Is the great serpent actually real?

[Neo]

Talking about in the lore obviously. The reason I ask is because during my shattered space play through, I found shrines to the great serpent and upon using the shrine it actually gave me a real buff with actual benefits, quite powerful benefits too.

Also when acquiring the power, I see a similar special aura around my character which looks like the starborn quantum essences.

It's like using the nine divines shrines in skyrim.

What do you think?

[AdahnGorion]

The great serpent is actually Satakal the Worldskin.
You will see this in TESVI

[HeyYou]

That is a VERY good question..... and your finds are rather interesting. Perhaps the Great Serpent is of the race responsible for the artifacts/temples??

[A. Silvermane]

Originally posted by HeyYou:

That is a VERY good question..... and your finds are rather interesting. Perhaps the Great Serpent is of the race responsible for the artifacts/temples??

Snakes can't build anything, they have no hands!

[kdodds]

The way I see it, the great serpent is Ouroboros, which, I believe, is just an avatar of space/time. Real? Yes. Sentient? I don't think so. Not in any deific way anyway.

[Berserk Slayer]

Look at it this way. The multiverse is a known, observable reality you can interact with in Starfield.

As far as we know, it's as we might theorize the multiverse, ie infinite with universes existing and diverging for perhaps infinite possibilities. So there could well be a people write backwards universe, a cheese tastes like petroleum universe, a Harry Potter is real universe, a gods of Olympus universe, a hell universe, an everything is full of/covered in spiders that feed telepathically on your fear universe and so on. Every mythology, every pantheon, every nightmare, every fairy tale you can imagine could really be happening somewhere in some reality.

For me this is one of the most implausible and super terrifying things about the idea of metaverses. But anyway, it means if the Great Serpent communicated from such another reality and connections are almost routinely possible in the setting then that is fully compatible with the scientific reality. Whereas for us you'd assume it was imaginary, there's nothing more impossible about the great serpent contacting humans or buffing their stats in the Sf universe than apples falling to earth or planets orbiting stars.

Sorry, super long rambling post. Gotta celebrate Friday somehow

[Mooman]

Originally posted by A. Silvermane:

Originally posted by HeyYou:

That is a VERY good question..... and your finds are rather interesting. Perhaps the Great Serpent is of the race responsible for the artifacts/temples??

Snakes can't build anything, they have no hands!

In my country we have Dreaming Stories from the indigenous people.

Within that oral history there are many creator serpents that made valleys and rivers.

So to some people snakes are the greatest creators of all.

[HeyYou]

Originally posted by Berserk Belta:

Look at it this way. The multiverse is a known, observable reality you can interact with in Starfield.

As far as we know, it's as we might theorize the multiverse, ie infinite with universes existing and diverging for different possibilities. So there could well be a people write backwards universe, a cheese tastes like petrol universe, a harry potter is real universe, a gods of olympus universe, a hell universe, an everything is full of/covered in spiders that feed telepathically on your fear universe and so on. Every mythology, every pantheon, every nightmare, every fairy tale you can imagine could really be happening somewhere in reality.

For me this is one of the most implausible and super terrifying things about the idea of metaverses. But anyway, it means if the Great Serpent communicated from such another reality and connections are almost routinely possible in the setting then that is fully compatible with the scientific reality. Whereas for us you'd assume it was imaginary, there's nothing more impossible about the great serpent contacting humans or buffing their stats in the Sf universe than apples falling to earth or planets orbiting stars.

Sorry, super long rambling post. Gotta celebrate Friday somehow :SF_Constellation:

Heinlein wrote a book about that possibility. :D A believe it was one of the Lazarus Long books, but, it's been a while, and I can't remember which one it was. :D

[Mkhuseli5k]

Originally posted by kdodds:

The way I see it, the great serpent is Ouroboros, which, I believe, is just an avatar of space/time. Real? Yes. Sentient? I don't think so. Not in any deific way anyway.

It also ties in with the concept of infinity. A neverending story. The Unity takes the player on a neverending journey. Fascinating stuff.

[Toyosatomimi no Miko]

Yes, he's called Shesha.

[titanopteryx]

Just like Anasco, Jinan Va'ruun tried to build a machine to talk to the Great Serpent. Well with Jinan it was talk to the Serpent again. Jinan wouldn't have tried to build that if he hadn't really talked to something. So the Great Serpent is real, but the question is is it of divine origin? It might have been an alien that Jinan mistook for a god. Or perhaps a member of the race that made the temples?

[Varanus]

A bit difficult to tell.
This is one of those missteps in the dlc, in my opinion. They didnt really expand on the religion itself. We dont know their, beliefs, rituals, practices. All we know is the Great Serpent.
Now onto the matter of if its real. All we're given is those slates in the citadel. Which dont definitively point either way. And theres nothing in the dlc that points either way. Aside from the temp buffs from the shrines. But we kind of enter the territory of "Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence".
And as stated by kdodds above, it could be analogous to Oroboros. Which could also be the unity, based on its function of destruction and rebirth, to turn one into a starborn, and send them back to start over again. Which also may or may not be sentient in some capacity. But considering considering the first(and only) encounter with the great serpent was during a grav jump. And the grav drives are based off the artifacts. Which in turn are part of the unity. You can see where this theory makes sense.

[kdodds]

Originally posted by Mkhuseli5k:

Originally posted by kdodds:

The way I see it, the great serpent is Ouroboros, which, I believe, is just an avatar of space/time. Real? Yes. Sentient? I don't think so. Not in any deific way anyway.

It also ties in with the concept of infinity. A neverending story. The Unity takes the player on a neverending journey. Fascinating stuff.

Exactly, matter, energy, nothing ceases to exist at it's very basic level, just takes on another form. Check out the latest discoveries out of CERN (re: kaons/pions). Physics is a LOT weirder than most people can imagine.

[Berserk Slayer]

Originally posted by HeyYou:

Heinlein wrote a book about that possibility. :D A believe it was one of the Lazarus Long books, but, it's been a while, and I can't remember which one it was. :D

Ha, through my tired rambling you can guess which books I'm reading at the moment from 30 paces

Another bit of parallel universe sci fi I hope appears in as Starfield mod at some point, is Sliders. Would really love to take down some Kromaggs, maybe raid some facilities and free prisoners.

Originally posted by Mkhuseli5k:

Originally posted by kdodds:

The way I see it, the great serpent is Ouroboros, which, I believe, is just an avatar of space/time. Real? Yes. Sentient? I don't think so. Not in any deific way anyway.

It also ties in with the concept of infinity. A neverending story. The Unity takes the player on a neverending journey. Fascinating stuff.

I like the idea of the Great Serpent being part of an alternate race that can travel between the universes etc, but takes a different approach to the Starborn. Perhaps more religiously and mystically themed, but every bit as powerful and perhaps more scary. Perhaps really being deities for all practical purposes

Kinda like the Ancients and Ori in Stargate. Imagine whole worlds, galaxies, universes under the thrall of the Great Serpent (or many different serpents).

[Neo]

Originally posted by kdodds:

The way I see it, the great serpent is Ouroboros, which, I believe, is just an avatar of space/time. Real? Yes. Sentient? I don't think so. Not in any deific way anyway.

Yeah that did cross my mind too. But the fact you get an actual "blessing" made me think maybe there is something to it.

[bobbie046]

I think Berserk Belta nailed it. There could be an infinite number of strange realities where science, physics even magic may exist. It would certainly make for an interesting DLC, where magic is a real force or one of mythologies pantheons actually exist and are worshipped. Since most pantheons have gods opposed to each other lots of scope for religious zealots to make life interesting. After one such reality, you would think hard about jumping through Unity for sure