

Your thoughs on it?

[dawn cove]

So many things could have been talked about but no.

[bronze turtle]

Did you guys know that Ark is about Arks?

[mighty spade]

ass

simple lmao

[umbral field]

Source?

[bronze turtle]

Idk ask Helena

[wet hare]

i've been reading notes of lost colony and i must say that i like the lost king more than i tought i would.
the fact he managed to ragebait rockwell just before sending him to genesis ... that really made me laugh 🤣
also, even tough the atrocities he and his people have done it was to survive, i feel sorry for him, all he want is to keep his people alive and preserve humanity knowledge (that and maybe a feeling of power that can't seem to live without)

i've also dived into the lore to know it better, watching videos and stuff, and i must say it feels amazing and very satisfying to have almost all knowledge about ark lore and then read all notes from lost colony, u get all references and understand everything smoothly

[main steppe]

That’s actually something I kinda wish lost colony delved into more

The moral ambiguity surrounding essentially destroying an entire civilization of people, who all had no choice in this new life they were given

Hell, maybe add a side quest that alters the ending to cure them of their vampirism

[bold dove]

Rip bozo. Shouldn't had gene splice himself.

Not going to damn an entire planet so one selfish person can rule over a city past its era.

[wet hare]

cause i tell you they fckn deserve it (to be cured)

have u guys read the notes ? cause i freakin love the voice acting of the lost king it's fckn incredible

[bold dove]

Also, just saying.
They had the Codex.
The same device that can clone and give life to their colony.
The same one that....they could've cloned braindead animals that where ready to get their blood spilt, instead of using humans.

I can see the argument of changing genetics and shit like that to get as much nutrients from every inch of an organism, in a crisis like that.
But there was no need to specifically use humans, and cause old friends and families to rebel and cause a civil war.

[main steppe]

See, that could have easily been fixed from a writing perspective if they just specified “yeah, the Genesis codex didn’t have all the human data, but it did have all the creature data, and Arat Prime’s didn’t have creature data, but all the human data.”

[bold dove]

But, that's not how it's written, nor hinted to be.
If anything, multiple times it's stated that the Codex "creates life".
Life would be any organism, from bacteria, to plants, to complex animals.

They had the infinite food glitch, and decided to use humans as the food source.
The same animal Darius is, and his colony was consisted of.

[umbral field]

Yeaaah the whole Lost's "we can't clone ourselves, though, because reasons" was so poorly thought out or explained. At least a hint about said reasons... Why would that be lol? As it stands it just comes across like a bad macguffin

[granite stump]

We know they were removed from the ark system so the original assumption for a lot of the thrall was red element tears them out the system somehow since they’re not technically themselves anymore

But then the lost king explained that himself and the higher ups of arat prime were never part of the system so they can’t respawn or go to the ship if they wanted. Seemingly explained as those who made the codex can’t be part of it. They could of just explained it as the red element causing such drastic changes that it even affects the data which the system doesn’t like and rejects them

[wet hare]

in the lost king note #5 it is said :
"there may be a solution to our crisis albeit one almost too horrible to contemplate" clearly he acknowledge that this terrible but in order to survive and keep the humanity greatest knowledge alive they have no choice, either becoming monsters or dying
"experimentations on animal and human with exposure to red element has demonstrated an unexpected potential to boost longevity" this shows the fact they experimented on animals as well and that the red element don't react as well with animals as it does with human blood
"better still the isotope can bond with human hemoglobin to produce a new and more efficient type of biofuel" it seems that this new biofuel version of red element can only work with human blood and not just animals

[umbral field]

yeah it's the "the creators can't be part of the system" that makes no sense. Like. Why? It's just a clone-copy of your experience/consciousness; everyone else can do it. It comes across like a flimsy plot excuse

[mighty spade]

Wait, I just noticed.

If Desmodus are now canon, does that technically make Fjordur "more canon" compared to the other non-story ARKs?
I might be picking at straws but it kinda does make sense as well, Desmodus are the only Fjordur creature to be added to Lost Colony, and it does kinda explain why they are in the Colony in the first place?
Fjordur ARK landed, Lost King seen their potential, made them a native species and created the Gigadesmodus with them.

[umbral field]

They don't need to have come from Fjordur, since the Arks basically 3d print everything from a central database, but the devs have basically said that any Ark map could technically be "canon" since there's so many Arks orbiting Earth. You can headcanon it easy

[wet hare]

i don't think wildcard went that deeply in this thought, since losts are vampires like and blood is central in this dlc it felt logic to incorporate desmodus as well.
losts can't go outside of the dome without being purged by the reseed protocol so they did not explored the arks went they came to earth, and since they have the codex i think they have datas on every living creatures that ever existed on earth, they woulnd't need to risk exploring outside of the dome
but nevertheless this idea of losts exploring arks that landed to pick it up new creatures or anything they could use is interresting

[dawn cove]

I feel he really didnt do anything wrong. They wanted to live

I just wish dark tek was something special

I feel like i would be able to do make so many weapons but maybe because blue element is ment for fuel while red is life force

[wet hare]

oh it was wrong, read the notes and you will realise how tyrannic and hurtful his reign was
he forced people to submit and join the army becoming vampires doing so, killing people he knew and cared about
red element is literally a new form of element merged with blood, blood coming from farms of human clones sucked dry to extract blood and sustain this colony
there's a moral compass and opinions about this like "if we have farms of sheeps that we raise to kill and eat, why can't we do the same with human clones"

the main factor being that the losts did all those atrocious stuff in the sole purpose to survive and protect the greatest knowledge of human kind, their only crime was wanting to live and by doing so committing awful things

[wet hare]

what's great is that the notes talk about it and develop what element variants there is :

• blue element that is the refined and stabilized version of it, used for energy, powering tek technology and mainly the weapons that destroyed the earth in the first place
• purple element or edmundium that is element "domesticated" by rockwell who by merging with aberration, merged with the element and creating hiw own version of it
• red element which is element merged with blood to give it a more organic, biological and alive aspect, since element itself is what we could call a parasitic energy entity and not organic, conscious but not alive

[trail loom]

I find it funny they call Rockwells element purple element as if the corrupted dinosaurs and element veins on extinction weren't already glowing purple lol

[lyric tendon]

It's still under "non-story" ARK in the menu and community crunches, means not canon

Regardless if you put the creatures from there in the Story ARK

[umbral field]

Yes, that's why I said you can headcanon it, but they aren't canon individually

[lyric tendon]

Plus dossiers barely have any connections to the notes anyways, dossiers are just there to guide the player mostly

(Lowkey kinda want the connection between LC and Gen 1 by give the Gen 1 creatures dossiers finally)

[compact zenith]

Purple one is literally more corrupted one

[lyric tendon]

Just fucking love it when the lore adds more plotholes than lessens them

[umbral field]

what's crazy is he calls blue element "raw energy" like no it's the literal opposite of raw you weird red donkey

