starfield-lore

[spiral stirrup]

It's my head canon that he's a lazy starborn that found the easiest way to the Unity, hitching a ride on my ship. He will say whatever to be a crew member and let me do all the work. That why he knows I'm the bane of the fleet even though I haven't done any missions yet.

[faint cave]

I thought he was saying "By the Terra, by the Terra, by the Terra!" at first. Then I turned on subtitles and he was actually saying "By Vectera, by Vectera, by Vectera!"

[broken flower]

He said “By Azura, by Azura, by Azura” in Oblivion

[sacred latch]

I just met a ship with an astrian in it that sells stuff, the dialogue was nice

[keen acorn]

I like your thoughts. The gravity is through/related to the floor plates. If you have the glass up and down. You would only need a thin plate to conduct some gravity. within it. Alternative to that. A plate you stand on could lift and lower you, I saw a Vid that a manufacturer is making elevators that can go up/down left and right. It will probably be used in that new Saudi Arabia Giant wall city a 75-mile-long skyscraper called the Mirror Line that will stretch across its desert, housing up to five million people. being constructed now.

[fallen kiln]

Sounds cool. I thought about lift plates, but I'm not sure how to handle exclusion when someone wants to go up and someone's already going down. Antigrav, if it works the way I want, should let two crew swim past one another.

The main worry is pathing. Will they know how to use antigrav to get from level to level. I'd expect so, since they can handle antigrav across the whole ship, but until I try it...

[stable bloom]

Does anyone know all points where the lore supports or disproves the following things:

Starborn are immortal: Either no aging, or that when they die they are reformed in another universe.

I strongly suspect that they do not age, or at least not the same way as the rest of us do. Their death is something im uncertain of though. It could mean an easy reset button by dying voluntarily, but it wouldn't necessarily be the same as reaching the unity as I imagine that feels very different by the way its described by the Hunter and whatnot.

The dialogue is a bit ambiguous. When the characters refer to their deaths, they are most likely talking about alternate versions but could include themselves as well.

[safe kite]

When you enter the unity, you shotgun many versions of yourself, into many different universes. Those are still mortal in the sense that they can die. There just happens to be a lot of copies, so one of them may succeed at what you were trying to do.

As to aging, that's trickier. It's implied that Aiza was around for a very long time, which either necessitates no aging or time travel.

Now that I think of it, natural aging might be a little odd for starborn, as there may be years/decades between unity trips. Of course it could just reset back to the original state when you get there again.

[stable bloom]

Main thing that makes me think aging may not occur is the Hunter mentions his time on earth, as well as many unity trips. With the way starborn seem to poof when they die, it could very well be permanent death but then I start to wonder how they got this far to begin with if they could always just die like that without any do-overs. I guess there is just that many versions of people, with varying levels of competence.

Time travel isn't entirely out of the question, we do get sent back to the same date every time.

[delicate hazel]

how does the unity even choose your starting point? like the hunter starts off on earth after every unity trip and we start off above Vectera
does your starting point in every new universe have anything to do with you coming in contact with your first artifact? like for the hunter that was on earth and for us it was on Vectera

[daring lake]

Yes. For the player it is always back to the point where the artifact is pulled out of the
rock. Whether the Unity actively chooses this is unknown at this point.

[stable bloom]

Yeah I'm assuming it's related to when you first touched the artifact. Chronologically we are placed after we go into orbit. Considering the unity gives you a ship, this is a sensible decision. Kind of arbitrary though, as it isn't immediately after you touch the artifact. Although I suspect its meant to be when we first grav jumped after touching the artifact. This also means Barret likely gets a lot of prep time considering he had an experience like this way before finding us.

I kind of hope some stuff doesn't get answered

[spring hemlock]

Not every Starborn first touched an artifact, or even touched any artifact at all, I wonder what where those people get reset to? It might even be the case that the Unity allows you to pick the time, but for gameplay reasons this is not possible for the player.

[stable bloom]

That's actually a really good point. I remember thinking I wanted my companions to touch the artifact so I didn't have to explain to them the visions.

I also shotgun a lot of randos through the unity lol, RIP other versions of me ending up with like 100 adoring fans

[daring lake]

Wow .... where does that info come from?

[safe kite]

Kindve a requirement for becoming one.

[spring hemlock]

It is never downright stated in the game directly, but except you and Barrett no other members of Constellation were the first people to touch an artifact. So what about Cora, Sam, Sarah, etc? Where do they reset to.

Like the others mentioned, Keeper Aquilus/The Hunter was born on Earth and has memories of it. Earth became uninhabitable in 2203, and 2150 the Exodus from Earth began. That means that the Hunter was born between 2090 and maybe 2190 (hard to say really)

So let's say The Hunter was born in 2190, and evacuated late from earth. That means that the latest time when he realistically touched the first artifact could have been 2270 or something, 50 years before the events of Starfield. I doubt that he always waits 50 years before taking action and gathering all the artifacts to get to the unity again.

[spring hemlock]

Nope, never explicitly mentioned in the lore. The Emissary also lets people ebcome Starborn after you've opened the unity. Do all of them have to touch the Artifacts? Do the Artifacts even still exist after the Unity has been opened?
What happens to people on a Spaceship that goes into the Unity if they never touched the Artifact?

[safe kite]

Short answer: We don't know. It doesn't explicitly say you have to touch an artifact just as there is no evidence for what happens to those that try to enter the unity after us, who haven't touched an artifact.

We do know that the unity stays open after we go through and there are many more starborn than us in whatever universe we are on. Is it explicitly stated that it is non-starborn that follow us?

[daring lake]

Aquilas is very emphatic when he says " ..... EVERYTHING has changed .."
He implies that he has experienced a different reality in his past.
If he is a version of Victor Aiza for instance then he would have touched an artifact
well before the dates you suggest.

[spring hemlock]

Mh you might have a point there, I've looked it up, the Unity sequence says that under the Emissary "many noble Starborn will be reborn".
So touching the Artifact, even if you don't do it as the first person, might be a requirement.

[safe kite]

We have exactly one example of someone becoming a starborn, and that's our character, which necessitated both touching an artifact first and collecting the rest. Is that always needed? Who knows.

It's needed 100% of the time, every time ||with an N of 1||

[spring hemlock]

That is possible. He might have changed Universes a lot, which could also allow him to not be born earlier, but later as well. Maybe he is from a universe where earth got destroyed later on, because the Artifacts and Grav Drives were discovered later

[safe kite]

Personal theory for when the reset happens is first grav jump after you touch your first artifact.

[spring hemlock]

The thing is we don't know if all Constellation Members touched the Artifacts. We never see any of them except Sarah and Noel touch the Artifacts.
I think though that having to touch an Artifact would be an arbitrary requirement.

So I am not sure if it is really necessary. The Hunter says that The Unity doesn't discriminate, it allows evil people like him to pass through. So why should it discriminate against people who never touched an Artifact?

I am sure the Unity is smart and powerful enough to not be tied to such an arbitrary constraint.

But like you said: We don't know. It is up to Bethesda, we can only speculate

[safe kite]

Because collecting the artifacts is kindve the whole point. The story wouldn't make sense if anyone who stumbled onto the unity after it is open gets yeeted into the multiverse as a starborn. The end game dialogue is a whole rite of passage deal.

Any other starborn who show up late already earned the right to be starborn, so get another ride.

But yeah, this is mostly speculation.

Like what if a non starborn attempts to enter the unity, but there is a version of them in the multiverse already, who is a starborn?

[daring lake]

Hunter/Aquilas

[stable bloom]

The artifacts are only required to create the armillary. Which functions as a key to the unity. Touching the artifacts isn't necessary to go through the door, it's only required to build the key.

So only one person is required to touch the artifacts. Everyone else can just go through the door. The door in this case being the ship that is being flung to the unity.

Also you can have multiple starborn of the same person in a single universe. We see at least two examples of this that I can recall.

[safe kite]

Then what is the significance of only the first to touch an artifact being able to earn its associated power? It is noted that there is a physiological change in your character after they get space magic, that doesn't occur in others who touch the same artifact later.

[spring hemlock]

Mh I don't agree. The Unity just lets anyone through who touched the Artifact (or maybe even didn't), so collecting the Artifact isn't the point. The point is to only touch one of them, and then you can go through the unity.

[spring hemlock]

First touching the Artifact probably only exists to transfer a message, and motivate you to find more

[safe kite]

You could be right 😄 need more Bethesda writing.

[solemn bough]

you dont need to be the first to touch an artifact to get its power, because both you and barrett can get parallel self

[safe kite]

True. But only you two can get powers at all, of the crew, which necessitated first dibs.

[solemn bough]

based on what? we dont know if thats true

[stable bloom]

I don't think it's that only us two can, we're just the only two going for it

[solemn bough]

yeah its weird that no one seems interested but theres really nothing suggesting only you two can get them

barrett also isnt interested in getting any other powers even though he could

[peak halo]

You mean the mega structure that was supposed to be, like 150 km long, but keeps getting its facing setbacks, and is now only supposed to be 2.4 km long or something like that....

[spring hemlock]

I think most of them are too scared of potential side-effects. Maybe those artifacts and powers give you space-cancer.

[solemn bough]

yet they all want to go into the unity lol

[safe kite]

That no one else does. We can wildly speculate as to why everyone else just doesn't want to, but the game specifically only lets you and Barrett get powers.

Occams razor, either the simple "first touch gets powers" or "everyone other than you and Barrett couldn't be bothered to try and/or other reasons"

[daring lake]

Well, its not "first touch". That is for sure.

[solemn bough]

none of them are interested in touching artifacts either

[safe kite]

No first touch, no vision, no power. The game makes it clear that you are Barrett were physically changed by the experience.

[solemn bough]

which is bizzare honestly

[safe kite]

It is. Plot caveat, to avoid having to overexplain, I imagine

[solemn bough]

you don't need to be the first to touch the artifact to get the corresponding power

[daring lake]

^

[safe kite]

Didn't say that specific power, you are correct.

Powers at all.

[solemn bough]

technically we don't know that either

we've never seen anyone who hasn't touched an artifact try to get a power

you can become starborn without touching one, i'm pretty sure we can confirm that

[safe kite]

The first person to touch an artifact tripping, and being physiologically altered is the first major plot point of the story.

[peak halo]

Only people on the ship with the Armillary get made into new starborn, only other starborn are allowed through after... (Assuming that using the Armillary leaves a physical location where the unity can be accessed from...., otherwise only the people on the ship with the Armillary can jump universes)

If youre not already Starborn, you have to touch an artifact to be able to gain the powers.

Also, the theory that Sebastian Banks is the Hunter/Aiza is unlikely to be true, as if that was the case, why would the artifact he found he sitting in a dusty storage room for several decades....

In fact, we know that it's Barrett who inspires Constellation to look into the artifacts more, after he find HIS, and then the one in the basement

Is Banks was the Hunter, he would have started their search way earlier.

[spring hemlock]

That is most likely correct, after all the Emissary seems to control who finds the Temples and the Unity after you open it (that is the entire goal of the Emissary after all).

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/monty-python-and-the-holy-grail-black-knight-swords-training-gif-3495445

[solemn bough]

no one is denying that

[solemn bough]

Only people on the ship with the Armillary get made into new starborn, only other starborn are allowed through after...

we have no idea if this is true

If youre not already Starborn, you have to touch an artifact to be able to gain the powers.

this is provably false

[peak halo]

Provably?

[solemn bough]

actually there is evidence suggesting the former is false as well

[safe kite]

How is it provably false?

I'm all for theorycrafting, I do it all the time, but announcing things that run counter to the games actual writing as fact ain't it.

[solemn bough]

wait sorry, do you mean you need to be the first to touch any artifact in order to get any powers at all? or that you need to touch the corresponding one?

if its the former we cant be sure thats true, if the latter we can be sure thats false

[peak halo]

First of all, we have no idea what happens in the universe we leave, so it's possible there is no other way to get into the unity, and the artifacts are removed from that universe when traversing the Unity.

And there aren't really powers associated directly with the artifacts. (The powers are dirextly associated with a temple, which is associated with the artifacts...) You just have to be the one to touch AN artifact first to get the changes needed to have the powers, only one, more doesn't mean better.

Meaning, if you touch ANY artifact, you can gain ANY power. If you don't touch an artifact, you can still be made Starborn by riding on a ship as it goes through unity. At which point, you can learn powers, as you have already been fundamentally changed.

Also, Starborn are most likely limmortal, but not undying. IE: they won't die of old age, but if they do die, they are no longer alive: no resets, no do-overs, that version ceases to exist, and is incorporated into the Unity, becoming one with the Universe once again.

[solemn bough]

i'm just saying it isn't actually confirmed anywhere that you can't get powers without having first been the first to touch an artifact. and yeah, we don't know what happens in the universes we leave but i dont know why you would then assume that only other starborn can follow us through the unity

[peak halo]

Also, if activating the Armillary left an open door to the Unity.... The Starborn wouldn't really need to fight. Hang back, let someone else get the Armillary and open the door to the Unity.... The fact that in every universe, they are fighting over it (outside of philosophical reasons), in a race to assemble the Armillary, means that it's not only one way, it's single use.

[solemn bough]

its suggested that non starborn will "discover their own way" to the unity or whatever they say at the end

[solemn bough]

it depends on what their motivations are. the emissary, for one, is not cool with allowing others to get to the unity before him because his whole thing is controlling who goes and who doesnt

[peak halo]

The Artifacts are a shortcut. With enough time and development, Humanity will unlock access to the Unity... I mean.... Based on the evidence in the game, the Creators are most likely trans temporal humans.

[solemn bough]

hunters motivation is just having fun, so he most likely just wants to get there first for the sport of it

so no we cannot assume that only starborn can go through the unity after someone already has

[safe kite]

We don't need Sarah to turn to you and deadpan "The reason I am not using starborn powers is because I physically cannot do so". We can infer from the rest of the writing that this is the case.

The games entire story revolves around people who touch artifacts and see visions are Different, and all available evidence points to that being the case throughout.

[solemn bough]

so why doesnt barrett want to get any other powers besides parallel self? he can get all of them just like you can

[safe kite]

Would it be nice if we got a hard answer for why no one else is interested in gaining powers and hunting artifacts? Sure. But we don't. What we do have is that only you and Barrett can.

