Last night I was talking abt rain world bullshit with my friend bits again and I realized the answer to a question I'd been wondering for months now- Whats the Connection Between UE and OTR?
Well, Outer Rim represents the crumbling ideals and fears of the ancients, their concerns that lead them to build tons of iterators and reform the entire landscape, only to leave it behind and let it rot. It represents the futility of trying to find the solution, literally trying to catch the stars
UE is a deeper meaning of this rot and fear, the inverse of the void sea where you're left with absolutely nothing and which exists without purpose. The endless stretching iterations that just lead to nothing, as the iterators slowly go mad at their typewriters
Prince does not do anything for you. Unlike Five Pebbles, who gifts you enlightenment like its nothing and then asks you to never return, Prince wants you to return, yet he offers nothing.
The Rot Worm is much the same, obviously interested in you, but giving you nothing at all. Just as alien and beyond you as the Void Worms are, you're not able to connect with it. And it does nothing.
I said before but the connection between iterators and void worms is obvious, as these are beings that help YOU reach enlightenment, but Watcher essentially has to "teach" Prince
I think Watcher and its personal connection to OTR and UE (and by extension Spinning Top as well) is that ascension is a personal journey, not one that can be given to you, but one you don't have to take alone
Shimp in the comments is right though, it definitely looks like a composite image of sticks and trees. Here it is flipped around, where it's way easier to tell that thing to the left is just a cone of twigs with a trunk in the background. Honestly the whole thing looks like several photos of tree canopies overlayed.
oh my god everyone is wrong about echo names explodes you with my mind powers 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
i am Eepy and this is specifically about a post i saw saying "99 bottles of beer on the wall" is a valid echo name (It Is Not)
also ofc we are ignoring dlcs here
most echo names in nilla are based on qualia or otherwise beautiful imagery:
- nineteen spades, endless reflections
- six grains of gravel, mountains abound
- four needles under plentiful leaves
- droplets upon five large droplets
- a bell, eighteen amber beads
these are all either (a) something they may have witnessed themselves (four needles under plentiful leaves, droplets upon five large droplets) or (b) something pretty (endless reflections, six grains of gravel, mountains abound)
the only outlier here is the sb echo; two sprouts, twelve brackets. but given the pattern in the rest of the echo names, this is likely something with significance or beauty that we just don't have the context to know about.
other known ancient names follow this as well:
Eight Suns-Countless Leaves (beautiful imagery!)
Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel (something important or beautiful within benefactor society?)
there is other evidence for qualia being considered important or beautiful among ancient culture: the shaded citadel pearl is a good example of this. they leave their memories to 'be cherished by the carnal plane'.
additionally various pebblespearl dialogue:
It is the impression of being a small creature, like a wall climbing lizard, and looking up into the branches of a big tree. The last third is partly overwritten with a number series I vaguely recognize, but without my memory…
A memory… but not really visual, or even concrete, in its character. It reminds of the feeling of a warm wind, but not the physical feeling but the… inner feeling. I don't think it has much utility unless you are doing some very fringe Regeneraist research.
It's qualia, or a moment - a very short one. Someone is holding a black stone, and twisting it slightly as they drag their finger across the rough surface. The entire sequence is shorter than a heartbeat, but the resolution is extraordinary.
because of this i also believe iterator names are different from benefactor names. i dislike the theory that child benefactors only have a 'first name' and that adults gain a second name. frankly we don't know enough about benefactor naming schemes to know this. perhaps their names are related to their education / work / expertise! perhaps Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel was a woodworker or blacksmith or of a similar profession. perhaps they have multiple different names that are used in different contexts. we Do Not Know.
but a benefactor name would never be something as ... excuse me, bland as "99 bottles of beer on the wall". if this were a benefactor name it would probably be something more like "Countless Amber Bottles, Flowing Light".
would love to hear from Two Sprouts about the complex and indepth explaination behind why they chose a sprout for part of their name, including all the Rain World jargon I could dream of.