[wet hare]

yes and no, it's more than that

[compact zenith]

Yea, I remember hearing what purple element appearing with the use of standard one

[trail loom]

i always figured purple was just elements default unrefined state what with the molten element river in aberration and it being purple on extinction as well

even the element ore in aberration is purple

[lyric tendon]

Rockwell: i call this element "edmundium"

Darius the Lost King who experienced all forms of element before rockwell 1ever cloned in the island, let alone ever touch it: "ok we can call it that then"

[trail loom]

to be fair lc and gen 2 element corruption under rockwells influence looks wildley different from the elemental corruption in extinction what with the tentacles and fleshy tumors and such

but saying thats unique to "purple" element when raw element is already purple is silly

[lyric tendon]

The tentacle part is part of Rockwell's DNA

The source in the ARK is still the same on earth

The purple element was there before rockwell "discovered" it, a be it as ore in pre-nuked Ab

[trail loom]

yeah I know

just saying calling rockwells modified element purple element is redundent and stupid because raw unmodified element is purple

[lyric tendon]

Remember the whole "color = refinement" is just fan theory

It was never stated in any notes about the color change, it only stated "it can be refined"

[trail loom]

a fan theory that makes sense considering element ore is purple and the element you craft out of it is not

but regardless elements base form unmodified (aka not red element) is purple lol

[lyric tendon]

Sadly it's fan theory, like headcanons, it can be retconned by bad writing

[trail loom]

doesnt help tek stuff is blue coded as well

[wet hare]

theory of players true, but it seem logical, after all the element used in tek technology and by definition manipulated, experimented by humans is blue it make sense that whatever they did to the element, surely refining, changed the color of the element into blue

[lyric tendon]

LC kinda made it not true anymore

Also don't ping me

[wet hare]

actually i'm wrong it's the "stabilization" of the element that make it blue, cause when it's unstable it's still purple

[lyric tendon]

Again it doesn't matter anymore since Darius notes said "blue makes energy and purple makes life"

The whole "blue is refined element and purple is raw element" fan theory is now busted

[trail loom]

I mean even in the older maps you had to refine element to use it to power things

Like I can't use element ore to power a tek generator or repilicator I have to refine it

I wish I could because crafting element on aberration is a chore and a half compared to Harvesting the ore

[lyric tendon]

Gameplay mechanics ≠ lore anyways

[trail loom]

Yes but it still matches lol same with the fact crafted element is another colour than raw element

[lyric tendon]

Huh no

LC notes saids it is not

You dont KO a rock drake like mei does

That is why game mechanics are not lore accurate anyways

[wet hare]

no it doesn't, blue element is element treated by humans to be used as fuel for tek technology, his properties are mainly energetic, where purple element whatever it is raw element or edmundium create life
raw element created titans
edmundium created revenants and bunch of monstrosities

[trail loom]

Yeah crafted element (which is blue like Darius says) produces energy which is how it powers tek structures and stuff

[lyric tendon]

He doesnt stated blue is "crafted" element

[trail loom]

Then wha5 other element is blue then?

[lyric tendon]

Blue is different from purple now

It is not the same "element'

[trail loom]

The only blue element we see in game is the crafted stuff though?

[lyric tendon]

Gameplay is not lore, what you do that isnt a boss fight isnt lore accurate

[trail loom]

Then what is blue element?

[mental basin]

I wouldn't say that, to be honest. More of a uh, what's the word. Distinction.

[wet hare]

but one thing u're sure right is about Gameplay mechanics ≠ lore anyways
on extinction we learn that during the element war, weapons or any other equipement using element as fuel was rejecting particles of element into the atmosphere which was highly radioactive, basically irradiating battlefield creating even more deadly situations
if Gameplay mechanics = lore, that would mean players would be irradiated by using tek equipement, and eventually die

[mental basin]

Blue Element is still clearly derived from Purple Element, through an unknown refinement process. We can ALSO find Blue Element on certain Maps, same way we can find Purple.

So Blue Element exists in the wild, same as any other Element isotope, but it can also be derived from Purple.

[wet hare]

nanos you agree with me on the what i said just above ?

[mental basin]

Hm?

Not dying from radiation is just a game mechanic.

Gameplay doesn't equal canon, especially on Extinction of all places.

[lyric tendon]

No "mini titans" like Mei stated lmao

[mental basin]

The Extinction we see in-game isn't NEARLY as to-scale as it should be, we don't see any Lesser Titans and the wasteland isn't radioactive.

[trail loom]

I really wish we got those mini titans from lore

Doesn't extinction also have a ton of cut content?

[wet hare]

yes indeed, the original concept of the map was way bigger

[mental basin]

It's entirely possible that my assumption that Element is radioactive in a vein state is incorrect, and instead liquid Element brings out irradiative properties, but, regardless.

[lyric tendon]

I wish i could disagree about the difference between blue and purple element but from the way Darius stated, i don't think they are the same

This is from me who hated the LC "lore" before it launched and i am right about it being sucks

[trail loom]

Is there anywhere I can look up what was cut and stuff?

[mental basin]

Purple and Blue aren't the same

I already laid it out

Blue can be derived from Purple

And can also be found naturally in some cases

Same as Purple

[lyric tendon]

Yay another plothole

The origin of "blue ore"

[granite stump]

The blue causes purple element to form and in technicality, the purple element is the origin point of the blue version in most cases since the blue element is just refined element. Primarily used as an energy source.

[mental basin]

This is true

[granite stump]

Certain other things we do see with blue such as certain creatures having blue element and in old streams going over extinction back in ASE they mentioned blue is good so we could likely assume the creatures infused with blue element aren’t able to cause purple element pollution but this is more of a theory then fact

[wet hare]

i'll send you a dm with a link to a reddit post about concept arts

[mental basin]

When Blue is used, it makes Purple

When Purple is refined, it makes Blue

Red is it's own thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could somehow be derived in someway from Blue & Purple, seeing as, in the term of colors, Blue & Red make Purple

[trail loom]

Thanks I appreciate it

[lyric tendon]

But judging the the discovery of the red ore

There are bound to have blue ore somewhere thus i dont think there is such thing as a "refined into blue" element anymore

[mental basin]

We literally see it ingame

And are still excplicitly told so, lol

[lyric tendon]

Wait really, and are you sure it's not blue gem node

[mental basin]

I just think Darius' lines are fucked up, and Wildcard didn't feel like fixing them

At one point, he mentions that the Genesis-Ship archived EVERYTHING that ever lived on Earth, when he was intended to say EVERYONE

Also the audio attenuation for his recorded lines is terrible

[trail loom]

Basically even ignoring the plotholes lc needed another writing pass or several

[lyric tendon]

More like it needs a rewrite

[trail loom]

Yeah lol

[granite stump]

In general the script just felt mostly scrambled for most of the lines like we can kinda grasp what they’re trying to say with some stuff but in reality it’s kinda a mess

[lyric tendon]

Or change it to "not canon" to save everyone the trouble and resources

[mental basin]

It 💯% needed another writing pass

And it's never gonna be regarded as non-canon

[trail loom]

I really don't know why they didn't just have Helena send us to arat to find out what happened to Mei yin and check what's going on with the crashed ark right after extinction instead of tying it to ark 2

[granite stump]

Yeah this dlc is gonna remain canon, unlike aquatica lol

[trail loom]

Mei yi and diana*

Do we even find out how Diana died again btw?