[rigid kiln]

guys what if anasko isn't hot, what then? what is the point?
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/745747764981268503/1246195318731571281/image.png?ex=665b8155&is=665a2fd5&hm=5ea5c10e170242c0d63d1cd2d34df8cc407e01e12561d41397f5188c43a110be&

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/furiosa-furiosa-mad-max-saga-gif-5775210635224467803

[rigid kiln]

😭

[solemn bough]

and if barrett isnt interested in 23 powers, its probably not a crazy stretch to infer that sarah is not interested in 24 powers

[peak halo]

Doesn't he comment when he uses his power, about it's 'feeling weird' and 'uncomfortable'? Making using powers something he doesn't really wanna use.

[safe kite]

Yes, that is a stretch and subverted by the writing specifically stating that you and Barrett are weird and saw things.

The game also doesn't specifically say that dogs just went extinct, but that doesn't lend credence to the theory that dogs are actually The Creators.

[peak halo]

In fact.... Out side of that mission.... Do we see him use his power any other time?

[rigid kiln]

I think he does as companion no?

[solemn bough]

barrett can get 23 other crazy starborn powers, but he doesn't want to. so its not far fetched to think that the other constellation members don't want to get 24 crazy starborn powers

thats only one less power than barrett doesnt care about getting

[safe kite]

It is heavily implied that they can't. That's the difference. That's the whole point of the first act of the story.

[peak halo]

I mean... Given the likelihood that BILLIONS died in the death of earth, it's unlikely a stable pressing population of dogs was evacuated.

[safe kite]

You are correct, but another topic. 😄

[rigid kiln]

maybe there is a planet where they dropped all the dogs off bc they are stinky so they are far away from us

[peak halo]

Hey Nieves, I noticed that, like, the only pages on the wiki are the House Va'ruun ones, lol.

[rigid kiln]

HAHAHA

Yea I might have...a problem... 😭

[spring hemlock]

Is Anasko a male, female vor unisex name?

[rigid kiln]

Anasko is a female name but the game refers to them as ''his''

[solemn bough]

here's something else to consider: starborn seem to have an "anchor point" in time that is determined by the time that they first touched an artifact. when you go through the unity, you always reset to this point. that would suggest that only artifact touchers can become starborn, and yet we know this is not the case

[rigid kiln]

so... ~~🏳️‍⚧️ ~~?

[solemn bough]

so just because the writing suggests something doesnt mean we can assume its true

[spring hemlock]

I need to find that lore. Where did you find it?

[safe kite]

We know this how? Point to a starborn that did not touch an artifact.

[spring hemlock]

Based

[solemn bough]

cora

[rigid kiln]

I spawned the kiosk in bc I can't figure out where it's supposed to be so i can't enable it but you can find the ID with

help kiosk

[spring hemlock]

Thank you

[safe kite]

A Cora.

[rigid kiln]

When I'm done with House Va'ruun I might do other pages, might maybe just let other people do that tbh bc I don't care about the other factions at all

[rigid kiln]

if you can't find the kiosk id
https://starfieldwiki.net/wiki/Starfield:Embassy_Artifact_Info_Kiosk

[stable bloom]

I don't think it's single use because of the ending info the unity gives us about other people going after us. My romantic interest went shortly after me but not immediately

[rigid kiln]

I'm currently doing 5 lore pages and idk which one is first bc they all are a lot of work, doing a template for va'ruun'kai with Ka'zaal but the problem is that I don't know if the ka'zaal I have is the right one bc of the name switchery :(

[safe kite]

That's the sticking point for me. I want more writing on the subject. Hopefully an expansion expands on it. Just a bunch of questions atm.

[stable bloom]

I sincerely hope we get more info on starborn, and more interaction with the Hunter and emissary. I love them as characters, very fascinating.

[safe kite]

Agreed

[spring hemlock]

I made a timeline for the Starfield lore some time ago. I can send it to you tomorrow if you want. It doesn't contain much Va'Ruun stuff though, but is probably the largest timeline for SF yet

[rigid kiln]

Oh I have almost all va'ruun stuff covered

https://www.reddit.com/r/HouseVaruun/comments/1bnl4l3/house_varuun_lore/

[stable bloom]

Can you send this to me as I'd be interested in a timeline

[peak halo]

I want more lore on the Mechs.... Because, honestly, if mechs are being used in combat, there MUST be a reason they were considered effective combatants, instead of, like, a tank.

[silk lotus]

The only time we see them in use was during one of the animated trailers. And it took a missile bombardment to take them out.

[peak halo]

Though, TBH, mechs don't make much sense for a single planet species, but they can make more sense when the scale is taken into consideration, legged vehicles are more capable in extremely rough terrain, but why two legs? The ground pressure would be insane, even with the relatively small size of the mechs, making certain terrains (like frozen rivers or lakes) impassable.

[spring hemlock]

Sure, remind me tomorrow if I forget to so that. I'm not at my PC right now

[silk lotus]

Probably just not meant for all terrain and atmospheres.

[rigid kiln]

I want the stupid hanging boat in neon to actually be in the water and just move around in the distance or whatever

it's kinda sloff rn

[peak halo]

What I'm asking is, why bipedal? It adds un-necessary complications (such as balancing with a single contact point on the ground, while maneuvering the rest of your mass around that single balance point, in order to do almost anything. A quadrupedal.... Or even tripedal, design would be significant simpler and probably cheaper, to produce.

[silk lotus]

Rule of cool?

[peak halo]

I mean...

That's the entire reason 40k exist, so, fair I guess.

[solemn bough]

doesn't she only appear if sam dies? meaning she's probably the "original"

[daring lake]

The mech is piloted by the actions of the pilot. Bi-pedal pilot = Bi-pedal mech.
Remember how the mech in the Avatar movie worked? That is how I view them.

[safe kite]

There are many universes where Sam died. Many more when you fail to collect all the artifacts. It never specifies that Cora is your prime universe's Cora, just a Cora who saw you get her father killed.

[spring hemlock]

Rule of cool, and those mechs might have some neural interfaces. Neural interfaces are a thing in Starfield, and one of the ex-mech pilots in Gargarin says that mechs feel link a second skin. Bipedel works better for humans if a neural interface is used

[rigid kiln]

I'm pretty sure if sam didn't die you can tell her that and she will be annoyed that the one ''you'' she finds isn't the one that let her dad die

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/well-there-it-is-jeff-goldblum-gif-14058551

[peak halo]

Aren't the neuro amps rather new tech though?

Would make sense for a Freestar based cybernetics company to have gotten it's start making neutral interfaces for the military, and after mechs got banned, they took their applicable skill sets, and went into the civilian market.

[safe kite]

I, for one, hope people have to be physically grafted to the mechs, like a 40k dreadnought.

[silk lotus]

Yep got that universe myself.

just wanted to chime in and back up that statement.

[spring hemlock]

No Neuroamps are decades old, and the UC made neural interfaces for controlling Xenoweapons. Neurotechnology has been used by both UC and FSC before the colony war.

[peak halo]

I mean.... Nothing enters the civilian market without being thoroughly tested as a weapon.

[safe kite]

Counterpoint: Ice Cream.

[spring hemlock]

Small correction from my side: Neuroamps are indeee relatively new (2307), so right at the brink oft the colony war. But my guess is that neurotech was something that alrwady existed before, Ryujin didn't create that originally, they only made the Neuroamps

[solemn bough]

hunter also implies that the events of your prime universe are very rare because he's never seen you survive. so the writing would imply that cora is your cora, especially if she can only appear if you got Sam killed

@safe kite

[peak halo]

Counter counterpoint: Ice cream was instrumental to the US victory in the Pacific.

[safe kite]

That's based on an incorrect assertion.

[peak halo]

So much so, that the US Navy had an ice cream factory ship

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/the-falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-tfatws-sam-wilson-anthony-mackie-hes-outta-line-but-hes-right-gif-22026830

[safe kite]

@solemn bough

[solemn bough]

is that true?

[solemn bough]

also just now realizing that not all starborn turn to stardust when they die, all the important ones leave corpses

[stable bloom]

Is that true though? Pretty sure the important ones at the end only stayed until I got their unique gear, then disappeared

[solemn bough]

i dont think starborn cora disappears either

maybe after you loot her too

[safe kite]

Kind of them to wait.

[undone furnace]

All the best universes are the universes where Sam dies.

[keen acorn]

That was another structure someplace else. The new Saudi Arabia Giant wall city a 75-mile-long skyscraper called the Mirror Line is in progress. The king is behind its funding. Somehow I do not think people go against the king there. They had a run in removing a city for the construction. The Construction won. It is still being worked on.

[peak halo]

It's a design issue, the tech they needed hadn't been invented yet, and design time overruns have increased the timeline, meing only a 2.4 km section will be done by the deadline

[rigid kiln]

ok so...can the pilgrim time travel or is he like hella old

like old old

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/745747764981268503/1246485792898027560/pilgrim_drawing_3.png?ex=665c8fdb&is=665b3e5b&hm=23b2d9f990ddeaeb7ba3c4d8e99718c240ee390f7f1562bb7ca08690e22ff8bf

[daring lake]

He would not need to be old imo. The Unity connects all points of
spacetime. Past, present and future. If he was able to use The Unity
to pick and choose when and where he went then time travelling would
be on the menu.
Manipulating the past and failing to achieve his goal would fit quite well
with the outlook of Aquilas as we know him now.

[rigid kiln]

all the notes are so interesting

[daring lake]

Absolutely. Here's hoping we get further hints/reveals in the DLC. 🙂

[stable bloom]

He doesn't need to be old, but he is undoubtedly centuries if not millennia old regardless due to his time as the hunter.

And I absolutely hope he has involvement in a future dlc, he's fascinating along with the other named starborn. The possibilities are endless

[peak halo]

Is it pro en he's the hunter?

[left hill]

It’s just speculation at the moment. It’s not explicitly stated. Some could argue the evidence leads you to that conclusion.

[stable bloom]

I believe he is, but I don't think it's outright stated. The notes of the pilgrim do seem to refer to his time as his darker self, though.

[silk lotus]

I ironically like the universe where its just Noell. Its nice to RP rebuilding constalation with the non constalation crew members.

[stable bloom]

Is that the one where constellation retired? I wish we could go see the retired versions of the characters

[silk lotus]

Yep that one. I just roleplayed that I was going to respect their decision to retire and let them be when I got it.

[silk lotus]

So is the unity itself sentient? I think so due to the emisarry claiming that it is testing us when we go through the flash backs on Masada III. The us that we see at the end is likely a aspect of the Unity made out of all possible variations of our character?

I theorize if the unity creates the universes, but the creators create the temples and artifacts.

The creators being seperate entities to the Unity. Possibly a blessed or chosen people by the Unity to move to a higher plane of existance?

[peak halo]

THEORY: The creators were the first starborn, their universe existed without the artifacts. They eventually developed to the point of being able to access the Unity, and were able to mass produce the Armillaries. Their mastery manifested IN the unity, as the temples......

Yeah, that's about as far as I got....

[late raptor]

I think that's what the Creators really are

I'd prefer they keep it a mystery

[left hill]

The Emissary has an opinion on matters that’s in ideological conflict with the Hunter. And you can oppose both of their views. There does seem to be some salience to it (or associated with it), but it’s vague.

[hard tulip]

i feel like it miiight be redundant to make the same plot twist twice ?

in vanilla you are already led to believe that the starborn are a magical precursor race but then they are actually just humans that went through the unity, so for the creators to also just be humans that went through the unity, would be a bit odd imo

unless you're saying that the creators are "alien starborn" instead of "human starborn" i guess

[safe kite]

Money is on extradimensional sentient aliens. And they can't exist in our universes/dimension directly so made the Unity as a way to explore it by proxy.

By extension, the Starborn are their proxies, without knowing the real purpose for why they are the way they are.

I also believe the Sanctum's god and the Great Serpent are different aspects of the Creators, and use visions during grav jumps to manipulate humans to their own ends, as both religion's cornerstones are 'I saw something weird when jumping'.

Starborn being just altered humans with access to tech beyond their own understanding and continuing to, generally, chase after it... I don't think that story element is going to change. The Big Reveal has already happened for the Starborn.

[daring lake]

There is some evidence to suggest that the Unity is sentient. I would go further, and
suggest that Artifacts, grav drives, Temples and the Unity that "You" experiences
may all be parts of a distributed AI.
With all points of spacetime connected to a single point there is every possibilty that
Humanity are the Creators. And may have constructed it all.

One of the things that keeps gnawing away in a corner of my
mind is the way that Aquilas says that " ... EVERYTHING has changed ..."
Why put such emphasis on that during a discussion with his followers?
If we believe The Pilgrim, then manipulating the past to change the course of "our" history
is very much on the table.

[silk lotus]

the world in starfield could be a program controlled/monitored by a AI perhaps?

[daring lake]

Well, monitored in a sense for sure. Unity "You" says " I have seen all that you were and all
that you could be" etc.

[silk lotus]

I wonder if the creators are omniscient. I think gods or higher beings that are still fallible could be a nice touch. They probably created the temples for a reason. I doubt they created them for entertainment just to see what humans do with the powers and armillary. Maybe to create a stronger human/starborn to do their bidding/ do something for them. It comes down to the questions of what do the creators get out of their creations? The temples, artifacts, starborn ect?

If this whole thing is one big experiment/game then what is the result they desire? Are pawns of a game? Entertainment for the gods to watch? A experiment to see what happens, possible with a desired result which they are aiming for.

[daring lake]

Gods, Higher beings etc .... I would be much dissapoint if that happens.

[silk lotus]

I mean gods and religion is kind of a key component/theme of the game. relious traits, factions, ect.

[daring lake]

Nah, really? 2 religions and 1 group of Humanists.
Aquilas sees the Unity as God. That is his view.
Jinan had a vision, perhaps prompted by proximity to a grav drive.
The connection is the machine imo.

[silk lotus]

also in that example is the Unity itself a higher being? Does that make the unity a god?

[daring lake]

That is the Sanctum Universum view.

[silk lotus]

I guess it does depend on a persons views and definition of god.

Sorry I wasnt trying to argue.

I guess I just want something bigger than humanity ya know? We kinda suck.

