Lore for those curious

[bubrito bubstice]

I went through the trouble of documenting most of Hammerfight's lore. Obviously I've missed a bit, but I've done what I can

I also tried to link the lore to other games that Konstantin (supposedly) worked on, namely Vangers, Perimeter, and now Highfleet. Maybe they have absolutely no connection at all, but I recall Highfleet being mentioned as a "spiritual prequel" to Hammerfight. The other two were at least published by Kranx, the same publisher for Hammerfight.

Most of my sources here come from the game files and TVTropes, since that's apparently the last online resource that even talks about this game's features and lore ever since the wiki died.

Anyway, here's the link to whatever monster I've created: https://padlet.com/burritojustice/w55fz6ygi8a31nc5
Image version:
https://i.imgur.com/Dfi3RWl.jpg

(Padlet's some collaboration tool for note-taking. It's also weirdly positive about everything. If you have suggestions/corrections, comment below)

[Dr. Cat]

thanks lad

[[BPL] Razorin Faust]

Oh WOW ! Thank you for taking the time to do that. I too absolutely love the intricate lore that run deep within Hammerfight. As for the spiritual prequel yes it is confirmed by Koshutin itself as the Sayady's house in Highfleet is connected to the Sayady's house in Hammerfight.

[.//slayer]

I also tried to link the lore to other games that Konstantin (supposedly) worked on, namely Vangers, Perimeter, and now Highfleet.

Should be noted that while Konstantin was, indeed, inspired by the Vangers universe, he didn't work on the game. He never met KranK (the guy behind Vangers) until the Independent Games Festival in 2008, as can be seen from KranK's quote here:

https://kranx.com/projects/hammerfight/

[bubrito bubstice]

.//slayer a écrit :

I also tried to link the lore to other games that Konstantin (supposedly) worked on, namely Vangers, Perimeter, and now Highfleet.

Should be noted that while Konstantin was, indeed, inspired by the Vangers universe, he didn't work on the game. He never met KranK (the guy behind Vangers) until the Independent Games Festival in 2008, as can be seen from KranK's quote here:

https://kranx.com/projects/hammerfight/

heck

[bubrito bubstice]

haha yes shameless necroposting

Anyway, with the release of the game manual and the small lore tidbits towards the beginning of it, a few things were made somewhat clear to me. As a reminder, Highfleet was, at one point, said to be the spiritual prequel to Hammerfight:

The Moon

So apparently the moon (named Kharu) in Highfleet blew up and crashed into the planet, which ruined everything and erased history. This suggests a lot, but the important part is that the moon in Hammerfight appears to be completely fine. A few theories:

1. Helaat (or Elaat as it's called in Highfleet) has multiple moons
   
2. Highfleet is actually a sequel to Hammerfight, but this is very unlikely since The Family is no where to be found
   
3. Highfleet takes place in a parallel universe, or is otherwise totally unrelated to what happens in Hammerfight

But is this the "Abyss Collapse Event" from Hammerfight? No, probably not: Hammerfight stipulates that the Abyss collapsed over ancient humanity around 300 years before the time the game takes place - Highfleet's shattering of Kharu happens between 100 to 2000 years prior to the time the game takes place.

Helaat, Elaat, and Gerat

So it appears I made a mistake in my lore doc and declared Gerat to be the world of Highfleet. That appears to be only partially true: Gerat is a nation within the world of Elaat, not the world itself. So sorry about that.

Anyway, Elaat is the name of the world. That's an 'H' away from being Helaat. What does this mean?

1. Adding a H to Elaat expands its meaning to show that the world has changed in a significant way after the Abyss collapsed.
   
2. Highfleet takes place in a parallel universe, or is otherwise totally unrelated to what happens in Hammerfight

Nuclear Reactors

So apparently after Kharu crashed into Elaat it wiped out nearly everything electronic, and some of the rarest constructions that managed to survive Kharu's destruction were nuclear reactors. What kind of nuclear reactors? The manual doesn't say, but that doesn't really matter.