[mental basin]

I will inform Jeremy, however, that he's gotta at the very least go back & make Fries rewrite some Mei-Yin Notes, where she mentions her mother and father still being alive and well, lol

[lyric tendon]

Yet they said TAS is "not canon" but we have a rockwell that acted like in TAS and Mei has a crush with helena for no reason

[mental basin]

It's almost as if, and hear me out

It's not canon, with canonical elements

Mind blown

It's obviously not 1:1 canon, but Jeremy still wants to rewrite certain aspects of ARK lore to make the two fit more in-line

[lyric tendon]

Didn't Dollie straight up said so that "it's really not"

[granite stump]

They mentioned they wanted some stuff from TAS in the game even tho it’s a horrid idea

[mental basin]

Yeah, both Dollie and Jeremy said TAS isn't canon

But when TAS aspects are introduced into the new canonical DLC, that cements those new aspects into canon, despite the inconsistencies

[granite stump]

If anything we can just consider TAS a different timeline thing if we really wanna push it

[trail loom]

I wish killing the gamma broodmother by having her swarm eat her alive gave me a free tek rifle

[granite stump]

Like certain stuff could have worked being in the game from TAS if we wanted to push it but all the stuff they did kinda was just… out the blue and made no sense

[lyric tendon]

Yet it is pushed into LC which is meant to be "the main canon"

Rockwell doesnt mentioned charlotte back in the island, him carring for her NOW is out of character

[mental basin]

Don't mistake my words

I'm not saying it's good

Only that it overrides pre-existing canon

Which pisses me off beyond belief

I like TAS, and I like the original continuity

Neither should override the other, though

[trail loom]

Then again I wish I could stomp the island bosses with a giga like Mei yin did with the ape... then again you can headcanon thar as the overseer changing it after the fact so we cant do it

[granite stump]

Bob does technically mention charlotte without saying her name when discussing Rockwell wanting to bring someone back. So atleast in Asa we did get that slightly teased

[lyric tendon]

Nah Mei is made of cheat codes, Diana said so

[trail loom]

But yeah is it ever explained how Diana died again after extinction?

[granite stump]

So the charlotte thing is ‘kinda’ okay but the way Edmund recalled her in lost colony just felt so random

[lyric tendon]

Bob is never part of the original canon, he is added in with TAS

Helena never mentioned Bob in the Island notes, they never met in the first place

[granite stump]

Like that as said is kinda okay, the Helena, Diana and Mei yin stuff tho makes no sense

[granite stump]

We don’t question his existence

[lyric tendon]

I do

[granite stump]

It starts causing a lot of headache when we actually start thinking about it

[lyric tendon]

Well that is what happened if you mix supposed "non-canon" story in the "canon" map

[granite stump]

Purely because of the extinction events and how and why Bob even stayed around for that long when it was established Mei and Diana were the last ones left

[granite stump]

At this point Asa is just a rewrite of the original ASE story and I feel we should take it as such

[trail loom]

Bobs tall tales being him trying to self insert fanfic into some one else's story to impress a child worked for me...but then they actually decided to tie him into the storywhich huh

Because tall tales implies it's a load of crap but then they went and actually had him meet them and such

[granite stump]

We should take it as such but the notes are copy pasted which adds a whole other layer of confusion I know but they’re telling us the story more directly with the Bob stuff so if anything, we can likely consider what Bob says as the ‘new’ timeline of events

[granite stump]

It definitely was exaggerated at best, likely he wasn’t there for the Rockwell fight and he likely didn’t play as big of a roll against fending off the king titan on extinction. Basically, he was partially a coward I assume back then

[trail loom]

At first it was like hah a character named after beach bobs and he's making a load of crap up to impress a child...only to then take him seriously and that he apparently was there all along

Even if his tales were exaggerated of what actually happened

[wet hare]

one thing which is not explained is how red element was formed, it was first found in antarctica but we don't know if there's other red isotope deposit around the world or even if there's not other element isotope existing like green or else

[granite stump]

Well after reseed it was destroyed so there’s no real worry anymore about red element.

And using in game logic, pure element can be infused with blood to create red element but that could also be due to us having a technical fragment of red element in our veins thanks to the lost king biting us and making us drink his blood

Basically, our partially infected blood can be the reason behind element being converted to red element

Showing atleast red element can corrupt blue element but not purple. It’s like a weird type chart thing going on here actually

[trail loom]

So are we to assume we are purged of red element corruption when we ascend at the end of lc or is just ignored?

[granite stump]

It’s likely purged since the shielding gets dropped

The red element in our body likely not being enough to do any serious damage when purified out of our system

[trail loom]

It still annoys me the second the shield drops the antarctic turns into a lush green forest

[granite stump]

That is confusing. Makes it seem like it’s not the Antarctic even tho people who helped work on lost colony like depths mentioned it is that region

[wet hare]

well isn't the red element been found inside their dome ? in that case the ore deposite aren't touched

[granite stump]

Then again… It has been centuries so maybe the polar ice caps had melted in that time

[trail loom]

Yes but it's still it should be cold enough to have snow and such as default still plus that part of the earth goes months without sunlight irl

[granite stump]

The only region with a dome left was arat prime. Everywhere else had no reasoning for it to really exist anymore

[granite stump]

Well, reseed kinda changed that lol

[wet hare]

well it's possible that red element could corrupt normal element, like rockwell did but are we talking raw red element or red element infused with blood 🤔

[granite stump]

Rockwell was using his own blood to infuse it with raw element before injecting himself. He didn’t inject it flat out raw into him. That would of resulted with bad things and he would of lost his humanity entirely

[trail loom]

Reseed should have just brought life back to earth and caused it to spin again...it just makes no sense for it to ignore the fact that the poles don't get as much sunlight as the rest of the planet

[granite stump]

The confusion of how that even works with how reseed is just weird in general.

[trail loom]

Before I thought reseed would account for specific regions and biomes on the planet hence why you have like scorched earth which is a desert with desert adapted creatures

Or the snow biome which I would have thought would be a test bed for ecosystems for the colder parts of the planet

[granite stump]

Well- whoops everywhere is forest now!