Ehhh somrthkng somrthing... like sleep like death. Something... iterstors simulate dreams because theyre incapable of authentic sleep like other animals are since it falls under the self destruction taboo. Somrthing because other planes and dreams are associated with each other, so too are the cycles and ascension itself. Which is why Five Pebble wished to break the taboo, because I'm pretty sure if iterators were allowed to dream and let their mind truly wander through those planes (see: brain world) then they would be gone in like 10 minutes tops
LIKEEE. GESTURES VAGUELY. YOU GUYS REMEMBER WATCHER
Semi-related, but this reminded me of something I said in a conversation a while ago:
(By "timelines" here I was referring to alternate planes. I wouldn't call them that now but this message was from a few months ago)
My thoughts were a lot less organized back then, but I was basically theorizing that iterators would have a natural awareness of other planes (like dreams) if not for the taboos. The Benefactors put the taboos in place to prevent them from exploiting the alternate planes and using them to be disobedient. Iterators aren't at risk of wandering off into the dream realm if they can't sleep, like you said.
However due to being partially biological, I think iterators still experience some kind of urge to experience some kind of "sleep" and attempt to emulate it. This is why the puppets can often be seen stationary in their chamber with their eyes closed. (This action is called "meditate" in the game code)
Some comments by @kapturkaptur (I hope you don't mind me mentioning you here)
IMO its not for control exacrly, but to give iterators an "outsider" viee of the cycle needed for their research- also if your iterator ascended right underneath your feet that'd be quite bad wouldnt it?
I don't like to think of the taboos as "the ancienta loved control!!" But as somrthing thats there for a PURPOSE
Their computational power allows them to predict activity from outside the primary planes of existence in a very very accurate manner to make up foe the No Sleeping or Dreaming thing
I was making a longer post about this and then got distracted by Watcher lore but Pebbles is explicitly stated in-game to have not attempted suicide.
EP: It is not a new idea, but it needs to be vented occasionally. What if there is no universal solution? What if perception is in fact existence, and when Sliver of Straw sent the triple positive it was *not* a mistake? What if crossing oneself out, or even just death, is the way? We need to consider the possibility."
(emphasis mine) "crossing oneself out" is treated as a distinct idea from "death" in the Dark Blue* SI pearl.
Do you know where else the phrase "cross [oneself] out" is mentioned? In all of the vanilla pearls (aside from when CW snitches on Pebbles)?
There were some horror stories though... That if your ego was big enough, not even the Void Fluid could entirely cross you out, and a faint echo of your pompousness would grandiosely haunt the premises forever.
(emphasis mine) That's right! Farm Arrays Bright Red pearl, the Small Plate. And "cross [oneself] out" here specifically refers to the act of ascending.
Not only is ascension not equivalent to suicide, but Pebbles specifically distinguishes between crossing oneself out and death. Dying was never his goal in the first place!
Within the full context of Pebbles' conversation in the Sliverist group, this difference becomes even clearer.
EP: It was definitely coming from an idiotic state of mind, but there is something to it. Why is it, that even in a closed sliverist group, the self-destruction taboo is held so high - while Sliver of Straw herself *evidently* is not among us anymore?
HF: Wait now...
EP: I'm just saying that for all the research we are doing, all the theories we have, it's strange that we leave this path untrod.
EP: It is not a new idea, but it needs to be vented occasionally. What if there is no universal solution? What if perception is in fact existence, and when Sliver of Straw sent the triple positive it was *not* a mistake? What if crossing oneself out, or even just death, is the way? We need to consider the possibility."
The discussion of the self-destruction taboo, and the fact that Sliver of Straw is no longer present, leads directly into the concept of crossing oneself out. Death is relevant, but not identical, and not inherently the goal of breaching the self-destruction taboo. Only a related concept (because of the "perception is existence" part).
* (I know the pearl name comes from MSC, and there are technically only two vanilla SI pearls. But it makes distinguishing between them easier.)