[daring lake]

Yeah, I get it, so no worries 🙂

[solemn bough]

i think so yeah

and i think it's a common misconception that aiza was directed to create the grav drive by his starborn self, i think it was the unity

[silk lotus]

One thing that confuses me. It sounds like Aiza touched the artifact on mars and saw the Other him (possibly like how we see a version of ourself at the unity itself) instead of the visions we and barret see when touching a artifact.

[solemn bough]

yeah, and jinan va'ruun saw something during a grav jump without touching an artifact

so i feel like it can choose when it communicates and can communicate as long as the person is interacting with artifact power somehow

even just a grav jump

[smoky onyx]

Maybe energy-based intelligence that only emerges as a byproduct of grav jump technology? Like how we're a byproduct of carbon and h2o and what have you

[nocturne sluice]

that is probably why serpent's embrace trait makes use of grav jumps

[round charm]

hmm would it be possible for player character to join spacers faction?

[daring lake]

There is no Spacer "faction" But if you mean having Spacers non-hostile
to a player .... not as things stand, no.

[spring hemlock]

Makign spacers non-hostiel probably requires only one console command

[round charm]

yea was trying to make a mod in which you can join em and rob people

issue is that i'm currently having a mental breakdown with scene manager

[spring hemlock]

Doesn't really make that much sense tbh. Spacers are not a single faction, they are an umbrella term for smaller groups of outlaws, bandits and god-knows what. They probably fight each other as often as they fight the UC or FSC.

[round charm]

ah would this feature for Crimson fleet make sense?

since they do from time to time pillage outposts for resources

[spring hemlock]

You can literally already join the Crimson Fleet and make them non-hostile towards you xD

[round charm]

yea just adding the robbing part🤣

we can commit piracy against ships but not npcs sadly

specifically POI for small settlements

[spring hemlock]

Ah okay, yeah that would be nice

[round charm]

also another question does it make sense to buy fish from fishmonger at Neon?

since they literally have their own district with fish on display but ya can't buy anthing from them

[spring hemlock]

I am not sure why this would be a priority for any mod tbh.

[round charm]

just a small nifty mod

[solemn bough]

definitely

[solemn bough]

chasmbass oil

[keen spear]

I think it's incredibly funny that you can just walk out of neon with a ton of chasmbass oil

the main ingredent in the most illegal drug in the settled systems

[faint cave]

That guy/gal is the closest thing to a god the game's lore has, right?

[daring lake]

Well, Aquilas sees The Unity as God.
I don't share his view.

[silk lotus]

I wonder if the unity is actually getting stronger whenever someone chooses to become starborn. Sounds like a part of us stays in the universe while some also fuses to the unity. I took a new char to the unity.

[scenic loom]

Unity is infinite
there is no limits but limits in our minds

[jaunty ginkgo]

Is Aquilas the Pilgrim or just a variation of? I forgot

[jaunty ginkgo]

At that time when I first found the Pilgrim's journals, my impression based on the interactions with his followers is that he believes Unity is a proof of God that doesn't divorce from empiric findings or rationale

[daring lake]

icbw but I seem to recall Aquilas stating that it was god .... 🤷‍♂️

[jaunty ginkgo]

I'll have to check again if it is inherent that Aqulias = Hunter = Pilgrim regardless of variation that could stem

[daring lake]

Yeah, I've been re-checking through also 🙂
Aquilas on Unity as God;

"To perceive the Unity as God is to misconceive it, but it is also not entirely wrong.
The traditional parochial notions of God, though, are far too limiting; Unity is much bigger
than the imaginations of any person, or even entire civilizations. This potential for misunderstanding
is why I have repeatedly endeavored to have all readers and people of good will cast their
preconceptions aside and begin from nothing, lest they take up once more the fairy tale
beliefs they held as children."

[feral basalt]

So it there any place to make Aurora out of Neon?

[daring lake]

The recipe is;
1 Benzene
1 Chasmbass Oil
2 Hallucinogen
1 Stimulant

[static sky]

Idk if he’s the pilgrim but keeper aquilus is a retired hunter

[keen acorn]

1. You can make Aurora on a workbench. 2. One NPC you hire specializes in Making Aurora. LOL wonder why we don't see more NPC's do that. LOL

but I get more money off weapons than any Aurora. being honest

[hard tulip]

yes he is the pilgrim, "the pilgrim" is aquilus's alias and is the exact same person, while the hunter is a different version of the same individual, both of them are starborn and neither of them are from the player's universe ^^

(and the pilgrim/aquilus used to act like the hunter in his previous universes before settling down in the one you find him on)

[solemn bough]

@solemn bough We do know what happens in the universe we leave though. The game says lol.

[solemn bough]

Most of constellation that goes through unity with you.

[solemn bough]

No? Can get starborn cora regardless of Sam ever dying. And is different dialogue for it.

[solemn bough]

She can appear regardless

And that's my catching up for today

[static sky]

Really ? Where do we see that

[keen spear]

If you side with the hunter you get a lot of dialogue expanding his history

for instance ||The Hunter and The Pilgrim were both from earth before the atmosphere collapsed||

[solemn bough]

during the quest you read through the pilgrims notes and everything, do the scorpion puzzle thing, and when you get to the end it's the hunter waiting for you

[static sky]

Really ? Idk, i never sided with him

[static sky]

Ah, those bastards are old af

[keen spear]

think it's implied Starborn basically stop aging

[static sky]

Really ? I forgot about this

[static sky]

Yeah well, he’s pretty old already lol

[solemn bough]

you dont need to side with him

its just part of the mq

[static sky]

I forgot

[rigid kiln]

What we doing today besties

[solemn bough]

talking about lore i guess

[static sky]

The usual, walking through the multiverse

[rigid kiln]

Mood

[solemn bough]

i tend to fly

[peak halo]

We know what happens in regards to the main and faction quest you did. We don't know if there is a portal to the unity, left wherever we jumped from (which, for me, was in orbit of jemison)

[solemn bough]

It states that other people go through after you do. Depending on your choices anyways.

[peak halo]

Source? Aquilus would never admit he is the Pilgrim.

[solemn bough]

Yeah nothing at all states who the pilgrim is, only speculation

[peak halo]

How? If using the Armillary leaves a passage to the unity... It would be where you activated your grav drive to jump into the unity... For me, that was in orbit of jemison...

Unless the artifacts are redistributed after usage, but nothing in the game implies that.

[rigid kiln]

What if the pilgrim was hot?

[solemn bough]

It doesn't say exactly how, only that others do go through at a separate time than you.

[peak halo]

Other than the two main factions in the star borne, those that don't follow either the emissary or the hunter fight everyone else to get the artifacts first, so they can go to unity.

[solemn bough]

heavily implied by his notes and the events of "unity"

[peak halo]

Implication isnt proof

[solemn bough]

the pilgrims writings lead you to the last star of the scorpio constellation, the scorpion themed puzzle, the hunter's ship is the scorpius

they both lived on earth, and the pilgrim in his writings describes his former past as being very similar to the hunter

and then aquilus and hunter have the same face

if they aren't the same person then that's just confusingly bad writing

[peak halo]

I don't recall a scuirpion themed puzzle....

[solemn bough]

the thing where you shine the light on the scorpions tail?

[rigid kiln]

this line kinda hints toward it I guess

This time will be different. It won't be about me, so I won't have to run. I can actually build something with intent instead of scrambling to fix something that others create in my name. It can be something beneficial. I can be something beneficial.

I'm leaving behind that other person. This world has no place for him. Let him die. Let me live to enlighten the blessed universe before me.

[rigid kiln]

there is the Hyla II scorpion statue that has you trace the tail of the scorpius constelation to find the scorpius ship

[peak halo]

Does that require siding with the hunter?

[rigid kiln]

I'm more confused that the pilgrim supposedly could time-travel

no, it's the Unity quest

[peak halo]

I have literally no idea what your talking about....

I went to the pilgrims retreat. But I don't recall any kind of puzzle

[rigid kiln]

after you go to the pilgrim's place the final writing send you to hylia II

https://images.starfieldwiki.net/5/56/SF-mission-Unity-Scorpion's_String.png

[solemn bough]

Both choosing the emissary and choosing neither states that people go thru unity after, as well as andreja "eventually" chooses to go thru unity.

[peak halo]

Oh yeah, that thing

[rigid kiln]

she just forgor 💀

[solemn bough]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1154560045858705408/1247283478157066270/Screenshot_20240603-1618132.png?ex=665f76c2&is=665e2542&hm=80d62ffdb0de8186bf2d48464abb9a5727d1e810214b637490be32aaf3809fd3&
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1154560045858705408/1247283488151834794/Screenshot_20240603-1616162.png?ex=665f76c4&is=665e2544&hm=c370fd940eb9f316eedb414cc67593340a551f801f5a96e2b8bdcdd155577419&

[rigid kiln]

I like how the unity has a line for you having multiple partners

[safe kite]

We dont know what happens to them after that. Do they become starborn? Do they become something different?

Can they find it but not go through, just like you can?

All speculation.

[scenic loom]

i kinda feel bad that once you and crew you are with enters the Unity
you all kinda "separate" and you dont get to see them ever again (far as we know)

[solemn bough]

i think we can assume they become starborn, we don't need proof of every single person who goes through actually becoming starborn. we just know that's how it works

[safe kite]

But we don't know how it works. That's the point 🙂

We can theorize, but to say they definitely become starborn when we do not have evidence of that is just that.

[solemn bough]

occam's razor suggests they simply become starborn. no reason to believe otherwise

there's a lot of things we don't KNOW are true but we accept because they make the most sense and we have evidence suggesting they are true

like do we know that a bunch of dancing gremlins don't appear in every part of your ship at all times but only when you aren't looking? i can't prove it but i feel comfortable saying that that doesn't happen

[rigid kiln]

Do we think there are more cool unknown theocracies in space? 👉👈

[scenic loom]

why?
you trying to build one?

[solemn bough]

if only you knew

[rigid kiln]

I 100% would if I could

[safe kite]

All hail the Greater Serpent.

[rigid kiln]

Wouldn't go that way jf I could go for myself but valid

[scenic loom]

i mean, at this point, you are the one making PR for House Va'ruun lol

[rigid kiln]

It's the most relatable faction so

[peak halo]

How is it the most relatable faction?

[safe kite]

Issue here is if you base further theories off of an assumption, the end result is baseless.

I agree that we don't need direct evidence for everything, and can assume where appropriate, but "everyone becomes staborn" is a massive leap that runs contrary to the themes of the main story, so is nowhere near the simplest explanation.

[scenic loom]

[rigid kiln]

Seeing as the great serpent closely resembles Vita

[peak halo]

Vita?

[rigid kiln]

The void

[peak halo]

If you are testing a hypothesis, and you use the wrong formula, the entire paper has to be thrown out.

[safe kite]

They are notably absent from my life, just like my family. 🙂

[rigid kiln]

The beast at the end of time
The inevitably end of the universe where the void takes everything

[safe kite]

Sithis. Is. The Void.

[peak halo]

Hmm. Interesting

[scenic loom]

Nieves just wants to be one with the darkness

[peak halo]

I'm sorry, you are incorrect, Kaos is the Void.

[rigid kiln]

I do not, I follow the light

[scenic loom]

...in the dark
man, some some Assassin creed vibe you giving

[peak halo]

In regards to TES lore, I prefer the dark brotherhoods creation story

[safe kite]

I spent like 4 hours reading creation theories on the TES wiki one time. And then did it again in game, in skyrim, using in game books, ebcause it is neat.

[scenic loom]

world/lore building is crazy

[safe kite]

Sithis is the only constant in all versions. Always a chill void.

(different names, obv)

[rigid kiln]

I can't wait till I learn more about ithelia

[scenic loom]

the black sea as some NPCs put it

[peak halo]

Sithis IS Padomay IS the Void

[safe kite]

Dude just wants to not exist, leave him alone.

[peak halo]

TES lore has a bunch of reincarnation type BS.

[scenic loom]

and in SF, we travel within the void

[peak halo]

Like, Anu and Sithis have been reborn at least twice, to fill the exact same role as the previous version, just with more awareness and control. Lorkhan is also Sithis (kinda) and Akatosh is Anu (kinda)

[safe kite]

This gal lores.

[peak halo]

And Talos is Lorkhan reborn, which means he is Sithis. And the dragon born is Talos, but also Akatosh

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/deep-magic-lion-witch-narnia-dont-recite-gif-14879671

[peak halo]

The Great Serpent is just Alduin.

[safe kite]

My favorite part of TES lore is that it is almost entirely from in-universe, fallible sources. It is wonderful.

I hope they keep up that pattern with Starfield.

As much as I want answers, the worst thing would be for a developer, outside the game, stating a fact about the game lore.

Let us discover it all in game. They have been suitably tight lipped beyond surface level concepts, so far.

[solemn bough]

i've unironically heard this but akatosh

someone made a whole video about how the colors you see when you grav jump are the same ones you see when you absorb a dragon soul or something, and akatosh is a time god and going through the unity is like time travel

[safe kite]

You go through the first temple, and an old man voiceover starts..

You are Ysmir now... Dragon of the North...

[rigid kiln]

I might be biased but I see the great serpent as the void that will take the universe at the end of spacetime

[solemn bough]

but "everyone becomes staborn" is a massive leap that runs contrary to the themes of the main story

gonna need you to expound on that one

to be clear, i'm only saying that everyone who goes through the unity and emerges out the other side becomes a starborn. it's also the only thing that can happen to the player

[safe kite]

.

[solemn bough]

the hunter, the emissary, starborn cora

and the emissary can be any of the four main companions

oh and the trader

also i think whoever you speak to inside the unity basically tells you whats going to happen to you

we also dont have any examples of anything else happening besides becoming starborn

[rigid kiln]

Will we get cool time travel powers like the pilgrim? I wanna visit tribes like he did

[peak halo]

When you pass through the Unity, your old body is turned BACK into stardust, and your core values will be spread across the universe. Because you were in Constellation, the first time, when you leave the universe, that old universe gets a spark. The spark of exploration.

Your mind is then shotgunned across the universes. And the Great Game starts again.

[rigid kiln]

Also wouldn't be to hard to do unlike a modern earth wild cities

[peak halo]

I don't think the Pilgrim had designated time travel powers, I think you can pick the time you exit into when you enter the unity. The only reason out player is locked to that first grav jump after touching the artifact is partially a gameplay mechanic (so they didn't have to design 10k+ years of game world....) and also because the Pilgrim had been through the Unity SO MANY TIMES, he had more control over it.