[trail loom]

Whoops our tropical rainforest died because it's snowing all times of the year and half the year is perpetual darkness

[granite stump]

Honestly, it could just kinda fix itself. Wildlife may kinda be weirded out but we don’t really have polar bears anymore so it could just kinda go back to being normal with a unique ecosystem

Actually wait- Is that why everything is just weird… because of the new animals in the world?-

[trail loom]

I don't know why but the whole antarctic being turned into a forest is probably my biggest annoyance for some reason more so than any of the plotholes and such lol

[granite stump]

For me it’s how they treated Mei, Diana and Helena

[wet hare]

one thing pretty mysterious also is the vulpite, the land all around is pretty mysterious as well, those biomes with ethereal forest that i suspect to be the place where vulpite develop itself

[granite stump]

It’s mostly just it being bioluminescent. Not that strange for being in the dark side of the planet

[trail loom]

Did they even explain how Diana died again after extinction? I don't think I saw of any one awnsered me earlier

[granite stump]

Either the lost king just had people experiment with the flora to make it more reliable for life to exist in their dome or it just evolved that way

[granite stump]

We aren’t sure

We don’t know if she died, lived, ascended, or anything!

She just vanished after the events of extinction

[trail loom]

I like the idea it evolved on its own kinda like how certain animals adapted to ambient element such as the snow owl

She got sent to the shadow realm for getting in the way of Mei Lin and helena

Basically

[granite stump]

Which triggered Mei to instead of go into cryo sleep with Bob, go alone to arat prime to try and get the codex… which she somehow knows exists…

That still bothers me

It bothers me a lot that she somehow knows of the codex’s existence

Helena NEVER told her about it neither did Diana if she even ascended

[trail loom]

Considering she and Diana head off to arat prime in extinction you would think they would have had a note or scene showing they find out about the codex and that's why they go

[wet hare]

well we know the veilwyn mutated consuming that new mineral we just don't really know if it's the vulpite that has some properties making the veilwyn mutating or if he mutate cause it's the food he like the most triggering his transformation

[trail loom]

Honestly I just like the idea of the native fauna and flora left on earth evolving and adapting to the element corruption over the thousands of years

It was a neat explanation for why the snow owl and such look like they do

[granite stump]

Only real issue is the stuff in arat primes dome. Those things likely evolved not just without any issue but thanks to it being constantly night it causes further new evolutions in the times that had passed

[wet hare]

well snow owl, managarm and any extinction endemic creatures basically adapted themselves to their new environment assimilating element without being corrupted

maybe that this land has something mystical or something else going on that could explain the appearance of red element

[trail loom]

Wouldn't the stuff in the dome still have been exposed to ambient element from the water/snow and such also any ways?

[wet hare]

well actually the dossier of veilwyn says that he's among one the few mutated local wildlife, that means everything started to mutated on earth, flaura, fauna and even minerals, adapting to the high quantity of element triggering mass mutations

[trail loom]

Yeah I imagine the bioluminecent plants in lc are a mix of adapting to element and the perpetual night

Kinda like aberration

The deeper parts of that map the more the plant life glows in the dark

[mighty spade]

🙏

[trail loom]

Which I think it's interesting aberrant dinos glow and got bioluminecence but the dinosaurs on earth (as in Rex's and such not stuff like the snow owl) did not get the same adaptions

And asa went out of the way to make all the aberration creatures and foliage glow so much brighter than they did in ase (compare ravagers or the blue zone trees)

[compact zenith]

Pretty sure ravagers had no bioluminescent in ASE, same as few other abberant special creatures

[trail loom]

yeah I was pretty shocked when I loaded into aberration on asa and saw ravager glowing like a christmas tree

[compact zenith]

Yea, same

[trail loom]

even the karkinos got a faint glow in asa

though alot less in your face than the ravager

[random ice]

Can I rant about Lost Colony after seeing the boss cutscenes?

[waxen flame]

by all means

[random ice]

come on dude

too many caps now I hate editing my stuff.

Nvm I got it now.

So I’m gonna admit, I was both absolutely stoked, emotional, screaming, and recoiling in my chair watching the ending cutscenes.

Like first of all, ARK: Lost Colony essentially took ARK: Extinction and said “Focus this on Mei Yin and turn everything into Sci-Fi Twilight.” like everything in the lost colony are vampires or something?!

Then we have the absolute peak animated cutscenes by MAPPA. We see Mei Yin walk directly into the Lost Colony palace and confront the king. Essentially just like “Give me the codex and I will leave you in peace,” but the king tries to persuade Mei Yin to join him as his Queen because he knows she wants to bring Diana and Helena back. Then Mei Yin pulls out a Tek spear or something on some “nah, I’m throwing hands instead” type energy.

most peak fight scene i’ve ever seen btw. MAPPA cooked. 10/10. I was incoherently yelling out of pure hype and joy (my parents thought something terrible happened with how loud I was).

I will admit, I recoiled hard when Mei Yin lost her left arm Metal Gear Rising–style and then had flashbacks about Diana and Helena (those flashback frames were pushing the rating line a little bit). Then she gets up like “I don’t need that arm” and keeps swinging until she disables both of the king’s wings and has him completely defeated.

Fast forward back to normal game cinematic graphics (this looked straight out of God of War and I loved it), and the king gets taken down by the player character after summoning his winged war beast, and then crawls back to his throne while giving the whole “my queen! the colony is yours! protect the children of the lost!” speech. Helena, who’s in the Survivor’s head, immediately realizes she missed something important.

Cut back to the MAPPA animation — Mei Yin has the king on the ground, beaten, and he tells her that only he can use the codex (the one containing Diana and Helena’s data). and mei yin actually hesitates. Right before she’s about to finish it, she drops the weapon and just freezes for a moment.

I was internally screaming like “please don’t hesitate right now.” And of course, the king takes advantage of it, overwhelms her, and turns her with the whole “welcome to the colony” moment.

Now we have to fight the Queen wearing what is basically the ARK equivalent of an SCP-style possessive mask, and the Survivor is on full demon mode until Helena appears out of nowhere, removes the mask, and frees Mei Yin on some “it’s been hundreds of years, I’ve finally found my champion” energy.

Then the Lost Colony gets cleansed and everything actually ends on a hopeful note.

Fast forward — Helena is in ARK 2?! She’s talking with Santiago’s daughter about how a monster engraved a copy of itself into a codex on the Genesis ship. rockwell is still alive?!

and bob from the animated series is here too?!

This DLC was absolute peak.

Like dear god I had to process the info so hard but it was so peak

[lean fog]

Guys we know there's creatures like astrocetus/delphis but do you think there'd be more of stuff like that out there? like imagine the other space creatures that hide on asteroid or other suck things and go dormant and when they finally get food they breed etc and then go dormant until next time

[random ice]

So we possibly cant rule out the idea of a space Meg or Rhynio?