Ehhh somrthkng somrthing... like sleep like death. Something... iterstors simulate dreams because theyre incapable of authentic sleep like other animals are since it falls under the self destruction taboo. Somrthing because other planes and dreams are associated with each other, so too are the cycles and ascension itself. Which is why Five Pebble wished to break the taboo, because I'm pretty sure if iterators were allowed to dream and let their mind truly wander through those planes (see: brain world) then they would be gone in like 10 minutes tops
LIKEEE. GESTURES VAGUELY. YOU GUYS REMEMBER WATCHER
Semi-related, but this reminded me of something I said in a conversation a while ago:
(By “timelines” here I was referring to alternate planes. I wouldn’t call them that now but this message was from a few months ago)
My thoughts were a lot less organized back then, but I was basically theorizing that iterators would have a natural awareness of other planes (like dreams) if not for the taboos. The Benefactors put the taboos in place to prevent them from exploiting the alternate planes and using them to be disobedient. Iterators aren’t at risk of wandering off into the dream realm if they can’t sleep, like you said.
However due to being partially biological, I think iterators still experience some kind of urge to experience some kind of “sleep” and attempt to emulate it. This is why the puppets can often be seen stationary in their chamber with their eyes closed. (This action is called “meditate” in the game code)
Some comments by @kapturkaptur (I hope you don’t mind me mentioning you here)
(Rain World) complete-ish story analysis of The Watcher
The Watcher is a contentious DLC, but it’s also got the richest story Rain World has ever told. This long ass post dissects The Watcher’s narrative with a specific focus on its central question:
When the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew? Or dive into the unknown?
This post goes through the main story and picks out important elements to form an overarching reading of the whole DLC. It also doubles as a general recap to make sense of The Watcher’s more cryptic storybeats, but it’ll overall be a lot less confusing if you’ve played the whole thing yourself.
⚠️ SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE DLC (v1.5 CONTENT!) ⚠️
One more obscure Rain World Assest I wanted to ask about. The ever elusive wall flower, this thing looks really cool and gross, but I don't know if it's actually used anywhere.
Using findstr on the Level Editor world files turned up these rooms containing the WallFlower prop:
LF_M03 (Farm Arrays)
SH_A05 (Shaded Citadel)
SH_B02 (Shaded Citadel)
SH_B03 (Shaded Citadel)
wmpa_b02 (Migration Path)
WPGA_C04 (Pillar Grove)
This prop appears to be used in only 6 rooms: 4 in Vanilla, and 2 in Watcher (and 0 in Downpour). In every room they seem to be tucked away in a corner or hidden in the background.
Also, 3 out of the 4 Vanilla rooms they appear in are in Shaded Citadel, making them them understandably very easy to miss, haha.
This seems to be a severely under-utilized prop, only ever being hidden in hard-to-spot places. Very weird.
That is unfortunate, they're such a cool asset.
Btw, those weird bleached antler-coral background assets in Migration Path, do they have a name? They're not like the giant Drill Crabs legs in WMPA_S05
Those are more DrillLegs!
There’s seven variations of them in total:
There are two larger “leg” shaped props that are variations of the DrillShell2 prop:
Those are the ones used in WMPA_S05.
One more obscure Rain World Assest I wanted to ask about. The ever elusive wall flower, this thing looks really cool and gross, but I don't know if it's actually used anywhere.
Using findstr on the Level Editor world files turned up these rooms containing the WallFlower prop:
LF_M03 (Farm Arrays)
SH_A05 (Shaded Citadel)
SH_B02 (Shaded Citadel)
SH_B03 (Shaded Citadel)
wmpa_b02 (Migration Path)
WPGA_C04 (Pillar Grove)
This prop appears to be used in only 6 rooms: 4 in Vanilla, and 2 in Watcher (and 0 in Downpour). In every room they seem to be tucked away in a corner or hidden in the background.
