Rimworld Lore...

[Demeggy]

So I've been playing the game since the early alpha days now, and it's easily my number one play title of all time. The DLC's and gradual improvements have really improved it over the years, boosted by the incredibly active modding community, but with the recent announcement of the Biotech DLC, it's made me realise something...

...we know next to nothing about the actual RimWorld lore and Universe.

What we know?

We know it takes place in humanities incredibly distant future, and we know that there are populated, megacity style worlds of varying cultures in the 'core' Glitterworlds, with the game taking place in the rim (hence the title).
We also know that humanity once populated the Rim heavily, but overtime, returned to the glitterworlds, leaving ancient structures and evidence of their presence behind.
With Royalty, we learnt that there was a great Stellar Empire that spans all of space.
We know that Mechanoids were created by humans, but overthrew humanity and become some sort of threat at one point or another.
The recent DLC preview implies that Insectoids were genetically engineered by humans to fight the Mechanoids.

What we don't know?

We don't know when this is. We know roughly that its far enough to imply that each rimworld once had a thriving civilization (enough to leave ruined roads, cars, warmechs and walker wreckages), but we don't know how long after that this takes place.
We know there was a war, the evidence is scattered across most maps as of Ideology, but we don't know the specifics. It's implied that the war was between humanity and the Mechanoids, but again, we don't know specifics other than the Mechanoids turned on humans and war broke out.
We don't know how big or where the rim is. Is it on the edge of the Milky Way? Is it in a different galaxy entirely?
We know there's no conventional alien races. Tynan's pretty much made that clear in previous AMA's. RimWorld vanilla isn't a Star Wars'esque experience. It's humans, mechs, insectoids (and now, proto-humans with varying biodiversities as a result of Biotech).
We don't know much about the glitterworlds. All we can glean is from colonist backstories, thats its conventionally sci-fi futurism with varying professions and tropes associated with your standard sci-fi human civilization affair.

Do we need to know?

So do we need all these questions answering? I'd say not all of them, some mystery is better left unsaid. I do however think that it would be incredibly cool if Ludeon worked on some fiction or supplimentary material (a coffee table book or what have you) that detailed the in-game Universe in a bit more detail.
I'd love to feel a bit more connected with my colonists and the wider Universe they inhabit.

What does everybody else think? Do you even play in-Universe, or do you prefer to use mods to turn it into something of your own?

[failsafe]

RimWorld is a lore-free game for me. Which is good, I create my own lore whenever needed. I didn't know many of the facts you have mentioned. These are all interesting details, though I feel that devs never aimed on merging all those threads into one, solid story.

I wouldnt mind having optional quests to actually follow some sort of galactical lore - but I underline "optional", so that we wouldnt have to go on again and again with it in every gameplay.

While there are no aliens in the galaxy, I wouldn't mind having another set of optional quests with alien lore behind. I mean like investigating some strange situation, not knowing if we are looking for aliens or just people pretending to be aliens or whatever.

Actually even the very reason why we are on this world: why our ship has crashed. Was it really just mechanical issue? Or maybe a sabotage? If sabotage: why? Who was the target.

I think game deserves set of lore quests, but in the same time... we have fun without them.

[Demeggy]

Very true. I quite like the aspect of this that the story is whatever we want it to be. I'd never really thought too much about the alien side before; precursor stuff could be quite cool to explore, but as you say, it might be too story restrictive for some players.

Another aspect I never touched on was AI. AI's clearly a bad thing in-Universe, psychic drones and insane AI's are pretty frequent, so I wonder if they're linked in some way to the Mechanoid threat.

[Garatgh Deloi]

https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Lore

Originally posted by Demeggy:

We don't know when this is. We know roughly that its far enough to imply that each rimworld once had a thriving civilization (enough to leave ruined roads, cars, warmechs and walker wreckages), but we don't know how long after that this takes place.
We know there was a war, the evidence is scattered across most maps as of Ideology, but we don't know the specifics. It's implied that the war was between humanity and the Mechanoids, but again, we don't know specifics other than the Mechanoids turned on humans and war broke out.