[safe kite]

ARE starborn. We dont know how they became Starborn. The argument was made that Cora is evidence you dont need to touch an artifact to become starborn, but that was due to assuming (the theme) that that Cora was prime universe Cora, when it is not.

[rigid kiln]

I guess

[safe kite]

Lack of evidence isn't evidence.

[solemn bough]

we also don't know if the UC is real. it could just be a bunch of actors pretending to run a government

[safe kite]

I mean, you can be facetious. I like doing that too. But that's not super useful atm.

[solemn bough]

sarah could secretly be a lizard, so we can't call her a human being. there might also be different rules for lizards in the unity which we cannot discount

[rigid kiln]

How do we explain us moving back in time during the burried temple quest then bc I know that's not our powers but I assume some hella OP starborn could controll that?

[safe kite]

Unity sneezing.

[rigid kiln]

😭

[peak halo]

Back in time?

I really need to replay the end of the main quest, lol.

[solemn bough]

neither is ignoring the idea that human beings who enter the unity become starborn. that puts us backwards, not forwards. according to your logic we cannot assume anything is true unless explicitly stated, which leaves zero room for anything but speculation

[safe kite]

Could also be your character tripping hard, tbh. Are we really there? Is that a memory? It felt, to me, that it was the story doing 4th dimension bits, but not enough there to warrant 'I travelled through time"

[solemn bough]

good lord man

what is even the point of discussing lore then?

[rigid kiln]

Yea to vertera when we mine the first arifact or to the hunter attack but when a different us died, the different us could ofc just be a parallel universe where it happened later to them but it's still the same date but the vertera one seems... 7 may 2330?

[safe kite]

I dont ignore that idea. It is patently there. I reject the idea that because our one instance of entering the unity resulted in starborn-dom, ALL interactions with the unity must result in the same, because that ignores other preconditions (touching an artifact, grav jumping)

[safe kite]

To figure out what is actually going on. 🙂

Which assumptions presented as fact actively prevent.

[solemn bough]

we can leave room for the possibility of special cases, but other than that we can assume the same thing happens to us because that's what has happened to others and thats what we've been told happens

otherwise like i said, we can't really do anything but speculate

even something that appears to have been confirmed as true may not really be true

[safe kite]

Again, ignoring that touching an artifact is a key plot element. THE key plot element. "Your character is special because they fondled alien tech and got superpowers" is the entire point. Ignoring that once the Unity happens is counter to the plot.

[solemn bough]

it is never even hinted at anywhere in the game that something aside from becoming a starborn is even a possibility though

[peak halo]

The unity, and everyone else related to it, say that anyone who enters the unity with you becomes Starborn. Including the constellation crew, and possibly any random people you have as crew.

Note, thosenpeople have the choice to not go through the Unity, and return to their universe....

[safe kite]

Well yes, we spent 40 hours saying your character is special, and dictating how you got these superpowers, but turns out, everyone becomes starborn and gets superpowers if they just believe in themselves

[solemn bough]

it's actually not confirmed that people who don't touch artifacts cant get powers. why would you assume that?

[safe kite]

The "becomes starborn" part is the dealbreaker. It doesnt say that.

[rigid kiln]

F all the heatleeches

[peak halo]

That's not it at all.... You have to GO TO the unity to become Starborn.

[rigid kiln]

Praying for whoever has heatleech starborn in their universe

[safe kite]

THat's what really happens. It was never the Lazarus plant at all 😮

[safe kite]

Is a theory, which could be correct.

[rigid kiln]

Bestie you are starting to annoy me 😭

[safe kite]

Should we discuss the difference between inferences made via related established evidence vs inferences made by a lack of established evidence disproving it, and their individual reliability/usefulness as theories?

I mean, we can, but this Popeye's chicken sammich isn't going to eat itself.

[solemn bough]

inferences made via related established evidence

is what i've been doing, but you're telling me it isn't good enough

[safe kite]

It's ignoring the other two conditions, is the problem.

Entering the unity is a condition in all cases, you are correct.

[solemn bough]

you're assuming the other conditions

[safe kite]

Are all 3 needed? Only the unity? We dont know. You could be correct. Saying we know for a fact that everyone who goes through the unity is Starborn is incorrect.

[rigid kiln]

Only fact we know is that anasko va'ruun has to be hot

[peak halo]

If you romance Sarah, the Unity will straight up say that she chooses to be reborn herself. The first Constellation artifact was acquired by Banks (or at least, it was acquired before Sarah joined), the second was by Barrett, third was the player, the fourth was secondhand, (which is the only one you are required to take Sarah to get) and every one after that was either found directly by the player, or was second hand, and wouldn't have given her the visions. This is proof that you don't have to touch the artifacts to become starborn

[safe kite]

She decided to enter the unity and She Became a Starborn are not the same. If it said that, I would accept it as a hard truth.

If you met Prime Version of a character later as a Starborn, done, proof. We dont have that.

"This is FACT" when it is assumption or inference is the issue, to me. We don't know.

[coarse root]

Could the captain of the scow be starborn since he presumably touched the artifact?

[solemn bough]

is there anything at all in the game that we do have proof of?

[solemn bough]

no reason to assume he was first to touch it. in fact, it's more likely that he didnt

[safe kite]

... Most of it? We experience most of it firsthand.

[peak halo]

Okay... If you get reborn by the Unity.... You ARE starborn

[solemn bough]

like what? name a thing, anything

anything in the game you accept as a hard truth

[peak halo]

How do I post pics here?

[solemn bough]

paste a direct link to the image

[peak halo]

lazarus plants cause heat leeches to turn into terrormorphs

[rigid kiln]

Post their link

[peak halo]

Uh.... I don't have one....

[safe kite]

Post it in another discord and open it in browser.

[rigid kiln]

Dm it to someone or drop it in your own discord or whatever and copy their link

That is how I do it

[peak halo]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1241524630838055003/1247307104239358102/Screenshot_20240603_174847_YouTube.jpg?ex=665f8cc3&is=665e3b43&hm=78f0fdf71ac416370f6b6f233a0049d8bfd881597b3a74c6d76cb0d5c9efd661&

[solemn bough]

but because the words "as a starborn" are missing, we can't assume. lol

dys i'm still waiting for an example of a fact

[peak halo]

(Re)Born by the Star(s)... Starborn.

[solemn bough]

nope, not explicit enough

could mean reborn as a potted plant

[safe kite]

Unironically yes.

We have 0 clue how the Unity works or even what it is. Saying FACTS about it, based on what little is there, especially to suppress discussion and FURTHER theories of what it is and how it works is counterintuitive.

[solemn bough]

dys, can you name a fact from the game that you accept as true? anything at all

i feel like you're avoiding doing so and we both know why

[safe kite]

It is entirely possible that everyone who goes through the unity becomes a Starborn. Equally possible that everyone who touches an artifact (at all) and enters the Unity is reborn as Starborn. If the 'reborn' in the image is assumed to be Starborn, we can rule out that you have to touch an artifact first and receive a vision, but that isn't explicitly stated, so firm "maybe".

[safe kite]

Because bad faith arguments are tiring?

[rigid kiln]

Didn't the hunter or the emissary state that you become starborn by going through the unity?

When they explained stuff on the scorpius

[solemn bough]

yeah i thought so. you just know what i'm gonna say, and you know your argument can't stand up to it lol

[safe kite]

Nah. YOu were queueing up a "We dont really know reality exists, evidence something something", no?

Bad faith argument, no interest. Stick to the lore discussion.

[safe kite]

That is the constant, yes. The one very clear rule. 🙂

[solemn bough]

the point is that the line you draw at what can be accepted and what cant be accepted as true is completely arbitrary

you're the one choosing where to draw the line. you accept what you want to accept, and the rest is baseless speculation even if the thing you believe has no basis either

[rigid kiln]

Wouldn't they have said that you needed to have touched an artifact as a requirement too?

[safe kite]

No, I draw the line at devolving a genuine lore discussion into thinly veiled ad hominems. Nothing personal.

[solemn bough]

you've also misrepresented my argument at various points, so i don't think you should be too quick to call others bad faith

[safe kite]

They could've, yes.

[static sky]

Sarah, sam & andreja as emissary are starborn

[coarse root]

In the lore which religion is the most right, I was thinking it was the keeper aquilis religion, since he is starborn and still chooses to be that religion.

[solemn bough]

did you do the main quest? it kinda answers this

[rigid kiln]

House va'ruun

[safe kite]

Flat Jemison Society.

[coarse root]

The story? If so I wasn't paying attention.

[solemn bough]

each religion was given a piece of the truth

[coarse root]

Oooh I know what quest your talking about now

[solemn bough]

if i'm correct though the pilgrim dropped knowledge on the va'ruun and the atheist guys but then founded the religion that he runs the main church of

[peak halo]

Eh, kinda... It's more that the religions were each given a piece to a puzzle that doesn't actually tell them anything, only firmly reinforces their faith, to lead anyone who is looking for the artifacts to Aquilus, so he can advise them, before they reach unity.

[rigid kiln]

What if the unity is the friends we made along the way

[peak halo]

Pilgrim fought Jinan... I mean, IIRC, he was also preaching at him, but I wouldn't really call it 'dropping knowledge'

[coarse root]

I think that's the true lore of the game

[safe kite]

If?

🌎 🧑‍🚀 🔫 🧑‍🚀

[rigid kiln]

Bestie fought jinan 4 times over 120 rotations 😭

[solemn bough]

what was the whole point of that again? was he just giving them the code? i thought he told them some other things too and kinda shaped their beliefs

[peak halo]

Um, I don't remember, you would have to ask our local Va'ruun anthropologist. @rigid kiln

[safe kite]

Share with us your wisdom, snake charmer.

[rigid kiln]

Huh?

[solemn bough]

yeah they have me blocked

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/sips-tea-drink-stare-gif-15410130

Well this is awkward.

[peak halo]

Why do you have Clarence blocked Nieves?

You don't have to tell me here...

I probably should have asked in DMs to be honest, lol

[safe kite]

This make so much more sense.

Over here debating myself.

[solemn bough]

yeah they like to try and start drama by saying stuff like that lol

[rigid kiln]

I thought he was banned tbh explains a lot 😭

Need to uninstall the remove blocked user plugin

[solemn bough]

it's pretty funny to block someone and then keep trying to engage them indirectly but it is what it is

[safe kite]

So, anyway, lore.

[coarse root]

That if the freestar where to go against the uc the freestar would be wiped out

[peak halo]

I mean...

We have evidence that that's not true, and in fact, the Freestar kicked some US ass

[coarse root]

Yuh because the freestar gained a heart at the last second Vai victus would have wiped them out

If they hadn't stopped

[rigid kiln]

why has nobody turned a gravjump back to the original prototype and just sloffed a whole planet

[safe kite]

Sloffing a planet sounds painful. 🤔

[rigid kiln]

It does 😭

[coarse root]

Because they didn't know that happend

[rigid kiln]

I love va'ruun language it's so funny

[safe kite]

Source: One word.

😄

[rigid kiln]

it's a good one tho 😭

[safe kite]

Sloffing great.

[rigid kiln]

That's...not how you use sloff

But I can see why you think that with how I used it above

I still wanna know if the Rite of Kre'jar is the groat killing bc it's not confirmed that it's the same thing but it does accurate both when a member of house va'ruun comes of age

[safe kite]

... Do you have supporting evidence? 🤓 📋

[solemn bough]

i think the answer is that it took a long time for the grav drives to cause the earths destruction so it wouldnt make a great weapon

[peak halo]

Hey, Nieves, what did the Pilgrim say to Jinan during their fights?

[rigid kiln]

I do actually but that would break the rule they made for me, however I can dm it

[safe kite]

Evidence accepted. Have a good day.

[peak halo]

What rule?

[rigid kiln]

I made an entery of it in Jinan's biography
https://starfieldwiki.net/wiki/Lore:Jinan_Va'ruun

[rigid kiln]

The no datamine rule 🥰

[safe kite]

Lore Crimes.

[peak halo]

Ah, fair, lol

[rigid kiln]

Does that answer your question or do you want the full dialogue?

I should have that somewhere on the cloud

[peak halo]

That works

[rigid kiln]

Oki

I go eep now, if more va'ruun questions feel free to dm, I'll answer tomorrow

[safe kite]

Why is there an arrow in her cell?

https://tenor.com/view/what-do-they-mean-random-numbers-gif-10654449

[peak halo]

2326-Barrett finds the original Artifact in the Constellation archives and knows it must be special. 2328-Barrett convinces Constellation to purchase Starstation L-868 and modify it to become a deep space scanner, nicknamed "The Eye."

We know that between these two dates, Barrett and Lin go to Kazal, and he finds Constellations second artifact

[safe kite]

Wasn't it Bindi? 🤔

||That was a joke.||

[silk lotus]

I wonder what happened to the other constalation members from Sebastian Banks Time. Not Aja but there was a group pretty similar to modern day constellation.

There is a wiki page with names and jobs. Sebastian Banks - founder, Chair of Constellation (2275 - 2283)
Chloe Bao - physicist, Chair of Constellation (2283 - ?)
Aja Mamasa - Sebastian's protégé, Chair of Constellation (2290 - 2325)
Darius Andris - botanist and specialist in xeno-flora
Bernadette Laurent - wealthy heiress and adventurer
Everado Gil - former smuggler
Kadri Toma - biologist and physician

[safe kite]

Isnt mentioned anywhere afaik. Good question, though.

[hard tulip]

something does not need to be explicitly stated to be true, and i would argue that the only thing keeping it from being explicit is the fact that aquilus does not use the precise word "pilgrim" when he confesses his identity, but if you were following the story then his meaning is pretty clear /nm

[silk lotus]

well I mean I hope we get answers at some point.