[lean fog]

i dunno about those but something that could def hibernate

like space worm or snake or heck some plant animal hybrid

[random ice]

We boutta find Space King Titan but it’s just all of the extinction titans fused together

[gleaming fox]

Space reapers innit

[main steppe]

I imagine there’s some absolute monstrosities wherever element actually originated from

[gusty turret]

Well remember element doesn't really do the monstrosity thing naturally

[low tide]

No guarantee that some other civilization didn't also mess with it though, and then fail to clean up like we do

And, just to really twist it in, obviously Rockwell got a signal out to that other, more developed corrupted counterpart, including his own engram, setting up Ark 2, where we actually fight Rockwell again (this time he has an alien civilization)

[robust verge]

Guys I lowk farted and made aberrations radiation spike what do I do😔

[misty wraith]

Who is Bob

Like, mechanically I get his name comes from the default name before it was “human” and the default character model, but lore wise, is he just the player? He talks during his aberration Tall Tales that the things happened long before he got there (hence why they’re tall tales), but with cutscenes is he just you?

I’d imagine during the ascension scene in LC the player goes through the superliminal link as Rockwell did in the explorer notes of him and LK, but the scene where he shows up to greet Meeka and Helena, is that supposed to be the player as Bob? But then again he has a Mappa cutscene before that

[granite stump]

The map itself gameplay wise is actually a lot of fun. The actual lore when you look deeper is a genuine mess

[granite stump]

The one gameplay issue is kinda how they integrated the neophytes into everything and end game progression since you’re forced to kill neophytes to get horns for the alpha Lost king battle. But that’s beside the point, in general, Mei yin, Diana and Helena had the worst lore

[main steppe]

It annoys me so much, because it’s so easy to fix. Say the lost king threw Diana into the superliminal link, and she ended up in cryo on the colony ship. Helena can just be platonic with Mei Yin, being one of the only living friends she has left besides Santiago and Bob, and Mei Yin can be kept largely the same.

[gusty turret]

It was really stupid they ended the game with the power of friendship

They got a few big name voice actors then just fully dipped on actual good story writing

[lyric tendon]

Yep, i can see why the book nerds are mad when the "adaptation" turns to shit

[umbral field]

I'm confused on Bob too, i think everyone is. He was respawning before it was canonically possible and apparently present in the initial helena etc timeline though they never mention him. Idk how he got to Arat either. They haven't explained him yet

[compact zenith]

Tall tales is more like fake stories for me

[mighty spade]

Tall Tales are quite so fake stories, given mainly, Bob was the one who killed the King according to him towards Meeka.

"True Tales" will eventually detail what Bob actually has done rather than the stories he told Meeka.

[misty wraith]

Well, him being “present” I think is what makes it a Tall Tale, saying as if he was actually there even though he wasn’t.

If he is the player, Ascension after fighting Meiyin would be his ticket to Arat for sure

[umbral field]

helena knows him at the end of LC cinematic tho 😐

he's on the ship i think. but they don't explain how he got there

[misty wraith]

Tbf, Helena being a Homo Deus is out of the confines of time and reality

[umbral field]

...i mean yeah again you can TRY to make sense of it, but on its own it makes none

[misty wraith]

Possibly a clone as well, just like Santiago being there and on Extinction

[umbral field]

they show him and diana i think getting on the ship but i don't think they explained it?

[misty wraith]

I figured it was Helena storing his engram data from his death on Extinction and transferring it to a clone on the Genesis simulation

[umbral field]

they had no access to the uplink until we kill the king so 😐

[lean fog]

didn't the dear jane or other notes bob did shows he was always in the background trying to avoid the major stuff protagonists were doing?

[lyric tendon]

Was supposed to but not anymore

[trail loom]

ok I have issues with lost colonys story but good grief people keep trying to tell me the story takes place before gen 1/2 despite me pointing out repetedly the cutscenes showing and saying directly otherwise over on reddit

[main steppe]

See, that’s actual cope at that point

[trail loom]

like we literally have helena tell mei yin and meeka why they need the codex from arat prime

its because the copy on the genesis ship got destroyed when the ship got blown to hell and crashed

[main steppe]

I think it’s really funny that she sat on Arat for 1000+ years before going “hey, we should probably go get the giant usb stick of all of humanity”

[gusty turret]

Lost colony is 1000 years later?

[mental basin]

Yep

Stated in the intro cutscene

[granite stump]

1000 years after reseed

[gusty turret]

Bruh???

[granite stump]

It’s weird yeah

[gusty turret]

Wildcard needs new writers before ark 2 otherwise its gonna be dookie

They need to like full cycle their team out

[granite stump]

The fact this all takes place after Genesis is just weird in general

[gusty turret]

Well let alone like 1000 years after genesis

[granite stump]

Well no, at best it was a few years like 39 maybe since it was specifically like 1039 or so years after reseed.

Reseed specifically being the earth reseed event.

[gusty turret]

I don't think we took 1000 years to get from extinction to genesis

[granite stump]

We aren’t exactly sure the time window between those two events

So it’s to be assumed it was 1000 years since if it wasn’t and it was sooner… Santiago and all them on arat would be dead of old age lol

So at the very least, 1000 years passed after reseed before the genesis ship was then destroyed and people then colonized the planet Arat

[gusty turret]

No

[gusty turret]

You never know they might just keep respawning them when they die

[granite stump]

The people on arat can’t respawn…

That’s the reason why we are even in lost colony to begin with. We have to retrieve a copy of the codex to then send over so they can start allowing people to respawn

[gusty turret]

No

No

[granite stump]

They lost the codex prior due to the ships destruction. So they need a new one and in turn they have to go to the Eden ring that crashed into arat to then give access to the respawn for everyone. However the other issue… Rockwell left something in the Eden ring and it’s been festering asleep down in the ring remains and if they go down there, they can easily wake it up

[gusty turret]

Yay Rockwell fight 4

[granite stump]

We aren’t too sure if it’s Rockwell or just some cursed abomination Rockwell made

[gusty turret]

Didn't Santiago turn off his respawning after gen 2 or something? It seems optional unless they're just writing over that

[granite stump]

All we do know is, it’s a threat that causes Helena to hesitate and not go down there since it could easily cause what happened to earth to happen all over again

[granite stump]

These events are likely a prequel to Ark 2 when Santiago starts deactivating the tek on arat. Also I don’t recall him ever deactivating the respawns

[gusty turret]

They're making such a mess with the lore😭

[granite stump]

Honestly this is somewhat fine and actually understandable.

It’s the character lore that’s messed up. Namely, Helena, Diana and meiyin

[gusty turret]

It doesn't make sense to me for the gen 2 ending to come after lost colony

They should've just bridged the gap between Extinction and Genesis like everyone expected and wanted

[granite stump]

You mean before?

Okay hold on I’ll make a proper time line sheet

Before Reseed 1000 years earlier

Helena and friends journey through the island, scorched earth, aberration and extinction

(Mei yin goes to arat prime alone, Bob goes into Stasis and Diana goes MIA)

1000 years later before reseed

We go through the events Helena and all them did

1000? years after reseed

We seemingly get put onto the colony ship and face Rockwell again, we may end up dying or this was a different survivor entirely that we control

1039 years after reseed

Helena requests us to go retrieve a copy of the codex and we face the lost king and get sent to Arat once it’s done.

1040+? Years After reseed

Ark 2 events???