What is important is that it mentions there were two reactors still in use, and that a third was potentially discovered by the Romani. I found it kinda easy to draw parallels to Hammerfight's three "control devices", the large and reportedly massive singing gems that, when combined, can allow someone to escape Helaat - that was Emperor Al-Maravi's goal throughout the story. There was one per house, kept as prized possessions, and ultimately collected by Al-Maravi after each houses' downfall at the hands of the player. So the Romani own a nuclear reactor. Supposedly Sayadi owns at least one other, and the third is either also owned by Sayadi or belongs to another unnamed nation.

Going with the idea that Hammerfight is seen through The Gaiar's eyes - subjected entirely to how he chooses to interpret what he cannot quite comprehend with similar-looking analogues -, it's possible that the singing gems you find throughout the game are just pieces of technology that no one can hope to understand: they make weird noises, are glowy, and they do strange things... objects of a more advanced, bygone era.

It's worth mentioning that we never actually see these control devices at any point, only hear them mentioned towards the end of the story. The objects that might match their description, however, would be the Amethysts installed in Hammar's Pendulum and Seraph - the largest singing gems seen in the whole game. Throwing a "nuclear reactor" onto a mainframe contained within a pocket dimension makes sense I guess.

But how do three power plants just propel you into another universe and away from Helaat? Or collapse the dimension that Helaat belongs to? They probably don't do all of that on their own, rather they have to be used on a particular device to power it up in order to accomplish these goals. Perhaps Al-Maravi discovered one of these devices.

Where's Gaiar? Kelete? Kadish?

The only obvious connection to the three houses from Hammerfight would be the dynasty of Sayadi, which was a nation under than banner of Kadish. Kadish as a whole might exist as the "Great Houses" mentioned in the manual, but it's hard to say. Romani are nowhere to be found in Hammerfight, but it's pretty likely that they're simply another house of Kadish.

Anyway, maybe the nations simply haven't come into existence yet. Maybe the Romani are precursors to Gaiar or Kelete.

Conclusion

So after all of those tinfoil hat theories, I've come to the conclusion that Highfleet and Hammerfight are only similar, and probably have no meaningful connection. At the least, there is nothing in the way of chronology between the two games: the two may as well be parallel universes that are uninvolved with each other.

Thanks for reading my garbage. Also thanks to Konstantin for continuing development on Highfleet - it's been a long time coming, and we're all excited.

[Sparkle_CH]

Taking into account the technology level I may suggest that Highfleet is a prequel to Hammerfight. All inconsistencies like moon destroying is only the matter of the development sequence.

[E.B.]

Thank you

[crazyfizik]

Burrito Justice a écrit :

haha yes shameless necroposting

...

Conclusion

So after all of those tinfoil hat theories, I've come to the conclusion that Highfleet and Hammerfight are only similar, and probably have no meaningful connection. At the least, there is nothing in the way of chronology between the two games: the two may as well be parallel universes that are uninvolved with each other.

Thanks for reading my garbage. Also thanks to Konstantin for continuing development on Highfleet - it's been a long time coming, and we're all excited.

Highfleet is a continuation of Hammerfight, including chronological.

The fact that there was a moon in Hammerfight, and it is no longer in Hammerfleet, transparently hints at the chronology (however, you should never exclude mistakes, because a whole eternity has passed between the development of games). The catastrophic events of Hammerfight and Highfleet can be different, and the "Abyss Collapse Event" in Hammerfight may well be associated with the events of the universe of Univang and Perimeter, but the fall of the Moon of Kharu, these are already internal events of this particular world that occurred after the events of Hammerfight.