[hard tulip]

like i dont mean to come across as rude but when aquilus describes his experience as a starborn it is word-for-word the exact same experience described in the pilgrim's writings, aquilus is the one that manages to absurdly pull planet coordinates from the pilgrim's riddles (because he was the one who made the riddle), the pilgrim's puzzle says outright "to understand my story you must see where it began" and directs you to the Hunter, who is a different version of Aquilus

ergo, if the Pilgrim states that he has an evil side, "the bad spirit", the 'other version' of himself that he considers 'a formidable opponent', then directs the player to the Hunter, then the Pilgrim must be referring to the Hunter, but the Hunter is a different version of Aquilus, so the Pilgrim must be too on account of the fact that the Pilgrim refers to the Hunter as a different side of himself, and because the Pilgrim's experience is identical to Aquilus's, the Pilgrim must be Keeper Aquilus

the first thing you ever see Keeper Aquilus do is the exact thing that the Pilgrim says he does all the time, teach people about the Unity (since he first appears giving a lesson to those students outside the Sanctum)

its all pretty cut and dry imo

sorry if someone already answered this, i just saw you pinged me directly but i dont rly have the time to read the whole channel's messages haha

[keen spear]

I think it's funny the implication that Aquilus is only using religion to lead people to Unity, which itself is a form of ascension to a higher plane of being

[solemn bough]

i attempted to answer it but i couldnt remember all that lol

[left hill]

You can tell him you think it’ll lead you to the Great Serpent.

[rigid kiln]

based

[daring lake]

My hypothesis is that the temples, artifacts, grav drives and the unity entity
are all parts of one machine. Experienced in different ways by both Victor
Aiza and Jinan Va'ruun.
Which would mean that The Unity and The Great Serpent are parts of one entity.
So when you tell Aquilas that he leads people to The Great Serpent, he might
actually agree 🙂

[solemn bough]

i feel the same

the unity is alive and has an agenda

[late raptor]

That'd be crazy ngl

[silk lotus]

I wonder if the unity could be getting stronger everytime a starborn chooses to cross over. I recall a part of us fuses with the universe we leave but some of us also fuses with the unity itself. So maybe once the unity had ought power its becomes the great serphent and the shrouding happens when it consumes all universes.

[scenic loom]

we are legion - Unity, maybe

[daring lake]

Well, part of "You" is given to the Uni being left behind, and the rest
is what becomes re-born. No hint of anything being stored/consumed
by The Unity.

[safe kite]

Interdimensional game show for the Unity builders.

"Watch these 3D characters jump through hoops for our amusement."

[static sky]

He’s also the dude from earth who made up the drive & destroyed earth while doing so. This is a kang paradox, hunter is kang.

[hard tulip]

well i would say that that is more theory territory whereas aquilus being the pilgrim is just the direct message of the game but yeah i do agree with that theory haha

[static sky]

The multiverse is a simulation for extra dimentional beings amusement

[static sky]

There’s also as much proof he’s victor that he’s the pilgrim.

He said he saw himself talking about a future where he talked about new atlantis

When he got the very first artifact of mars

He’s the hunter, which explain why this universe have none.

It’s a loophole, a paradox. Where it started if he saw himself ? It never started, it will never end, it’s infinity.

Also, va’ruun is a Möbius strip, which also represent infinity

[hard tulip]

yea i do with you im just saying that there's a discernible difference in having to use proof to theorize that aquilus is victor aiza compared to aquilus more-or-less stating "Hello player. I am the Pilgrim." in a mildly more complex way haha, like i posted the text wall to prove that aquilus is the pilgrim but only because i felt the person i was just missing/forgetting some elements you're required to engage with in the main quest (no offense to them ofc), like i dont think aquilus being the pilgrim is meant to be in any way ambiguous, but victor's situation does seem a bit more grey even though i do agree that that is the most likely option, that one is meant to come across as mysterious imo

like i believe that the other version of himself he refers to seeing is probably the Hunter or the Pilgrim or something but i mean theoretically any random given Starborn from that time period would know that New Atlantis exists like that's not damning knowledge (and some people think that who victor spoke to wasn't a Starborn but was rather the Unity, which would also make sense)

[static sky]

Keeper hunter being victor/pilgrim is not less or more obvious

None is confirmed, both are high probable

[static sky]

Victor said « himself » he saw himself. Not something.

If victor is any starborn, then the pilgrim, too.

The game is the hunter story. From a human to a retired starborn.

This is kang story. From nathaniel richards to immortus.

[hard tulip]

yeah? the Unity appears to the person interacting with it as a duplicate of themself, same thing happens to the player when you speak with the Unity

[static sky]

Kang showed himself how to become kang

Kang want (you) to kill immortus

Immortus want to stop kang

Hunter = kang

[static sky]

Victor didn’t interacted with the unity, he only had one artifact. Idk why you’d want victor being a random while you insist on the pilgrim. They’re the same. Neither have more or less proof than the other.

Also, the you being at the unity is you from another universe, imo

You can think victor isn’t the hunter, but this is what i think.

And yes, although i didn’t though too much about it at first, i do agree that he’s the hunter, just like victor.

We know his full story life this, his four names

Victor being some random is absurd, then the pilgrim is some random too

[hard tulip]

i wouldn't "want" victor to be a random person i'm just pointing out that i don't personally see how a theory that has easy alternative explanations is equivalent in proof to aquilus telling you two times that he is the pilgrim, once in a book, and a second time in dialogue

i think that aquilus/hunter/pilgrim being originally victor aiza makes the game's story vastly more interesting

i was just saying that i don't consider aquilus being the pilgrim to be a "theory" in the first place, because the game tells you, even if there is no line of dialogue that says exactly "keeper aquilus is the pilgrim"

a bit like if there was like idk, a game with a serial killer at the scene of a murder and their dialogue was "They deserved it 😈 ", i think you can safely state that the character was responsible for that murder even though he didn't turn to the 4th wall and say "To be clear, I just murdered this individual :)"

i see Aquilus being the Pilgrim as the same way to this, it's just something that i think the game makes self-evident, whereas the other thing, maybe a little bit more dubious

but anyways i'm splitting hairs atm, i just wanted to make absolutely sure what i said made sense first lol

i agree with your theory and your understanding of the story and the character of victor/aquilus is the main thing i like about the entire game tbh

(also sorry if the repetition gets annoying but once again i dont mean for any of the above to sound rude, since tone is difficult to get across on the internet im just flatly stating my point of view and i never quite know how it sounds LOL)

[hard tulip]

you think they are a starborn? that's interesting, i suppose i hadn't considered that, but i interpreted them as being a manifestation of the Unity because they dont wear starborn outfit (though obviously they dont have to but almost every starborn except for aquilus does, and aquilus has a reason to hide it) and because i felt like them being (at least, so it seemed to me) even more knowledgeable about the universe than even aquilus implied that they were 'above' the starborn because i got the impression that very few or almost none of the other starborn are more experienced than aquilus

i say more knowledgeable bc the Unity person references "the Creators" directly with a proper name at all, as though it's some objective thing like 'yes this is what they are called', whereas Aquilus doesnt ever mention the Creators directly and only ever speculates about the idea of God and gets very close to the answer but not right-on

(although i guess that doesnt make a ton of sense either because aquilus would have met himself going through the Unity and the other version of himself should have said the same thing about the Creators if it really is just the Unity in a flesh suit so... idk LOL)

[fallen kiln]

That was true for our Victor. It's possible that in another universe Victor didn't get the visitation when he touched the artifact and then went on to work out the Grav Drive the hard way, and then gather the artifacts and eventually enter Unity. Then the Victor that appeared in our Vic's artifact vision would be a Starborn version of himself who'd somehow learned how to hijack his own artifact visions.

All a bit speculative of course

[solemn bough]

yeah the entity that speaks to victor is the same one that appeared as the great serpent to jinan va'ruun and the same one that speaks to the player as the collector during the revelation quest and as themselves at the very end before going through the unity, imo

victor was with a team of scientists, touched the artifact, and then had a vision. during that time he was basically unconscious the way the player is when they touch an artifact. thats when he met his other self. if it were a starborn they would have physically appeared in material reality rather than in a vision

[keen spear]

I like the theory that the Hunter/Pilgrim put the entire Armillary on the moon to jumpstart the entire process of sending humans out of the Sol system.

that or everyone has a different expierence when touching an artifact

[solemn bough]

is there anything to support that

[keen spear]

A lot of it is that the only time we've seen Unity be talked to is by completing the armillary and we know the Hunter/Pilgrim lived on earth is the main two

[solemn bough]

there seems to be some entity contacting people without needing a completed armory, just some kind of interaction with artifact power

aiza, jinan va'ruun, and the player even experiences it with the collector during revelation i think

[safe kite]

Speeding up progress toward Grav Drive tech does seem to be the goal there, but yes, what we have to go off of is minimal, so mostly speculation.

[daring lake]

Well, there is certainly a lot of stuff to unpack since I posted this #starfield-lore message
yesterday.

[peak halo]

If we go by the information provided in the game, Earth was living on borrowed time anyways, even without the grav drive, earth would have died 'soon'

[static sky]

That’s just how hunter excuse himself

[daring lake]

No. That is The Hunter's view. Sooner or later Earth will become uninhabitable.
As also sooner or later we pass. Borrowed time?
The way that Aiza tested and deployed the Grav Drive brought a premature end.

[long glade]

What happened to earths religion in the starfield universe like Christianity and Islam ext

[silk lotus]

most probably went with earth aside from some small exceptions. The rest probably died out over time.

[broken flower]

Best to have made up religions for sensitivity reasons

[stable bloom]

@rigid kiln hope it's OK to tag you, I see you talk about the Va'ruun a lot and was curious as to how you handle Andreja's personal side quest and why

[slate valley]

Nah, you misunderstood what the Hunter said. He said it "could" be destroyed in a war, or pestilence or comet. Hunter never said would, only could, as his excuse to not care about Aiza destroying Earth deliberately.
Just like today in the real world we know we could wipe ourselves out in a nuclear war, or there could be a extinction level asteroid event etc, because asteroids have wiped 95% of all life in the past.
It's 100% speculation. Not a prediction or a prophesy.

[rigid kiln]

I let Tomisar Ka'dic live bc andreja betrayed House Va'ruun by not telling them about the artifacts so they are both "traitors"

[daring lake]

I believe that is an unfair assessment of Andreja. If she had left Constellation
when she was found out, her mission would have ended in failure. By going
along with Sarah + Vlad she gets to stay and gather more info.

[rigid kiln]

I would still have snitched on all of them

[fallen kiln]

He didn't even say that. He said "You're assuming Earth wouldn't have been destroyed anyway". He's not making excuses, he's just trying to get a rise out of the Emissary.

That said, he's apparently old enough to remember Earth before it was destroyed and he's been through Unity many, many times. So there could be a touch of irony behind his comment. Maybe he did see it destroyed without the Grav Drive being the cause. Not saying it's so, but it's hard to rule out as a possibility.

The thing I like about that interpretation is that it gives us a world in which Asiz' motives make sense, rather than him just being a mad sociopath.

[stable bloom]

Damn you RP hard-core, I love it.

[rigid kiln]

I mean... she did betray house va'ruun...

[daring lake]

And you would have then had to deal with the shame of failure.
Not only failing The House, but also your family.

[rigid kiln]

And even if she didnt and she told them as a double agent about the artifacts then eren bascolm and jaeda would still be a massive security problem for house va'ruun

[rigid kiln]

Just take over constellation

[daring lake]

I appreciate your loyalty to your RP stance, truly.
But if she had not stayed after getting caught she would
have been booted out, with no chance at all of gathering
any info.

[rigid kiln]

So become a double agent?

[daring lake]

That is what she is. But betrayal by Tomisar means she has to
play the long game. When taking her to a temple she remarks
that her people will have to know about the discoveries.
Don't forget that Constellation have told no one. Both UC + FC
are in the dark. And all the findings are published sometime after "You"
goes through The Unity.

[rigid kiln]

Tomisar was right for sending the zealots tho

[daring lake]

Well, he didn't. He was told to.

[rigid kiln]

Doesn't change the fact that it was the right call

[peak halo]

I never did her questline... Didn't even use her, lol

I only did Sam's quest

[daring lake]

Nah. I take an ambivalent stance towards all the factions.
It is the only way imo that the lore can be assessed.
Without using bias the truth can be found.
Right call/Wrong call? That is a judgement that changes
depending on which side of the fence you are on.
And Ok, for you Nieves it was the right call. 🙂

[rigid kiln]

I only care about the survival of house va'ruun, uc and freestar can burn for all I care

[rigid kiln]

I still need a mod that removes any mention of sam from the game

[peak halo]

Why?

[rigid kiln]

Bc he's a bigot

[wispy skiff]

To be fair, I am immediately against anyone who opens fire on me without warning. So the Zealots are not high on my likeable characters list.

I don't hate House Va'runn in general. The ambassador and Andreja are cool people who represent the good of their faction.

But I strongly believe a second Serpent's Crusade is coming. I just hope we can pick which side we are on.

It would be cool if at the start of Shattered Space, the attacks start ramping up. We then spent a quest or two finding a way to get to the Va'runn system and figure out what is going on.

When we arrive, we learn the Zealots have overthrown the council and are in control. They then give us a choice. Join them in establishing Va'runn supremacy in the Settled Systems or become their enemies.

[daring lake]

A 2nd Crusade would ensure the end of House Va'ruun

[rigid kiln]

Bestie says the two poopoo people in the faction represent the the good 😭

I just hope anasko returned the hull of the mourning to restore it in her glory

[daring lake]

Why would a 12 year old child prophet do such a thing? 😉

[rigid kiln]

I'm pretty sure anasko va'ruun isn't 12

[slate valley]

Nah, Aiza was a total sociopath and psychopath because they immediately did a fix as soon as it was confirmed to be terminal for the magnetosphere. Meaning he could have designed and built the grav drives properly all along. Aiza wanted to force humanity into the stars, and did not care for the billions who would die as a result. There is no excusing his behaviour - because plans were made to explore other systems the instant the grav drives were revealed to the public. Expansion into the stars was inevitable at that point - without destroying our home world. No amount of revisionism will change my mind on this. Agree to disagree.

[fallen kiln]

The thing is, he doesn't sound like a sociopath in that final recording. He sounds remorseful, and it seems likely he took his own life. He's got no reason to lie at that point. And yes, he did create a flawed drive to force humanity into the stars, quite possibly at a dreadful cost in lives. But that doesn't mean he didn't have a motive that made sense to him. One yet to be revealed to us.

Do you have a source for that "plans were made to explore other systems the instant the grav drives were revealed to the public". I mean as distinct from the plans being made because the Earth was about to die?