Also, 3 out of the 4 Vanilla rooms they appear in are in Shaded Citadel, making them them understandably very easy to miss, haha.
This seems to be a severely under-utilized prop, only ever being hidden in hard-to-spot places. Very weird.
MY FRIENDS KEEP SENDING ME PICTURES OF THIS POST
anyway the physics I include in my writing is accurate to the best of my ability because I would kill myself if it wasn't
Was any information ever found on what these weird floating circles in the lower portions of Migration Path actually are? They're so weird. They look kinda like empty void spawn eggs to me, but they just . . . . Float around.
I honestly don’t know… Migration Path as a whole is a pretty big mystery to me.
The bubbles themselves are a Fairy Particle preset (similar to the floating glyphs found inside of the House of Braids) and can be found in the files under mods/watcher/fairypresets/pathbubbles.txt
The fact that they’re bubbles at first makes me think that Migration Path is underwater, however several of the rooms the bubbles are found in are open-air rooms, and none of the rooms in the region contain any water.
The region itself appears to be some sort of elevated rail bridge. It seems to be primarily used by the Tower Crabs found in the region as a means of migration (hence the region’s name):
I’m not sure what the bridge spans- the area around the bridge mostly appears to be desert, though the western side of the region also has some rooms that are reminiscent of Sky Islands, albeit with sand and dried up plants:
In addition to the bubble Fairy Particles, there are also a few different FloatingDebris objects found throughout the region.
There’s one called “Big Tube” that I can’t really figure out the function of- it seems to sit in the background and fill the entire screen in most rooms. I think it’s there for ambiance more than anything else, to give the “sky” a darker look.
However, there is also lots of Stardust.
Stardust is most commonly found in Outer Rim, of course:
But it also occasionally shows up in other regions, such as Heat Ducts:
Despite Stardust’s lore importance, its usage in Heat Ducts seems to be purely cosmetic.
I’m not sure if its usage in Migration Path serves a similar cosmetic purpose, or if it does have some sort of lore implication.
The appearance of the bubbles in Migration Path do appear concurrently with the Stardust, primarily in the region’s lower rooms:
In addition to this weirdness, I think it’s also worth mentioning that the larger “claw” shaped objects in many of the lower rooms are called “Drill Legs” and “Drill Shells” in the level editor:
And many of Migration Path’s walls are made of a new material called “ShellWall” and “ShellBrickWall” that I can’t find in any other levels:
Because of this, I believe that the lower half of Migration Path is made up of discarded Drill Crab shells. However, the ones seen in the level editor are MUCH larger than the Drill Crabs and Tower Crabs we see in-game, which makes me think that they can grow much larger than the ones we see.
Perhaps the Drill Crabs we see in-game are smaller descendants of these larger crabs, which may have been large purposed organisms used for construction. They might have helped build the elevated railway, or maybe their shells were even used in part of the structure itself.
I’m not sure how this relates to the bubbles or Stardust, but the shells do show up in a lot of the same rooms as these particle effects. Maybe the bubbles are the result of some form of decay or offgassing?
I also think it’s worth noting that the level editor files for Migration Path are sorted into four folders, which I assume were intended to be different subregions:
These “subregions” refer to the different rooms which start with A, B, C, D, and S, respectively. Here’s a map of the region with the different “subregions” color-coded:
The name “Tethered Isles” makes me think of “Sky Islands”, which might be why they appear so similar. Perhaps Migration Path is an elevated railway spanning a large ravine, connected to a communications array similar to Sky Islands. The rails could possibly be elevated in order to protect them from hazardous rain, or something else.
I’m sorry that this doesn’t really answer your question, haha. The bubbles you mentioned are unique to Migration Path, which is kind of an enigma on its own. Its not exactly clear when or where it is located, or why it was set up the way it is. At the very least I hope I gave you some ideas.
If anyone has any other insights, I’d love to hear them.
Oh you're right! I was only able to find it in WRSA_C01 (the Outer Rim warp room), but there are a couple of Big Tube objects in it. They seem to be used as larger rot "tendrils".