As for the reactors, of which there are 3 by lore of this game, it is quite possible that initially they were not really reactors, but something much more technological and cyclopean than just a banal nuclear reactor. If you played Perimeter, which reveals the background of the Vangers, then in this game people during the Exodus from Earth traveled along a Chain of Worlds in large autonomous cities called Frames. Well, one or more of these cities could get into the world of Elaat, then some catastrophic event occurred, described in Hammerfight, which cut off this world from the rest of the Chain of Worlds, so the events in Elaat proceeded as usual, regardless of the events of the games Peremiter and Vangers. Most likely, these catastrophic events were followed by the decline and degradation of the survivors and they had to start all over again. Most likely, these catastrophic events were followed by the decline and degradation of the surviving people and they had to start all over again and consistently goes through all stages of development from primitive society to advanced civilization, until a new cataclysm occurred previous to the events of this game. This is an absolutely logical chronology, even within the framework of real human history, in which there were such events as the the Late Bronze Age Collapse[en.wikipedia.org] for 1000 years BC, then the fall of the Roman Empire[en.wikipedia.org], after which Dark Ages[en.wikipedia.org] came, when the level of technology and development fell significantly compared to antiquity and was able to fully recover only by the Renaissance[en.wikipedia.org]. At the same time, before the Late Bronze Age Collapse, humanity and ancient ancestors of humanity managed to survive several climate changes and even 3 waves of mass extinction (1.2 million years ago, 70-75 thousands years ago[en.wikipedia.org], and 7-10 thousand years ago).

As for adding a H to Elaat, language changes occur by themselves and without any catastrophic events. Well, for example, I can say that such names as Yuri (Юрий), Yegoriy (Егорий) and George (Георгий), which are now considered different, are actually the same name, just in the Old Russian Language there was no such combination as "Ge", and the modern Russian letter Г (i.e. G) in most cases sounded not like [g], but like [ɦ], but a lot has changed over 1000 years. And such language changes occur with many languages, moreover, the English language is an example of a completely rapid language change (just look at the phonetics, as well as the rest of the grammatical cases in the Modern English language and compare this picture with Old English). I also think everyone should be aware of such interesting combinations as colour-color, armour-armor, optimisation-optimization, defence-defense and etc. So here you have noticed everything correctly, the discrepancies in Helaat and Elaat can reflect the natural language processes for many hundreds of years in a fictional universe (and even without the involvement of magic and apocalypses, this happens by itself in a natural way).

The fact that other houses are not found in the game now is easily explained — they have faded away. And in Hammerfight, you are already playing as the last representative of the house of Gaiar, so there's probably nothing left of the old houses. For example, can you now find representatives of such noble houses as the Amals and Balts (these are really existing noble houses that have their origin from the Goths)? And what is the situation with potential heirs to the Russian throne among the Romanovs, who could potentially claim them? And do you know the modern representatives of the House of Knýtlinga, once the kings of Denmark? There is nothing surprising in the extinction of some houses.

Since I have played both games of Koshutin, and also played both games by Krank, their connection is obvious to me, at least Highfleet takes place in the same world as Hammerfight, but at a different time. Whether the connection of this game with the Universe of Univang has been preserved is not clear to me, but in any case, Hammerfight was an independent fork from the original universe, made by an independent developer, and only by chance they turned out to be connected (however, I would like to continue developing the Universe of Perimeter-Vangers multiverse further, since this is one of the most interesting game universes in my memory for 25 years).

But in general, the developer recently mentioned that he plans to link Highfleet and Hammerfight in the future. How he will do it is a good question, but for sure he has ideas for this (although he probably should have re-released Hammerfight somehow and brought Highfleet to mind for a start).

[ShieldBearer]

crazyfizik a écrit :

Burrito Justice a écrit :

haha yes shameless necroposting

...

Conclusion

So after all of those tinfoil hat theories, I've come to the conclusion that Highfleet and Hammerfight are only similar, and probably have no meaningful connection. At the least, there is nothing in the way of chronology between the two games: the two may as well be parallel universes that are uninvolved with each other.

Thanks for reading my garbage. Also thanks to Konstantin for continuing development on Highfleet - it's been a long time coming, and we're all excited.

Highfleet is a continuation of Hammerfight, including chronological.

The fact that there was a moon in Hammerfight, and it is no longer in Hammerfleet, transparently hints at the chronology (however, you should never exclude mistakes, because a whole eternity has passed between the development of games). The catastrophic events of Hammerfight and Highfleet can be different, and the "Abyss Collapse Event" in Hammerfight may well be associated with the events of the universe of Univang and Perimeter, but the fall of the Moon of Kharu, these are already internal events of this particular world that occurred after the events of Hammerfight.