[wispy skiff]

It is possible he saw the world end in some other fashion where even less of humanity lived. Maybe he thought this was the only way to get a viable population out into the stars before earth died anyways.

Even still, I can't forgive him for killing our homeworld.

I hold out hope that BGS will give us a teraforming system one day and we can go and try and restore Earth.

Is there anything we know about the SS people being capable of any level of teraforming yet?

[high copper]

I don't think teraforming is gonna be a thing

[fallen kiln]

That's what I think. I think the first Victor to discover the Artifact became Starborn, and I think he watched Earth die again and again through no action of his own until he finally sabotaged the Grav Drive to force Mankind off the planet in time to save the species. Certainly doesn't excuse his actions - some things should probably be unforgivable - but it turns him from a pantomime villain doing bad things purely because he's evil, to a conflicted anti-hero finding the best solution he could to an intolerable dilemma. I think that's more interesting.

[wispy skiff]

That would be sad to leave earth a dead sand ball.

Can we maybe do a space balls? Make a giant transformer that can suck the atmosphere from other planets to give to earth?

[high copper]

not many really care though, and some don't even thing it exists

[daring lake]

A "Terraforming" system? All it needs is a device that will melt the Earth's core
and allow it to spin again. Then all you need is a couple of million years for
the newly activated plate tectonics to settle down. Some serious "handwavium"
needed there.

[wispy skiff]

Its teraforming the big space travel dream?

[daring lake]

I can buy the idea that a version of Aiza became Starborn. But the rest of your
suggestion I can't. There is neither need nor any basis for it to be that way.
He's not an anti-hero. He forced the premature end of Earth and knew that
it could be avoided. Not to save the species, but to achieve a vision he was given.
Space flight was already a commercial activity, and Mars was already being used
for launches. Why Aiza did not do the testing from Mars is anyone's guess.
Sociapath? 🤷‍♂️ ... His lack of empathy speaks for itself imo.

[fallen kiln]

There's a proposal for Mars to put a ring of superconducting magnets around the equator and generate a field that way. Between that, and dropping some asteroids to start generating an atmosphere again it should be doable in less than geological time

[daring lake]

I thought that proposal had been debunked as unworkable?

[fallen kiln]

But then there's no reason for him to be remorseful either. If he did it from a lack of empathy, he should be gloating, or at least saying "just you wait! you'll see I was right!"

I'm doing the devs the courtesy of assuming that their writing is better than that

[fallen kiln]

Has it? This is based off half an hour's casual skimming of wikipedia yesterday, so I may be dead wrong

[daring lake]

A lack of empathy does not produce gloating.

[fallen kiln]

It certainly doesn't produce remorse

[daring lake]

It can do

When the realisation hits

[fallen kiln]

Why. What's to be remorseful about if you have no feeling for the people you've killed or inconvenienced?

I don't buy it. Nothing in that final recording says "psychopath" or "sociopath" to me. And he was intelligent enough to realise the ramifications of the plan from the outset - i think he even says as much.

He either did it because "LOL! Random!" or else there's something more to the story that we just don't know yet.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Anyway, nice chatting to you, Sir Samuel, but I need to go now. Maybe pick this another time.

[solemn bough]

how would he have become starborn without obtaining any other artifacts

[safe kite]

You right.

Sociopathy is a functional lack of empathy. Remorse isn't in the skillset. They can register that an action had an unwanted or unintended consequence, but that isn't borne from "those poor people".

[safe kite]

This is in line with what I'm thinking, but Aiza's motivations aren't detailed and we can only guess.

Did he do it to force tech development to save the species? To convenience himself? For the sheer fun of it? We don't really know.

[safe kite]

All that is required to get a Starborn Aiza is that there was at least one universe where the armillary was finished in his lifetime, and he was able to access the unity. We know he found an artifact on Mars.

Not confirmed either way, but implied by him having a recorded conversation with himself, with what we know so far.

[solemn bough]

it's not implied at all, because the player character also talks to "themselves" who is not actually a starborn you. and since aiza's encounter occurs during a vision, the implication is that they spoke to an immaterial entity rather than a physical person

[safe kite]

Another possibility, yes. 🙂

[solemn bough]

a much likelier one, based on what i said. starborn don't talk to you in your dreams, unless you make a baseless assumption that they can and do

if a starborn wants to talk to you they have to do it the same way as any other person would

[safe kite]

Both are based on assumptions. There is no 'right answer' here.

Either we assume touching an artifact can gain access to the unity directly and the conversation-with-self effect, and the unity version handed the info about the future and grav drive tech to Aiza, or we assume that a starborn version of himself interceded when he found the artifact and did the same.

Either are possible, neither are confirmed.

[solemn bough]

we know interacting with the power of artifacts in some way can create an opportunity for some immaterial entity to speak to you. we have a description of it happening to two different characters, and the player experiences it first hand

[safe kite]

Two examples being?

[solemn bough]

aiza and jinan

aiza touched an artifact and had a vision where he was spoken to. jinan made a grav jump and had a vision where he was spoken to

[safe kite]

Jinans was during grav jump, not an artifact. Aizas experience is what we are currently discussing so self referential evidence.

[solemn bough]

i said "interacting with artifact power" grav drive tech is derived from the artifacts

[safe kite]

Ok. 🙂

[solemn bough]

by contrast, we have zero examples of an actual starborn contacting anyone in any way other than standard human channels of communication

so if you want to go by what is being implied by the events of the narrative, then it's not a starborn aiza talking to aiza

whether its the unity or something else or he was just hallucinating i cannot say

[safe kite]

Aside from Starborn teleporting to your exact location after you touch an artifact, and with the baked in ability to manipulate time, yes.

Aiza says he experienced lost time and talked to himself. That's it.

[solemn bough]

what baked in ability to manipulate time? the slow time power?

[safe kite]

Again, this isn't "you are wrong". You could be right.

No point in belaboring it. We don't know for sure and we won't until we get more story.

[solemn bough]

my theory has more evidence to support it than there is to support a starborn aiza theory, thats all

[safe kite]

Ok. 😄

You could be right. Rejoice. 🙂

[solemn bough]

also the starborn teleportation thing is weird. its never verbally mentioned and its not something the player can do. are we sure they arent just using void form?

[safe kite]

Also possible. Spawncampers are, historically, a dishonorable bunch.

Void form has a different animation, though. And it'd be strange for a starborn to find an artifact and then not immediately claim it as theirs but instead wait for another to find it... maybe they tail you and sneak ahead to try to steal it.

Either way, mostly a gameplay thing.

[solemn bough]

well you just stated that starborn teleport to you after you touch an artifact lol. hard to take you seriously when you're so anal about assumptions just to then make your own

we also can only speculate as to the motivations of any of the generic starborn enemies

[safe kite]

... I'm all about possibilities? 🤔 assumptions are great as long as we keep track of which elements are confirmed and which are assumed. Dunno what to tell you beyond that.

Do you have another lore reason for the starborn spawning out of thin air?

[solemn bough]

Do you have another lore reason for the starborn spawning out of thin air?

no, but i would think you would understand that just because we dont know the reason for something doesnt mean that we can just make something up to fill in the gap

or as you said its just a gameplay thing

even if it were teleportation it doesnt explain how they can teleport to you without knowing where you or the artifact is

[safe kite]

We surely don't know. You are correct. 🙂

[solemn bough]

and actually the starborn outside of temples seem to be tied to that particular temple or artifact or whatever. they have names matching the temple/artifact and will even say they fought you before in ng+

they're also called "guardians"

[safe kite]

Rereading the Aiza transcripts, he actually does detail his motivations a bit.

He was told what was going to happen to earth, the development of the grav drive, and how humanity colonizes other systems, and made the conscious decision to pursue it anyway.

When I touched the anomaly, I experienced 12 days of lost time. I met... myself. He told me everything that has since come true. The Grav Drive equations. The tests on the Moon. Earth's atmosphere sputtering away because of what we had done. But he also told me about a city, thriving on a planet orbiting a distant star. Human culture, art, music, lifestyles evolving and shining brightly across all of space.

What price would I be willing to pay for that future?

Maybe you don't believe me. Maybe Judith was right, and I'm just a coward who wants to believe his mistakes were justified. But everyone has forgotten about the real origins of the Grav Drive. This... Artifact, from Mars.

I hope you make better use of it than I did.

[daring lake]

Phased Time exists.

[safe kite]

To explain the 'teleports'?

If so, agreed.

[daring lake]

The Hunter just suddenly appears in the cockpit.
The Emissary does the same on Masada III
We see phased time used from our perspective, but
what does the outside observer see?

[solemn bough]

i imagine it would appear as someone moving around very fast, but i dont know why that would cause them to "pop in" with a special effect. and why would they wait until phased time was over before engaging you? doesnt make any sense

[daring lake]

No it does not. But its the best I can come up with.
The alternate explanation is a "what if?" and I'm not
one for leaning too heavily on speculative arguments.

[solemn bough]

how is what you just said not speculation lol

you're speculating that they're using phased time

[daring lake]

Its the closest thing that we have Clarence.
And deduction is not the same as speculation.

[solemn bough]

deduction is not what you're doing by saying "maybe they're using phased time"

[daring lake]

Please don't put words in my mouth.
Ask yourself this question.
Which of the known Starborn powers fits the bill?
I came up with Phased Time.
You are free of course to come up with whatever suits you.

[solemn bough]

Which of the known Starborn powers fits the bill?

none of them

i guess maybe void form but it still doesn't really make sense

[silk lotus]

Maybe we teleport like that when fast traveling?

Starborn can just fast travel better.

Jk. Half joking at least

[solemn bough]

no but you just made me think maybe it's like a mini grav jump

regardless of what it is though its difficult to piece everything together in a way that makes sense and produces a comprehensive theory

[safe kite]

The grav drive was inside us all along.

[rigid kiln]

was it...among us? ඞ

[scenic loom]

[trim tendon]

[silk lotus]

If the great serphent really is the unity then what is the shrouding? I think the shrouding is what happens when someone becomes starborn and their essence fuses with that universe.

Or perhaps the great serphent is a starborn/being who wants to acess the unity to fuse his essence with the universe.

[daring lake]

I read it as the inevitable heat death of the universe tbh

[solemn bough]

what if jumping to ng+ actually deletes the whole universe behind you 😳

[silk lotus]

That is also a theory.

[peak halo]

it exist now, only in old save files, and memories

[static sky]

Unity you say you change the universe

[solemn bough]

can we trust the unity tho

i think it made aiza destroy the earth, seems sketchy

[static sky]

It give him nothing more than a choice

[solemn bough]

it may have lied to him too

[static sky]

He said he knew

And he chose it because of the bright future

[solemn bough]

bruh

[static sky]

He chose the settled systems, new atlantis, over the earth.

[solemn bough]

he made a choice using information that was given to him by someone else. information he had no way of verifying

[static sky]

Twas himself and he ain’t no liar

[silk lotus]

I dont see any reason the unity would lie. It can see infinite universes as we are told via dialogue. Lying wouldnt cause the unity to gain any benefits.

[slate valley]

Data slates and terminals in Nasa.

[slate valley]

There are 2 examples in dialog - Barrett and the collector dude (Victor??) will tell you the person he bought his artifact from was shaking and muttering about visions - and was glad to be rid of it. That person was the second one. There may be a third one, Maora's artifact. I can't remember what he said about how he came into possession of it, other than being second hand.

[solemn bough]

some unknown hidden agenda where it uses humanity to achieve its own goals somehow

[safe kite]

Well yeah. They cause visions. Not really what the claim was.

[solemn bough]

or its all for our own good

[peak halo]

Uh, they stopped all testing of grav drives until they fixed it, and it's implied to have take some time to do so.

[slate valley]

They had a short conversation, I do not think it took long at all to roll out their "helium pump upgrade" at all.

[peak halo]

There was also a significant amount of time between the signs earth was dying, and the release of the grav drives. The ECS Constant left before grav drives were a thing, but their founder had already determined that earth was going to die soon, independently from the grav drive production guys.

[safe kite]

Not sure if this is accurate.

Initial development was 2138, public release in 2141. By 2149, the research center where it was developed was already mothballed. Same year, the flaw is discovered and plans are put in place to correct it and blame the atmosphere disintegrating on an 'act of god', so that grav drives could continue to be used for the human exodus over the next 50 years.

ECS Constant left in 2140, so is consistent with that, but the calamities referenced by the designer was generic 'plague, famine, global warming' type things, not 'atmosphere disappeared'

For reference, New Atlantis founding is 2161 and Akila City founding is 2167. Both necessitated public knowledge and use of grav drive tech.

Likely well after the drives were fixed in those cases, though.

[keen acorn]

An assumption of the "helium pump upgrade" - based on what the scientist mentioned "I am working on adjustments." My take would be a software upgrade to adjust the helium 3 mixture which would be like a a current Microsoft software upgrade. People would think it is normal.

[peak halo]

A broken clock is right twice a day.

[fallen kiln]

Without knowing which ones or what the wording is, it's impossible to tell if you have an actual point, or if you're just reading into them what you want to believe

[fallen kiln]

Well, that's it. He was led to that conclusion by some other entity, most likely his Starborn self from an earlier iteration of the Unity Loop. But I'm assuming that earlier self had a good reason for persuading his later self that the outcome was worth the price.

Of course, under the "Unity is self aware" view of the world, it could be the Unity pushing him to make the decision. Which still raises the question of "why?"

[fallen kiln]

Theory goes that he uses the artifact to work out how to build a grav drive and uses that craft to find the other artifacts. Not an easy task to be sure.

[glass locust]

[slate valley]

https://starfieldwiki.net/wiki/Starfield:NASA_Research_Computer

December 8, 2141
Project Log. Doctor Judith Tatienne. I watched the Grav Drive test from the Moon today. It was the first time we were able to talk to the team at Nova Galactic directly.

So many things were under wraps before, but now everyone wants all the publicity they can get.

I'm already seeing proposals for manufacturing hundreds of drives. Expeditions to Alphas Centauri and beyond.

It's all so overwhelming... and worrying. It could take years, decades, before we know what all the side effects of operating a Grav Drive can be. But no one wants to hear that right now.

Like a bunch of pioneers, racing towards the edges of the frontier without knowing about the grizzly bears in the mountains...

[fallen kiln]

Thank you, much better. I'll only say that proposals ain't funding. Just because the academic community gets excited about something, that doesn't mean we're going to get viable colonies around other stars.