I'm still not exactly sure why they're in the background of every room in Migration Path... there, the Big Tube objects are edited to fill the entire background. The only thing it really seems to achieve is making the rooms in Migration Path a bit darker... but their placement in basically every room in the region seems deliberate to me. Is it an intentional parallel to Outer Rim/Daemon or just a coincidence? Very strange.
Hmm possibly...
This post from a while ago kind of convinced me that Heat Ducts' Stardust is only there for cosmetic reasons. I feel like if Heat Ducts is some kind of Stardust plant, then it would be more prominent in the level design.
Heat Ducts suffers from the same problem as the rest of the Aether Ridge-derived regions: it came from a pre-existing mod that had its own lore before Watcher. I suppose we can discard that lore as non-canon now, but I feel like a bespoke mod made specifically for Watcher would serve much better here. I understand that building an entire region from scratch is extremely time consuming so I get why they used a pre-existing mod, it's just frustrating to try and parse the lore implications of that. But I digress.
I'm unsure if there are other instances of Stardust being found outside of Outer Rim/Daemon other than Heat Ducts and Migration Path, but if there are please let me know.
I don't want to go all red strings on a corkboard here, but if Stardust was deliberately placed in these regions, then maybe they have something in common. What exactly, I'm not sure.
you can always open all the world files in notepad++ and search for the startdust/big tube effects hahahaha. That's what I did!
The resemblance to sky islands isn't on accident, the subregion reuses rooms originally used to connect aether ridge to sky islands which is very neat.
Oh I didn’t know that!! That’s a pretty cool way to recycle those rooms.
Was any information ever found on what these weird floating circles in the lower portions of Migration Path actually are? They're so weird. They look kinda like empty void spawn eggs to me, but they just . . . . Float around.
I honestly don’t know… Migration Path as a whole is a pretty big mystery to me.
The bubbles themselves are a Fairy Particle preset (similar to the floating glyphs found inside of the House of Braids) and can be found in the files under mods/watcher/fairypresets/pathbubbles.txt
The fact that they’re bubbles at first makes me think that Migration Path is underwater, however several of the rooms the bubbles are found in are open-air rooms, and none of the rooms in the region contain any water.
The region itself appears to be some sort of elevated rail bridge. It seems to be primarily used by the Tower Crabs found in the region as a means of migration (hence the region’s name):
I’m not sure what the bridge spans- the area around the bridge mostly appears to be desert, though the western side of the region also has some rooms that are reminiscent of Sky Islands, albeit with sand and dried up plants:
In addition to the bubble Fairy Particles, there are also a few different FloatingDebris objects found throughout the region.
There’s one called “Big Tube” that I can’t really figure out the function of- it seems to sit in the background and fill the entire screen in most rooms. I think it’s there for ambiance more than anything else, to give the “sky” a darker look.
However, there is also lots of Stardust.
Stardust is most commonly found in Outer Rim, of course:
But it also occasionally shows up in other regions, such as Heat Ducts:
Despite Stardust’s lore importance, its usage in Heat Ducts seems to be purely cosmetic.
I’m not sure if its usage in Migration Path serves a similar cosmetic purpose, or if it does have some sort of lore implication.
The appearance of the bubbles in Migration Path do appear concurrently with the Stardust, primarily in the region’s lower rooms:
In addition to this weirdness, I think it’s also worth mentioning that the larger “claw” shaped objects in many of the lower rooms are called “Drill Legs” and “Drill Shells” in the level editor:
And many of Migration Path’s walls are made of a new material called “ShellWall” and “ShellBrickWall” that I can’t find in any other levels:
Because of this, I believe that the lower half of Migration Path is made up of discarded Drill Crab shells. However, the ones seen in the level editor are MUCH larger than the Drill Crabs and Tower Crabs we see in-game, which makes me think that they can grow much larger than the ones we see.