This was thrown together so there might be some holes

[bold dove]

Meeka likely wasn't on the Genesis ship, and with ARK-2 seemingly removing respawning in the plot as a concept. (Santiago turning off old Tek devices in the first trailer) I doubt Meeka is 1,037 years old.

She must've just resurrected recently.
Or even been born on Arat recently, we don't know when Santiago got it on with Diana.

[granite stump]

I doubt she was born on arat. She might have been created on the genesis ship before the landing happened. Basically before the ship blew up I feel she would of been ‘respawned’ and since I suspect her original true self back on earth died as a child, that’s why Meeka is a kid here

After all, Diana isn’t on arat. Only Santiago so she couldn’t of been born on arat

[bold dove]

Depends on which version of Santiago and Diana got it on.

[bold dove]

We don't know that fully. Since ARK-2 is likely years after the events of Genesis-2.
We know Diana died again at some point post Extinction. We just don't know when/where.

[granite stump]

It was likely the original Diana and Santiago back during the tek war before their deaths. They likely had meeka and all three died during some sort of event.

[bold dove]

The original Santiago got assassinated in South America's jungle.

[granite stump]

And we aren’t even sure if she died either, she could have went into stasis on earth with Bob! That’s why I say Diana is MIA, we don’t know what happened fully

[bold dove]

||Diana was with Homo-Deus Helena during Mei-Yin's transformation into the Lost Queen.
And Mei at the end of LC talks about bringing her back. There'd be no reason to bring her back, if she was in stasis.||

[granite stump]

I keep forgetting we actually got details on the ending cutscene now

[bold dove]

Yeah, funny how that cutscene was bugged on release.

[mental basin]

I really don't get the whole stasis thing

Is that ever fully explained??

[bold dove]

Of Diana being in stasis?

[mental basin]

Is she in stasis??

[bold dove]

Or it as a whole?

[mental basin]

Both.

[bold dove]

||No, Mei talks to Helena about Diana like she's dead, and talks about "bringing her back"||

[mental basin]

Going into stasis in anticipation for the Reseed Protocol seems useless, seeing as with the shutdown of Tek worldwide, you're directly pulling the plug on life support, lol

[mental basin]

Okay so yeah, it's just not explained at all, amazing

W writing

[bold dove]

As for stasis, I guess that's just so characters like Bob and shit can survive till The One Who Tries Again comes around and woops everyone's ass.

[mental basin]

Bob shouldn't even exist man, everyone in Camp Omega died

[bold dove]

Which I guess took like 1,000 or so years till Helena finally found a Survivor that could get off of the ARK's.

[bold dove]

Yerp.

[mental basin]

Kill everyone off but Bob, who's shoehorned in right at the end, don't mention Bob once in any sort of rewrite

Fucking Hell

[bold dove]

The whole point of Mei protecting Helena in the Ascension cave, was that they where the last two humans left on Earth, and Mei had to double down on her skills to compensate for the loss of Camp Omega.

But stasis kind of now ruins that thematic fight.

Because now reading that fight in the notes with the new lore, gives just makes it out that Helena and Mei are the last two 'awake' humans.
Which I feel like is a lot less cinematic that the original writing was going for.

[bold dove]

Well, here's another thing.

Hang on, let me rewatch that part just in case. So I don't say something stupid.

[bold dove]

"Well, if we all got such a long wait ahead of us"
That sentence sounds like multiple people went into stasis outside of Bob.

So that means there's even more Camp Omega survivors.

Making the Camp Omega slaughter, really muted.

[lean fog]

gonna be honest i really hope it not rock well in ark 2 even if he just a minor threat cause we have dealt with him enough

[bold dove]

HAHAHA
||He's hinted at the ending, in the Arat section of the end cutscene.||

[lean fog]

now if he made some abomination or something that ends up becoming a threat that's one thing but even then bruh let the element stop being the big bad in some form

[bold dove]

So, the only way I think I would accept Rockwell as an antagonist again, is if it wasn't really Rockwell.
In the first Mass Effect, the main front force antagonist was Saren.
But after you kill him, or he does it himself at the end, his body becomes possessed by the game overarching antagonist, Sovereign.
If they did that with Rockwell's corpse, and have his body puppeted by some rabid extension of the Element Hivemind, then I would accept that. As it's more of a puppet mockery of Rockwell, then Rockwell himself.

[lean fog]

yeah see that's exactly the fought i had

[bold dove]

Though also, I have no idea how he could come back via his monster form.
Because the Genesis ship crashed into the gas giant Arat is orbiting around. Not on the planet itself.

[lean fog]

like imagine if the element was doing the indoctrination thing on rockwell

imagine if the element was using rockwell to basically make itself a new hive mind thing since it lost the KT and thus earth so it figured use the genesis ship to do the infection to a whole new world that it wouldn't understimate like humans humans etc

[bold dove]

Actually don't think that's a bad plotline, if done right.
Using his corpse as a quicker foundation to start spreading the Corruption on a mass scale, instead of waiting for another Element war.

@mental basin Thoughts above?

[mental basin]

@ work

[bold dove]

My bad.

[lean fog]

i mean more along the lines of instead of infecting and corrupting already built up civilization instead do it like in animated series where they found the tek weapon where primitive races or groups or just less advanced then humanity was when it arrived on earth end up having it become the reason they become technologically advanced that way it has more time to basically advance it's goals

like imagine early or before industrial revolution humanity found element and all it's wonderous properties and went from there

[bold dove]

They could pull a Dead Space, and have alien Tek technology.
Other sapient races interpretation of Tek, and possibly show other races have gone through the same shit humanity went through in the Element war. (outside of the restoration of their planet)

[lean fog]

like imagine the wakanda vibranium deal

instead of vibranium it's element and the races build their entire civilization around element rather then just simply adapting the element into their current cultures etc

like the element lands on earth ure and federation find it realize how good it is and just combine it with everyhing and in less then 7 some years poisoned and doomed the earth so imagine if it did that during industrial revolution and it had centuries to advance said goals instead of just a handful of years

[bold dove]

Don't see your argument.
From what we know, everything during the Tek-era of human civilization ran on Element.
Because Element was so normalized by the time Santiago was born.

[lean fog]

was more but you get what i mean tho

like imagine it had countless times more to spread and corrupt

[bold dove]

I more imagined planets that have long dead civilizations, and only their Tek remained active. Kind of like what you see on Extinction.
But they never got to, or invented their own Reseed Protocol, nor ARK's. So the planet is just dead of any life. With the only things remaining being huge Element veins, and rusty alien Tek cities.

[lean fog]

maybe but it'd need to ensure could get into space and propogate

[bold dove]

There's no conformation that's Elements end goal. But it isn't unlikely.
Element cooled down Earth's core and caused it to become tidally locked. It could possibly destroy the core as well, causing Earth to shatter into meteors.

[lean fog]

that reminds me of a old game tbh

[bold dove]

Command and Conquer?