[slate valley]

Same day as the first moon test and Judith says she is already seeing proposals for building hundreds of drives and expeditions etc. It happened rapidly. And the rest regarding exodus was just 8 years later. EIGHT years.

[fallen kiln]

The exodus was related to the impending disaster on Earth though. As far as proposals go, we've had proposals for a permanent base on the Moon since the 60s, but we don't have one yet. Just because Judith is excited, that doesn't mean the excitement was shared by government, industry or the general public.

[slate valley]

We not talking about 20th and 21st century corrupt US congress here. This is 22nd century fantasy alternate future in a game.

[fallen kiln]

Which means things were better, why exactly?

[slate valley]

In the game timeline there was already a base on the moon and mines on Mars.

[fallen kiln]

Founded when? Does the timeline diverge before the present day like in Fallout? I didn't think it did

[slate valley]

Humanity was already living in space. The grav drives suddenly made it possible to leave the sol system for the first time without needing generation ships.

https://starfieldwiki.net/wiki/Lore:Timeline

[fallen kiln]

Yes, but that doesn't mean it was going to happen any time soon. Hundreds of proposals probably means hundreds of universities all seeing a chance to get a slice of a sweet research grant and they're all competing to get their nose in the trough. It doesn't mean hundreds of grav drives in development,

And the timeline starts at 2050, so that would a "no" to my question about the timeline diverging

[slate valley]

manufactured. It had already been developed. By Nova Galactic and NASA

[fallen kiln]

And I'm sure further development would be required for production use. To say nothing of the ship systems needed for a starship suitable for more than single jump remote test flights. But let's not split hairs.

[slate valley]

the timeline shows 15 years from first jump to arrival in Alpha Centauri. - 7 years after they discovered the earth is doomed because of the grav drives initial design

All I am saying is already estabkished lore. 100% established and confirmed lore. What are you arguing?

[fallen kiln]

Yeah. And the discovery of the Earth's Doom probably had a lot to do with narrowing that time gap. There is nothing to suggest that thigns would have progressed as fast without the motivation of impending global extinction

[slate valley]

So? How does that suposition change the established lore I have been discussing all along?

[stable bloom]

Very unlikely

[fallen kiln]

I'm saying what I've been saying from the start. That it's possible that a Starborn Asiz persuaded his younger self to make a flawed drive because he knew Earth was doomed anyway, and this was the only way he knew to force Humanity to start the evacuation in time to preserve the species. Potentially. Ain't saying it's so, but I am saying it's a viable scenario.

I'm not trying to change any established lore, thank you and I have no idea why you would think that.

[slate valley]

I still hold that is just speculation. There is no evidence that Aiza was ever starborn.

[fallen kiln]

Of course it's speculation! That's all we have to go on.

Look: there are two possible explantions for Asiz' actions. One: He is Joker level crazy and doomed his home planet for the lulz. Two: some entity interfered with his Artifact Vision and persuaded him to that he could bring about the end of the Earth and it would result in a greater long-term good. I don't accept the first scenario. I'm open to a third option.

[daring lake]

No it is not. There is plenty of "what if" going around.
And any of the "what if" suggestions may be right. Even
though there is no evidence to support them

But there is evidence that supports the hypothesis that
Aiza did not meet himself.

[fallen kiln]

What suggests that he didn't meet himself?

[slate valley]

Aiza says he met himself. And when I go into unity I too meet myself, even though the Hunter tells me it's "new" that I best him and escape with the artifacts. Meaning the me in all the other universes dies at that time. So I had never gone to unity before nore ever been starborn before. Yet I meet myself. I will just take Aiza's explanation at face value then. It fits my own experience.

[fallen kiln]

Only Asiz wasn't in Unity. He should have had the vision with the cosmic eyelid looking thing and the stars and the power glyph. If we're going by our own experience.

[daring lake]

To quote your own post above;
"Of course, under the "Unity is self aware" view of the world, it could be the Unity pushing him to make the decision."
A self aware machine acting under whatever motives is possible.
Especially as we know that Grav drives contain an internal system
similar to human cognition.

[fallen kiln]

Sure. That's your preferred take on it, and it seems as good an explanation as mine, even if I don't share it. That's why I referenced it. You might need to explain the grav drives having human cognition a bit, though. I don't think I was here for that conversation

[daring lake]

There is a random derelict ship encounter. The ship contains a couple
of dead scientists and slates containing the info about their tests on
grav drives. They both died when one of them attempted to hook himself
up to the drive through some sort of neural interface gadget.

And, as the grav drives are derived from the Mars Artifact, and that
the artifacts, temples & The Unity are connected; it would appear
that they are all part of a single mechanism. One that can talk to us
and explain (albeit in cryptic fashion) to us what The Unity is.

The scientists found that grav drives had an internal network "similar
to human cognition"

[fallen kiln]

The Unity being self-aware I'll take as a possibility, although I strongly prefer the idea that the "Unity Me" we encounter is a reflection of our multiple merged selves across all possible universes. Not intelligent as such, but a reflection of our own awareness. The Grav drives->artifact->Unity therefore grav drives are part of Unity is a bit of a stretch, imo. Which isn't to say you're wrong, of course, but I don't find it compelling either. Did the scientists not die because they borked the ship's navigation systems with their experiments?

[daring lake]

Its not a stretch. Really its not. The original drive was derived directly from an Artifact.
And was made to replicate the gravitational effect of that Artifact. A copy of all
the neccessary information in solid engineered form.
And no ... the ship itself was fine. It was adrift but appeared intact.

[fallen kiln]

We had grav tech prior to the artifact: as evidence consider the artifical gravity on ECS Constant. The artifact showed us how to use gravity to bend space to open wormholes to other planets. I don't see anything that says "the grav drives are part of the artifact". I'll accept they could all be linked in some higher-dimensional way, but I don't think there's any hard evidence for that.

I seem to recall that ship. Pretty sure it wouldn't let me steal it because the ship had been rendered non-operational.

[daring lake]

I put the ECS constant under the heading "suspension of dis-belief" tbh.
Its a Sci-Fi game that has to be workable for the player.
And yes, I was a bit put out that the game would not let me take that ship.
Similar to not being able to take Orlase's ship really. It is a scripted event.

[fallen kiln]

Yeah, but as soon as we start picking and choosing like that, everyone starts cherry picking their evidence and reasoned debate goes out the window. Would you not agree?

I had one clown on /r/teslore seriously argue with me that Solitude and The Imperial City were awash with Dragonborn because genetics and imperial bastards, and any objection (like where were they all in the games) got dismissed as "Bethesda got it wrong because I have real world experience and common sense".

I mean what can you do once we start handwaving the game away?

That said, I don't think anyone seriously believes that grav jumps cost zero fuel, despite the need never to buy any, so...

[daring lake]

I'm not cherry picking. Game devs use "handwavium" all the time.
And I'm not ignoring any aspect or being dismissive about it.

... oh ... and before I forget 😉
Aiza himself says that grav drives are derived from The Artifact.

[fallen kiln]

Game devs do, but that shouldn't give us licence to hand-wave away in-game evidence that we don't like. And "derived from the artifact" isn't the same as "replicate the gravitational effect of ..."

[daring lake]

Ok.

[fallen kiln]

Ah, sorry. Here I am banging on about my pet hobby horse

It's easy to get way too invested in these things sometimes

[static sky]

Lol

This channel is always the same, i see

[safe kite]

April 14, 2138

Project Log. Doctor Victor Aiza. We turned on the prototype today.

The gravitational field around it began to "fold" as we long suspected. Complete reversal of the gravitational pull was observed on dozens of loose objects around the lab.

I'm setting up a meeting with the directors to propose a larger test. The prototype proves we don't need the original anymore, but further work is going to have to take place in space.

Somewhere with abundant Helium-3, and with a civilian partner. Someone with access to large scale manufacturing resources and computational equipment.

Engineering gravitational folds, "pulling" the far side of the solar system closer to us? It's all going to be possible

[fallen kiln]

I still don't see that as replicating the gravitational effects of the artifact. I mean yes, a lot of the theory behind grav jumping was derived from studying the artifact, but it's still a leap to go from there to "and therefore the artifacts, grav drives and Unity" are all parts of the same machine".

It's like saying a harrier jump jet replicates the wing of a sparrow. Yes, we learned a lot of the theory from studying the shape of bird's wings, but there are also quite a lot of differences. Some of them significant.

[safe kite]

It is implied there that they had to make a functional copy of the artifact for the grav drive to work. Also:

September 8, 2160

My name is Doctor Victor Aiza, and if you're listening to this, then you probably already know the truth. I was young when I first headed the retrieval team of an odd gravitational anomaly on Mars, but I kept what really happened that day hidden from everyone except... one other person. Even she didn't believe me at first, but I have no reason to lie to anyone now, so I hope you'll accept this... confession, whoever you are.

When I touched the anomaly, I experienced 12 days of lost time. I met... myself. He told me everything that has since come true. The Grav Drive equations. The tests on the Moon. Earth's atmosphere sputtering away because of what we had done. But he also told me about a city, thriving on a planet orbiting a distant star. Human culture, art, music, lifestyles evolving and shining brightly across all of space.

What price would I be willing to pay for that future?

Maybe you don't believe me. Maybe Judith was right, and I'm just a coward who wants to believe his mistakes were justified. But everyone has forgotten about the real origins of the Grav Drive. This... Artifact, from Mars.

I hope you make better use of it than I did.

That isn't to say we know exactly how grav drives and the unity work - we don't. But the game clearly tells us where the tech came from.

[fallen kiln]

The grav drive has its origins in the study of the artifact, but there are other interpretations apart from "functional copy". Certainly that's not where I went when I first read that speech.

Yes, certainly it came from there.

[safe kite]

"The prototype proves we don't need the original anymore"

You are suggesting they came up with an entirely different mechanism in the transition from using the original to the prototype?

[daring lake]

"the real origins of the Grav Drive. This... Artifact" could not be more explicit.
Well, a manual and all the reseach notes perhaps ... but that is not going to happen.

[safe kite]

I mean ultimately we don't know so it's moot, but that seems unlikely and inconsistent with the writing.

[fallen kiln]

I'm saying that no one gets mystical visions when they're the first to touch a grav drive, which you'd expect to be the case if it was a functional copy

and if it's not an exact copy, then what are we even arguing about?

And I'm saying that artifacts don't grav jump anywhere. Even in the Armillary, they still need a functional grav drive to do that part.

[daring lake]

Ok. Does it have to be "exact", or does it just have to replicate the effect?

[fallen kiln]

OK. So replicate to what extent? Replicate what aspect?

[safe kite]

Well yeah. There is more to it than that xD the core tech being lifted directly from the artifacts is a major plot point, though. And the whole "We ended up destroying earth" thing.

[fallen kiln]

We already knew how to manipulate gravity. (Unless you're going to hand wave the ECS Constant of course)

I'm not arguing that the Grav Drive didn't come from the artifact. That's clear from the lore.

[daring lake]

And its also clear that it has an internal structure that suggests awareness.

[fallen kiln]

Mmm... you and I remember that ship a little differently. I interpreted that as the experiments screwed up the ship's software and the crew eventually starved.

[safe kite]

Which ship is that?

[fallen kiln]

It's been a while though.

[daring lake]

The slate states that scans showed a structure similar to that of human cognition.
Its explicit.

[fallen kiln]

The derelict one where the scientist was trying to control the ship through a neural link

Which could just as easily mean "... which is why I think it might be possible to use a neural link to control the drive". it doesn't have to mean "this thing is self aware and killing us for tampering with its hidden secrets"

Again, I'm not saying you're wrong. Just that you ain't necessarily as right as you think you are.

[daring lake]

Awareness is not the same as sentience, come on ...

[fallen kiln]

And "structure" is neither of those things.

[daring lake]

why are you doing this?

[fallen kiln]

What am I doing?

[daring lake]

Picking away at every other word like a pedant.
Firstly, to be clear, I don't think "I'm right and you are wrong"
I'm simply defending a hypothesis.

[fallen kiln]

And I've already told you I think your hypothesis is valid, even if I have a different one. I've said that more than once.

[daring lake]

Then why attack it? 😄

[fallen kiln]

Because you were all "there is zero reason to believe that a Starborn Asiz could ever have existed and my theory is far more compelling". So I'm defending mine.

[daring lake]

Now, I know that I have never said that.

[fallen kiln]

Besides which arguing the toss about the lore is fun. That's what this channel is for, no?

I may have exaggerated a little. That was the general tenor though.

[keen acorn]

The lore in Unity only suggests "you" may move forward to a new universe waiting for you. Or return to the Universe you just left. The indication is you are just travelling to a new Universe. Leaving the old one behind - Since in those scenarios the Lore shows you that Constellation publishes what's happened and the Starborn continue to get more into the Unity. So no Lore does not indicate the left behind Universe is destroyed or deleted.

[safe kite]

This is the core bit that bugs me about this channel sometimes.

Folks react way more aggressively to "You could be right" than they do to an explicit "You are wrong"

We do not have solid answers to a majority of the questions in the game. Yet.

But some folks take their headcanon as law and fight anyone who disagrees. Which is counter to the spirit of discussing game lore, which is all about theories.

[fallen kiln]

I'm not saying anyone is wrong, I'm really not.

We have no solid evidence for any of this stuff.

[safe kite]

I believe you. 😄

I assume everyone here is debating in good faith until proven otherwise.

[keen acorn]

Lore has been debated for 6000 years to date its how science works. Discussion on possibilities. Greeks were really into that

[safe kite]

I believe that was clarence.

[fallen kiln]

And on that note, I need to drop offline for a bit. Catch you later, all.

[safe kite]

Have a good one 😄

[solemn bough]

yeah i was just being wacky

[solemn bough]

i don't think there is any evidence for starborn aiza. the only things you have are that he says he "met himself" which does not necessarily suggest a starborn version of him given the things we know. and the other thing i guess is that hunter's age might match up with his. we also know that victor aiza always dies in every possible universe that the player can visit which further suggests to me he did not become starborn

[solemn bough]

yeah my issue is that you'll say "you could be right or wrong" but then go on to state your own opinions as facts anyway

i'm only here in good faith but i'm also not gonna let people get away with stuff like that in a debate, yknow?