Perhaps the Drill Crabs we see in-game are smaller descendants of these larger crabs, which may have been large purposed organisms used for construction. They might have helped build the elevated railway, or maybe their shells were even used in part of the structure itself.
I’m not sure how this relates to the bubbles or Stardust, but the shells do show up in a lot of the same rooms as these particle effects. Maybe the bubbles are the result of some form of decay or offgassing?
I also think it’s worth noting that the level editor files for Migration Path are sorted into four folders, which I assume were intended to be different subregions:
These “subregions” refer to the different rooms which start with A, B, C, D, and S, respectively. Here’s a map of the region with the different “subregions” color-coded:
The name “Tethered Isles” makes me think of “Sky Islands”, which might be why they appear so similar. Perhaps Migration Path is an elevated railway spanning a large ravine, connected to a communications array similar to Sky Islands. The rails could possibly be elevated in order to protect them from hazardous rain, or something else.
I’m sorry that this doesn’t really answer your question, haha. The bubbles you mentioned are unique to Migration Path, which is kind of an enigma on its own. Its not exactly clear when or where it is located, or why it was set up the way it is. At the very least I hope I gave you some ideas.
If anyone has any other insights, I’d love to hear them.
Oh you're right! I was only able to find it in WRSA_C01 (the Outer Rim warp room), but there are a couple of Big Tube objects in it. They seem to be used as larger rot "tendrils".
I'm still not exactly sure why they're in the background of every room in Migration Path... there, the Big Tube objects are edited to fill the entire background. The only thing it really seems to achieve is making the rooms in Migration Path a bit darker... but their placement in basically every room in the region seems deliberate to me. Is it an intentional parallel to Outer Rim/Daemon or just a coincidence? Very strange.
Hmm possibly...
This post from a while ago kind of convinced me that Heat Ducts' Stardust is only there for cosmetic reasons. I feel like if Heat Ducts is some kind of Stardust plant, then it would be more prominent in the level design.
Heat Ducts suffers from the same problem as the rest of the Aether Ridge-derived regions: it came from a pre-existing mod that had its own lore before Watcher. I suppose we can discard that lore as non-canon now, but I feel like a bespoke mod made specifically for Watcher would serve much better here. I understand that building an entire region from scratch is extremely time consuming so I get why they used a pre-existing mod, it's just frustrating to try and parse the lore implications of that. But I digress.
I'm unsure if there are other instances of Stardust being found outside of Outer Rim/Daemon other than Heat Ducts and Migration Path, but if there are please let me know.
I don't want to go all red strings on a corkboard here, but if Stardust was deliberately placed in these regions, then maybe they have something in common. What exactly, I'm not sure.
you can always open all the world files in notepad++ and search for the startdust/big tube effects hahahaha. That's what I did!
Oh that's genius actually, I'll try that
Okay, using findstr on all of Watcher’s room setting files turned up these rooms containing Stardust:
Salination: warb_h13
Heat Ducts: ware_h02, ware_h03, ware_h05, ware_h06, ware_h08, ware_h09, ware_h11, ware_h14, ware_h17
Migration Path: wmpa_c02, wmpa_c03, wmpa_a05, wmpa_b01, wmpa_b05, wmpa_b06, wmpa_b08, wmpa_c01, wmpa_c02, wmpa_c03, wmpa_c06, wmpa_c07, wmpa_d01, wmpa_d03, wmpa_d07, wmpa_s05
(I’ve omitted the Daemon and Outer Rim rooms for obvious reasons)
The only region that has it other than Daemon, Outer Rim, Migration Path, and Heat Ducts is Salination, which has it in only one room:
WARB_H13 also uses Heat Ducts’ color palette, so I assume this is a vestigial room left over from the original Aether Ridge mod which was meant to connect the Heat Ducts and Salination subregions. I’ll consider this an outlier and lump it in with Heat Ducts.
So, this means that Migration Path and Heat Ducts are indeed the only non-Daemon/Outer Rim regions that have Stardust. Odd.