[lean fog]

sigma star saga

basically they implanted these things in planets and eventually 'hatch' and kill all life on them

[bold dove]

Yeah, I imagine that. But less "hatch" and more of the worlds hardest tendril squeeze

[lean fog]

like the celestials tbh

also been awhile but was humanity ever aware the element was sentient? or was it just a case of one side going "well crap let's just find a new home" while other was "world fucked so let's just have people do hard survival from ground up to prepare to restart civilization"

[lean fog]

also o think this is likely because like that one dude said in me2 "Once you fire a husk of metal, it keeps going until it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day somewhere and sometime. "

the chances of it hitting something in space are super mega massively low but not zero so it's less a matter of if but more of when the remains of element infused planet hits another

[bold dove]

Believe actually that's what the URE gave evidence to the Federation to stop the war. Showcasing Elements rapid spread, and it's sapients.

[lean fog]

so the believed it was becoming smart but then assume "eh it'll die off if we stop using it and can reseed and purify it"? bruh 😅

[bold dove]

They likely thought it was like any other organism, and could be outstarved to death.

If there's nothing, or minimal things on the planet to Corrupt, then how can it spread?
Little did they know, it probably can self replicate like crystals, and the Titans formed.

[lean fog]

so basically like wall-e where they assumed "ok vast majority of humanity in space and they'll come back once things are less chaotic" 😅

[fast bison]

Should go watch the new cinematics lol

Explorer notes too

[lyric tendon]

Already did and it doesn't makes sense

Again, how does Helena fell in love with someone who straight up punched in the face after telling Mei to not chase Nerva

That is the island notes BTW

Helena: i lost my GF so i unalive myself

Also Helena: this chinese women punched my face and knocked out for a minute after saving me, i am in love i guess

[fast bison]

You relating punching = no love, doesnt make sense lol

Diana and mei yin literally talk about mei yin and helenas relationship, and how Diana said she'll back off if mei yin wants, go read the explorer notes

She quite literally says the word love

[umbral field]

this is how flirting works obvs

[wet hare]

it has been said by a dev team member and i quote "element have intelligence so it could have guided itself toward signs of biological lifeforms like proto molecule from the expanse"
we know element is defined as a parasitic energy entity, at some point it spread so much that it started to create a hive mind, acting collectively and more than just corrupting lifeforms it started to create life, the titans
would say there's an inspiration from tyrannids from warhammer, maybe element come from an alien species whose purpose is to parasitize, spreading itself toward the universe

[mental basin]

That's not the quote but close lol

And that wasn't a dev, that was a previous lead writer

[fast bison]

But but... she hit her! 😭

[lyric tendon]

Who would someone suddenly fell in love after getting a ko punch?

[lyric tendon]

Dude, i read the explorer notes from The Island, SE, Ab, and Ext aka the original ARK notes even before the cutscene update ||(i played the role of Mei in the last parts of Ned's Ab series)||

you forgot that helena and mei's supposed "relationship" happened in the island

Because there is no way for Helena to actually fall in love with Mei after trying to stop her from murdering Nerva, not certainly after Nerva's defeat either because Mei and Nerva's corpse ascended to Ab already

Maybe YOU should read all the notes, not just one map

[gusty turret]

Hey some people like that don't judge

[lyric tendon]

That is why it left like a fan fic than an actual continuation of the note

[fast bison]

Lol, no convincing you even though its written down snd voice acted now, not gonna waste more time

[lean fog]

if it arrived in a meteor shower would make sense it destroyed a planet and the debris was being guided to biological lifeforms tbh tho what wanna know is would mean if element's done this before or was it just remains of some super race's tech etc and humanity was just it's unlucky 1st victim

[cinder night]

its written down that there was no relationship between helena and meiyen on the island but i guess you totally haven't read the notes. The stuff they added in LC contradicts all previous lore.

[lean fog]

does there have to be a relationship? couldn't there be a one sided crush?

[fast bison]

Its almost like the notes have always been an incomplete story, hence them being, you know, notes. Crazy how every maps notes have given us more to their story too, but we're forgetting that as well. And lets just disregard them naked bathing together, and mei yin saying she loves Helena, as well as Diana saying she will back off and let mei yin be with Helena if that's what they want. You can pretend that the STORY map, isnt story, but thats just never going to be the case. You must think the show isnt canon too if that's your take on the whole thing

[main steppe]

The latter would’ve worked, BUT we get a flash post beating Mei Yin of her and Helena cuddling in a hot spring

[fast bison]

And these conversations took place before Rockwell killed Diana, on ab, obviously

Yall are in denial when theyre literally completing arks story and its characters lore

[lean fog]

never recall being in denial

[fast bison]

Well its official canon in the game now

Per lost colonies explorer notes

And will be in the show since the anime scenes are obviously from the shows future seasons

Theyre naked bathing together but definitely not in a relationship lmao

[cinder night]

if anyone is in denial it's you, i want a story without lore breaks. Lost colony notes follows the animated series more then it follows the games.

[fast bison]

The animated series and lost colony is the game, cause the game is ark

[lean fog]

don't think some peoples problem is them being in relationship so much as they're taking stuff from series which they've said not a 1:1 adaption of game story and trying to remake the base story

[fast bison]

Youre denying canon notes in an actual story map

Im talking about the notes, the only show part is the bath scene

Its literal explorer note lore now

[lean fog]

at this point i'm more interested in the whole element rockwell etc lore then who hooks up with who

[fast bison]

Thats all in their too actually, very cool story

I wont spoil, but you get everyone's side

And the history of it all from Helena ascending onward

But we can let them pretend its not canon ig

[cinder night]

Here is a quote from the island notes "Mei-Yin and I weren't quite mates, but watching her creatures get slaughtered like that certainly wasn't pleasant. I'm not a fan of the prisoner lifestyle, either." So theyre not mates but in a relationship?

[lean fog]

friends with benefits 😅

[fast bison]

The island came out in 2016, its almost like they didnt have a full story bsck then. Get over yourself

You really think they had the entire game and story planned from when they made the islands notes? Youre delusional

[lean fog]

now now no need to get heated over it guys we're all here to plot and totallt not influence ark 2 story stuff with our theory crafting 👀

[fast bison]

Ive been awake for 36 hours waiting to transfer off a crashed map so I will admit im a lil on the salty side xd

But theyre just wrong lol

[lean fog]

this is my personal theory on rockwell and element tbh

[fast bison]

Youll love the story

I couldn't wait and had to watch a compilation lol

Notes aren't spawning on my servers

[lean fog]

do know alot of people are really hoping rockwell not a major enemey of ark 2 cause while cool and well liked character think it's burn out fatigue of "oh so basically just him again" 😅

[fast bison]

Also last point on that convo, the events from the island to the end of aberattion were 5 years. Expecting a relationship can't developed in 5 years is also crazy, and this is before they even get to ext

[cinder night]

And here is a quote from mei-yin on ab "I suppose there was that woman from the island too, but she is gone. Besides, I struck her. I doubt we were friends"

[fast bison]

Yes, because Helena doesnt come to ab/ meet up with them and further the relationship till after mei yin has already been taken in by Diana's tribe.