[keen acorn]

Aiza probably met the You in Unity. In his case he got more info than we do. I agree no indication he was Starborn. It might be the You in Unity saw he was to provide info to Aiza and did just that. We do not know very much about the You in Unity.

[solemn bough]

yeah that just seems so much more likely to me. "you" also shows him things visually that are going to happen in that universe just like "you" does with the player

[keen acorn]

I wish we could GPchat with the You in Unity. LOL get more info.

[solemn bough]

tell chatgpt to pretend its the unity and spill the beans

[safe kite]

I haven't, but ok. 🙂

[spring hemlock]

The player also doesn't have access to all Starborn powers (like resurrecting humans), for all we know some starborn has an ability to take in the appearence of other people, and can use that "See what others will say and do" ability.

For all we know, Aiza got bamboozled.

[solemn bough]

they also would have had to give him visions and alter his perception of time and also do all of those things without alerting anyone else on aizas team

i really doubt aiza was alone when he touched the artifact and that presents complications for the starborn theory

[smoky onyx]

Shoutout to the one reddit thread I saw pre-release where OP asked chatGPT about Starfield and wondered if it spoiled the game for him

[solemn bough]

did it?

[smoky onyx]

lolno, as usual it confidently spouted off absolute nonsense

[tender hawk]

ChatGPT uses outdated information from like- 2013 lol of course it’s gonna spout off nonsense.

[solemn bough]

tell me about it

my job involves reading a bunch of that stuff

[tender hawk]

You. Have. My….condolences

[solemn bough]

thanks its pretty terrible lol

[smoky onyx]

As for Dr. Aiza, it really sounds like he got sent to the Unity by touching one artifact and his Unity self told him the future yeah. But he also says he experienced several weeks of lost time and he didn't jump to a new universe or become Starborn

Maybe we visit the Unity every time we touch an artifact, but we can only fully go through it by completing the armillary? Maybe not everyone just passes out, or some of them get visions they can actually understand?

[tender hawk]

Yeah some med students were expelled from their university for using ChatGPT in medical essays.

[smoky onyx]

I have a friend in software dev who talked aboit how so many job applications he has to go through are obviously generated by chatgpt

[tender hawk]

The essays mentioned methods used in like 2008 lmao and tools that aren’t used in the medical field anymore.

[solemn bough]

oof

i've seen people asking it to do all kinds of stuff from running their business to giving them advice for raising children. scary stuff

[smoky onyx]

It also doesn't really have any reasoning ability and just pieces together something from all its training data. Like ask it a weird but trivial math question like 318+500,002 and it won't have a clue. Or how google's AI search answers tell people to eat glue

[solemn bough]

it really really struggles if you ask it for help with dream interpretation

never seen it do well on those questions

[long glade]

Do you think in shattered space we’ll got varun content

[scenic loom]

in the May Update video, we can see Varuun stuff as they mentioned SS
so, id say that so far House Va'rrun and the great Serpent and the zealots are likely what it will be the focus

[silk lotus]

They could involve the Va'ruun. My worry is that they will blow the biggest in game mystery too soon.

I kinda want something like Ulyses from new vegas. Each DLC has a small mention and some info building up to a final big dlc.

Like we could fight the Va'ruun in another star system up for grabs, then at a latter dlc we see their homeworld.

Only issues is I doubt DLCs will be building on one another.

[rigid kiln]

I want the final DLC to be first contact with aliens

[slate valley]

I want the unity to remain a mystery until at least Starfield 5. Not that I will live that long to see it. If they churn out games at their historical rate that is. LOL

[tough lark]

I'd be shocked if we didn't with how much they've made Varuun and its secrecy a big deal

[fallen kiln]

I'm not too worried. Morrowind gave us a lot more information on the Dwemer without lessening their mystery at all. Quite the reverse in fact.

[keen acorn]

The scientists say that ChatGPT has issues with dreams - since itself is in a dream state trying to understand all its data. Like humans dream and everything is once in a while a jumble of things and you wake up and say that was weird. The ChatGPT comes out like that a lot. Wierd.

[late raptor]

bro you'll be dead by that time 😂

[late raptor]

Hell yeah!

[keen acorn]

You do realize we have not seen adult Terrormorphs. We have seen Embyro / Heatleaches, Newly grown Terrormorphs. Not the adult Terrormorph - yet. We know how bad the existing Terrormorphs are. 👀

[daring lake]

So you are saying that the 'Morphs out in the wilds on Toliman II
are not adult?

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/starship-troopers-traitor-of-mars-starship-troopers-gifs-arachnids-bugs-gif-11179914308208058276

[keen acorn]

no - They were transported around during the last war. There are older ones.

[daring lake]

Is that why they show up as native fauna?

[keen acorn]

UC department hoped to use heatleaches as bio-spies. against the enemies. They so cute. Until one Grew and took out the facility.

[daring lake]

Have you been drinking or something 😄

[keen acorn]

This is Lore.

[daring lake]

Right. Lay it out for me please. I'm all for finding stuff out 🙂

[keen acorn]

UC opened a secret facility in Freestar territory - plausible deniability. UC brought in the heatleeches. They sent two sets out with UC to field test. Then one of the heat leaches evolved. Took out everything there.

It is a quest item

[safe kite]

That's Kreet?

[keen acorn]

no

[daring lake]

So where can this info be discovered in-game?

[keen acorn]

The planet with Aceles is supposed to be the primary home planet of heatleachs/Terrormorphs.

[safe kite]

The majority of the Terrormorphs we see would be young adults, but we don't see any older ones, so possible they exist and get bigger, etc, but we don't see that.

[safe kite]

That's Toliman II.

[keen acorn]

I could be the Secret facility on Kreet. Trying to find the exact quest. it has been like 6 months for me.

[daring lake]

What you are saying is that the UC had 2 secret facilities in FC space.
And 2 seperate Xenowarfare units.

[safe kite]

In this case, they had tested Heatleaches and Terromorphs separately. The UC is unaware of the connection between the two until the events of the Vanguard questline.

Heatleaches were considered as a bioweapon to sap starship energy, then dismissed as unworkable. You can read the logs. Terrormorphs were prime candidates for XenoWarfare, but were incompatible with the implants and yes - broke free and killed everyone.

[peak halo]

We fight an adult terrormorph in the starport on londinion.

[keen acorn]

nope - it just transformed its newborn

[safe kite]

Iirc it is labeled as an 'aberration' (or something, I cant recall), which could be a funky mutated one or just an older one, so either way, yes they can get bigger/meaner, etc.

The one you fight on Tau Ceti was also an abberation of some sort, and was a newborn, so could be both.

[daring lake]

I've completed the survey of Toliman II a couple of times. The 'Morphs
out in the woods etc. all show as native fauna and tend to wander around
in pairs. Add that to the testimony from Hayden Wynn and the info from
Hadrian. Plus the 3 'Morphs at the Londinion Spaceport, one of which was bigger
and meaner than the other 2, and it all adds up.
We see older 'Morphs, not just newborn.

[peak halo]

The one on Tau Ceti was spawned by the Lazarus plant

[safe kite]

Yes. Hence, Newborn.

[keen acorn]

Heatleeches are like newborn, The transformed at airport like Teenagers (newborn), There are young adults around, You don't see the adults - Elder ones. In game. It might come later.

I still don't know the name of the quest. But here is another description from No-Barracuda-7071 I believe the (UC) knew about heatleaches at some point during the colony war, they never got the word out in time, in the Secret Lab on Kreet in the Narion System where you go with Vasco after Vectera, the (UC) was experimenting with a new kind of "xenoweapon" it seems that they managed to grow a full grown terrormorph from a heatleach but it managed to escape and killed everyone inside. I believe they also used it against (FC) farmers. They left a bunch of notes documenting the experiments.

But that is not it either

[safe kite]

They had captured both heatleaches and a terrormorph.

[daring lake]

Yeah. That never happened and you may be mis-remembering.

[keen acorn]

Heres the name: Project Petshop at the Kreet Research Lab, headed by a Dr. Hayden Wynn.

Not quite. In the last terminal that you can find, next to the first emergency slate, Wynn says they received a full-grown Terrormorph for the second phase of the project "thanks to the UC Marines."

[safe kite]

"They managed to grow a heatleach into a terrormorph" is the assumption that is incorrect, as other game-provided context disproves that.

They caught both heatleaches and a terrormorph, in the effort to find aliens useful for the XenoWarfare program. They were considered unrelated species and one did not lead to the other.

[daring lake]

Yes. But their experiments failed. The 'Morph that killed them all was brought to them
by UC Marines. The documents show that only 2 marines survived the safari trip.
I've got screenshots of all the slates and computer screens.

[keen acorn]

They lab had it all. The last this was UC Marines bring in a larger terrormorph. Secret Project.

[safe kite]

it is actually kinda baffling that the heatleach -> terrormorph connection was never made, but this is what the game states happened, so shrug

[keen acorn]

There is a larger story in this scenario. For sure.

[broken flower]

I hope we don’t get to see how a terrormorph makes a heat leech

[safe kite]

So who's laying these eggs?

-Ripley

[broken flower]

something we haven’t seen yet

[safe kite]

I, for one, hope we delve into a terrormorph hive in an expansion.

[keen acorn]

They could inpregnate the xenoworms and spews out the heatleachs. Just a thought.

[broken flower]

[keen acorn]

They could be born by spores too.

[daring lake]

Whilst there is no direct evidence, it is common to find Xenogrubs around
places where Heatleeches are. The Leech appears to emerge from a cocoon.
So perhaps it is the Xenogrub that makes the cocoon and transforms to
a Leech.

[safe kite]

Certainly possible 😄

[daring lake]

Its a case of "say what you see" imo

[safe kite]

Worth noting that there does seem to be egg-like growths on some terrormorphs' backs, so could be related.

[keen acorn]

There are existing spiders that hatch their young that way

I am arachnophobic by the way. My blood pressure goes up when I must deal with Terrormorphs.

[daring lake]

There is a small POI I have come across a couple of times that has a few
dozen grubs coming out of a small pit. Like eggs had been laid there and
then covered up.

[safe kite]

I knew there was a reason I stomp every grub I come across.

Never trust an alien with no legs.

[scenic loom]

Don't forget, killing them can help with your weapon perk challenges

[safe kite]

An enemy is an enemy. sagenod

[daring lake]

Interestingly, after completing the Vanguard quest there are no Leeches
at POI's. But there place is taken by the grubs.

[safe kite]

Looooooophole 😄

No one suspects a humble grub.

I 100% hope they include that. Somehow, terrormorphs returned.

Polite of the microbe/Aceles to wait until they get older before nomming, in that case.

[daring lake]

A kind of 'Morph with natural resistance to the microbe and unsavoury to the Aceles?
That would be wonderful 🙂

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/life-uh-finds-a-way-it-be-that-way-it-will-work-itself-out-gif-16077053

[silk lotus]

could the aceles evolve through mutations via partial coning and become a bigger threat than the terrormphs?

[safe kite]

They certainly laid the groundwork for Unexpected Consequences in either resolution of the storyline.

[silk lotus]

I mean terrormorphs can hitch rides on ships as heatleatches and aciles cant really do that. I can still see them maybe getting out of control and becoming a invasive species on some planets.

[daring lake]

They've been spread to other planets before without any issues.

[silk lotus]

the aceles?

[daring lake]

Yes. The UC was farming them for food and sent them out to farms
all over the place. It was to help cover food shortages during the Colony war.

[slate valley]

Aceles - yes. Then were hunted to near extinction for their meat.

[silk lotus]

I imagine the aceles were intentional brought over vs heat Leatches hitching a ride on a unknowing ship. Aceles are too huge to really spread themselves around without help.

[safe kite]

Aceles were intentionally moved as cattle, yes.

[daring lake]

The UC moved them. Hadrian tells us this at the TMD.

[silk lotus]

yes that is correct.

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/star-trek-head-nod-yeah-gif-13204064

[silk lotus]

Aceles can be spread with help, the heatleaches get around without anyone intentionally trying to help them spread.

Im trying to say aceles cant spread as easily as heat Leaches.

its not like aceles can sneak aboard a ship and stow away in order to spread to new planets.

[safe kite]

You are not wrong 😄

Luckily, takes ~70 years for heatleach -> terrormorph to occur naturally, so not exactly a pressing issue.

[silk lotus]

I imagine a aceles to get mishandled or go rouge killing its handeler and runnig off into the wild.

wait are aceles mamals?

[safe kite]

I don't think it states specifically?

[silk lotus]

warm or cold blooded? I imagine they are at least warm blodded in order to survive in londinions cold.

but thats more a assumption.

[daring lake]

Andreja describes them as almost serpentine 🙂
But those massive plates of armour don't have the look
of a mammal.

[safe kite]

We do know how many prime cuts there are of an Aceles, though.

Turns out: many.

[silk lotus]

I just remember seeing one and being reminded of a newer pokemon.

[safe kite]

The snoot of a bird, the scales of a reptile, the eyes of a hawk, the ears of a fox, etc.

[keen acorn]

Feed the Aceles and they are you friend for life.

And they keep the Terrormorph issues at bay.

[silk lotus]

they are still dangerous to humans since they are consiered mega-fauna. They just dont hunt humans. Can still kill us though probably.

wait there is a random encounter where we see them on planets. How powerful are they?

[keen acorn]

Well they need to eat something

[silk lotus]

what do you guys want more. Robot or alien creature followers?

[safe kite]

Why can you not scare an Aceles?

||They eat Terror for breakfast.||

[silk lotus]

oh wait wrong thread. Meant to put that in chat.

[solemn bough]

your pfp looks like you made captain price in skyrim

[rigid kiln]

Updated lore pages:

• https://starfieldwiki.net/wiki/Lore:Dazra
• https://starfieldwiki.net/wiki/Lore:Groat
• https://starfieldwiki.net/wiki/Lore:Scaled_Citadel

[keen acorn]

Hey - I am wondering - see when it comes out - if The Great Serpent is the collective matrix of the Va'runn people. That scene in the promo sure looks like it might be related to the whole thing.

Then again those could be clone type incubators. Hmm

[daring lake]

Looks like Anasko might be a very pale and shiny ghost like figure

[keen acorn]

Lol the mother of the terrormorphs ? Hmm

[scenic loom]

We are Va'ruun, we just dont know it yet