As for the reactors, of which there are 3 by lore of this game, it is quite possible that initially they were not really reactors, but something much more technological and cyclopean than just a banal nuclear reactor. If you played Perimeter, which reveals the background of the Vangers, then in this game people during the Exodus from Earth traveled along a Chain of Worlds in large autonomous cities called Frames. Well, one or more of these cities could get into the world of Elaat, then some catastrophic event occurred, described in Hammerfight, which cut off this world from the rest of the Chain of Worlds, so the events in Elaat proceeded as usual, regardless of the events of the games Peremiter and Vangers. Most likely, these catastrophic events were followed by the decline and degradation of the survivors and they had to start all over again. Most likely, these catastrophic events were followed by the decline and degradation of the surviving people and they had to start all over again and consistently goes through all stages of development from primitive society to advanced civilization, until a new cataclysm occurred previous to the events of this game. This is an absolutely logical chronology, even within the framework of real human history, in which there were such events as the the Late Bronze Age Collapse[en.wikipedia.org] for 1000 years BC, then the fall of the Roman Empire[en.wikipedia.org], after which Dark Ages[en.wikipedia.org] came, when the level of technology and development fell significantly compared to antiquity and was able to fully recover only by the Renaissance[en.wikipedia.org]. At the same time, before the Late Bronze Age Collapse, humanity and ancient ancestors of humanity managed to survive several climate changes and even 3 waves of mass extinction (1.2 million years ago, 70-75 thousands years ago[en.wikipedia.org], and 7-10 thousand years ago).

As for adding a H to Elaat, language changes occur by themselves and without any catastrophic events. Well, for example, I can say that such names as Yuri (Юрий), Yegoriy (Егорий) and George (Георгий), which are now considered different, are actually the same name, just in the Old Russian Language there was no such combination as "Ge", and the modern Russian letter Г (i.e. G) in most cases sounded not like [g], but like [ɦ], but a lot has changed over 1000 years. And such language changes occur with many languages, moreover, the English language is an example of a completely rapid language change (just look at the phonetics, as well as the rest of the grammatical cases in the Modern English language and compare this picture with Old English). I also think everyone should be aware of such interesting combinations as colour-color, armour-armor, optimisation-optimization, defence-defense and etc. So here you have noticed everything correctly, the discrepancies in Helaat and Elaat can reflect the natural language processes for many hundreds of years in a fictional universe (and even without the involvement of magic and apocalypses, this happens by itself in a natural way).

The fact that other houses are not found in the game now is easily explained — they have faded away. And in Hammerfight, you are already playing as the last representative of the house of Gaiar, so there's probably nothing left of the old houses. For example, can you now find representatives of such noble houses as the Amals and Balts (these are really existing noble houses that have their origin from the Goths)? And what is the situation with potential heirs to the Russian throne among the Romanovs, who could potentially claim them? And do you know the modern representatives of the House of Knýtlinga, once the kings of Denmark? There is nothing surprising in the extinction of some houses.

Since I have played both games of Koshutin, and also played both games by Krank, their connection is obvious to me, at least Highfleet takes place in the same world as Hammerfight, but at a different time. Whether the connection of this game with the Universe of Univang has been preserved is not clear to me, but in any case, Hammerfight was an independent fork from the original universe, made by an independent developer, and only by chance they turned out to be connected (however, I would like to continue developing the Universe of Perimeter-Vangers multiverse further, since this is one of the most interesting game universes in my memory for 25 years).

But in general, the developer recently mentioned that he plans to link Highfleet and Hammerfight in the future. How he will do it is a good question, but for sure he has ideas for this (although he probably should have re-released Hammerfight somehow and brought Highfleet to mind for a start).

Since you have played Vangers, I wanted to add that you can find the highfleet logo engraved in the ground in a part of the game. Do you suppose this ties in somehow?

[Edu8000]

The dev confirmed that highfleet is chronologically a prequel some years ago.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/app/41100/discussions/0/494631959821043355/?ctp=3#c1621724915798385056

[RagingCombine]

Hello Burrito! Flowchart is Epic, I saw it in the past... Now Padlet links are 404... Can I access this monumental work of yours again?