Hence her still being in the island mindset of not knowing Helena as deeply

[cinder night]

But that quote further proves there was nothing between helena and meiyin during the events of the island

[fast bison]

They were still friends, helenas words

[cinder night]

she was unsure if they were even friends

[fast bison]

But the whole point and what I made sure to point out is that their relationship is left vague until ab/extinction and now fully developed with the new set of notes

And the show gives a little more insite then just a handful of notes. We didnt see any other time they spent together, fights that may have made them grow further apart or vice versa, and theyre finally expanding on it

[cinder night]

This expanding is going against all previous notes...

Also here is one more quote "On the Island, I wasn't sure where I stood with Mei Yin, but now we've been catching up like best mates. "

[fast bison]

How though?

We're not even given a time frame between notes

[cinder night]

I'm going to end this conversation now as it's going no where.

[fast bison]

It really isnt

[umbral field]

It arrived as a meteor according to the original writer in fact!! He didn't say when but presumably prehistory or something

[umbral field]

They're not developing anything, they're shoehorning in the animated series as canon. Unfortunately a -lot- of that story explicitly contradicts established lore so it's messy at best. It's not just the relationship, but a lot of the timelines, backstories and available lore, like Bob "respawning" repeatedly in the new notes despite that not having been a thing until Helena ascended, or the new 1k year timegap that changes Rockwell's existence on the Genesis ship from one decade to one millenium

The problem with saying what's right or wrong is that they're providing two different "correct" timelines now, and making zero attempt to actually merge them properly

[lean fog]

if element does do the meteor stuff the question is how would it outright destroy a planet to scatter debris all over cause otherwise the debris would just clump together and occasionally yeet off or so

the meteor debris stuff makes sense as is but the how it became the future meteor where theory hits snag tbh

[umbral field]

Oh idk about the whole rest of that theory, just that it arrived on Earth originally as a meteor and does have some level of intelligence, i assume it was a LOT of it they started digging up for energy that prompted the war

[lean fog]

would not be shocked if whatever civilization used it fucked up and destroyed their world and elemet just fulfilling some programmed goal or something else tbh

[umbral field]

yeah it was earth that's what happened RIP

[lean fog]

i meant like a full on space faring race

plus for all we know maybe the planet was just there and ended up being destroyed naturally and debris got earth but that's fun of trying to theory craft 😅

[bold dove]

Nah, it's full on sapient.

Helena Deus describes its emotions as "full of malice, and hatred towards all life"

[dry lily]

the sapient is the dapient of helena from the lore

[lean fog]

so it prob could just destroy a planet and spread and infect other worlds like celestials in marve except very hostile and hate filled

[dry lily]

ye and then from the planet is a veryyyy big hostile and hate filled in therr

[lean fog]

i wanna know why it hates life tho like does it see itself as the ultimate existance or was it made and hated creators and thus all life

who knows and maybe we'll never know 🤷

[dry lily]

me to

[bold dove]

There's a nice theory that goes off of Marc Soskins (the original writers) religious beliefs. That Element is a physical manifestation of entropy and sin in the universe.
It could be more or less seen as Satan incarnate, as Element does nothing but tempt humanity and individuals into relying on it, only for them to become self destructive.
Same thematic reason why humanity can turn into gods, but since its at the cost of using Element, the cheap way out, being a Homo-Deus has extreme consequences.

[lean fog]

true but in the end it could just be hating and whatnot purely cause it it's it's mentality and stuff wired

sometimes things and people just hate things for no reason 🤷

[bold dove]

Tell me one person that just "hates" that doesn't either have
A: a mental illness
B: never got past their trauma in the pass.

[deep oracle]

^ C: All of the above

[main steppe]

Element got bullied on the playground and decided to be mean to everything back

[gusty turret]

To be fair it probably doesn't enjoy being burned as fuel very much

[umbral field]

i imagine it's mainly its own form of "life" that's just incompatible with ours in terms of goals, the way any life form wants to survive, thrive and replicate, so it subsumes Earth life, redirecting their goals of their own survival and spread into the goal of serving & spreading element/hivemind instead. If it hated it's probably the hate of an evolutionary rival

[lean fog]

basically blue and orange morality

[lean fog]

people who do it purely cause other's are not them or like them

but yeah do wonder something

how does the KT hivemind lynchpin being destroyed means the element lost to reseed? was it just in case of basically being mentally stunned so couldn't counter attack the arks purifying?

[bold dove]

Racism?

That's a nurture issue. Which still involves an improper upbringing for that to happen.

[gloomy trout]

what the fuck are yall talking about

[mental basin]

I missed this convo, but nobody's in denial here

[lean fog]

why element is so hostile and cranky

[gloomy trout]

same reason a virus is?

same reason a bacteria is

[mental basin]

Mei-Yin & Helena never had a relationship until The Animated Series, after which it was retroactively shoehorned into the main continuity

[gloomy trout]

same reason any type of life form trying to surive is

[lean fog]

yeah but it's described as being outright hostile rather then just trying to propagate

[gloomy trout]

they had a implied liking for eachother, the animated series blew it out of proportion

[mental basin]

The problem isn't even with the nature of the relationship itself, it's just that it never existed, and trying to retroactively rewrite canon while not actually going back to the old Explorer Notes to make accommodations is just sloppy

[gloomy trout]

i mean, thats how we describe most things yeah
its still a form of propagation

[mental basin]

Not even implied, not until the Lore Update, which was post-Soskin Saga, where they just dropped a little wink-wink in the Ext Prologue

[gloomy trout]

it was implied within the ext notes

[mental basin]

Where

I've read those bad boys about 20 times over in my time

[gloomy trout]

in most of mei yins notes twords the end

[bold dove]

Is that Peter Fries on an alt account?

[gloomy trout]

who is that

[bold dove]

[lean fog]

speaking of implied nano what's your thoughts on mine and other dudes theory element was basically pulling a mass effect reaper indoctrination on rockwell to basically covert the genesis ship to make up for losing on earth and trying to find new place to attempt it that he pinged you on when was at work

[gloomy trout]

?

[mental basin]

I personally hate the relationship because it's messy, it's shoehorned, the two are wholly uninteresting to watch in a romantic sense. It also exists soley to rewrite the amazing relationship between Mei-Yin and Diana, so that Diana can get with Vintiago in ARK II.

[bold dove]

The current lead writer

[gloomy trout]

i agrees

[gloomy trout]

💀

[mental basin]

I LOVE Mei-Yin and Diana’s relationship, because it meant something, felt natural, and the two really feel like they belong together.

[gloomy trout]

it dosent, and is just unloyal lmao

[mental basin]

Helena and Mei feels almost fetishy for how forced it is in favor of Diana and Mei.