Its a "unknown enemy" its never specified to be the mechanoids. Considering that they are referred to as "unknown" and "outsiders" its likely not the mechanoids since those were creations of man. That said, mechanoids used to be of "unknown origin" so it could still be them.

An ultratech refugee society from another planet, organized along feudal lines. They lived for thousands of years in a stable multi-planet empire with a strict caste system, an intricate code of warrior ethics, and enforced cultural stasis. Invaded by powerful outsiders, they fled. Despite losing almost all of their people, their fleet and technology still make them powerful. They will refuse to trade with anyone who lacks the appropriate royal title.

What arrives at the rimworld is a fragment of a destroyed Empire which was mostly annihilated by some unknown enemy. It's a small refugee fleet with tiny numbers of people but very strong technology and an honor-and-tradition based culture. They're led by a stellarch, the highest-ranking person in their faction. The Emperor never shows up in the game.

-------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Demeggy:

We don't know when this is.

Assuming the primer are still semi-canon we do know.

The game takes place at a time about 3,500 years in our future. This is the year 5500 in our calendar.

-------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Demeggy:

We don't know how big or where the rim is. Is it on the edge of the Milky Way? Is it in a different galaxy entirely?

We have a tidbit of info on this from the primer as well. Indicating that its the same galaxy just "away from the core". Note that space travel in rimworld takes time (people are frozen), so worlds further out the arms that are further apart from each other are very isolated.

Towards the galactic core, stars are closer together and travel is easier. These systems tend to be better-developed socially and technologically because they can communicate and enrich each other through trade. Away from the galactic core are the rim worlds, which float distant from each other. Their isolation makes them poor and socially unstable.

[Demeggy]

Ah thanks :) Good to know those bits and pieces, so it's what, 54th century approx in the Milky Way. I wonder what they class as the 'Glitterworlds'. It'd make sense that if we ever did leave Earth to get that far out, we'd eventually forget about the homeworld.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Demeggy:

Ah thanks :) Good to know those bits and pieces, so it's what, 54th century approx in the Milky Way. I wonder what they class as the 'Glitterworlds'. It'd make sense that if we ever did leave Earth to get that far out, we'd eventually forget about the homeworld.

Glitterworlds are just "technologically advanced societies that can be led by humans. Swaddled in comforts by the strong arms of technology, glitterworlds are the peak of recognizable human society in terms of art, health, and generous human rights. Common people from these planets often lack grit and are very trusting in people and technology".

Note that we also have Transcendent Worlds if you wanna go extremely high tech (generally ruled by the super AI's called Archotech).

Then we have Urban Worlds (Think something along the lines of mega cities in judge dread, worlds where the population growth has outgrown the technological growth) and a number of other world types populated by humanity in different states of technological development and with different societies.

[Demeggy]

Blimey, this a wealth of info! Thanks. The Archotech related lore could do with an odd-on of its own, the ability to transcend your colony based on any of those appropriate 'tech levels' (ignoring the fact there's a defined spacer tech level that umbrellas them all together anyway).

This lore would make for some fascinating RimWorld licensed novels.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Demeggy:

the ability to transcend your colony based on any of those appropriate 'tech levels' (ignoring the fact there's a defined spacer tech level that umbrellas them all together anyway).

No, Ultra is beyond Spacer (Some ultra tech being introduced into the game with the royalty expansion). https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874284172
"Ultratech" (Glitterworld level) being beyond Spacer and Archotech (Tech made by the super AI's) should be beyond even that.

"Full gene recombinations" and being able to craft and utilize advanced mechanoids are also definitely ultratech (simple mechanoids fall into the spacer category).

[Hykal]

The fiction primer button really should be highlighted. The amount of people who got surprised by the red skinned horned Xenohuman on the cover of Biotech is way too much.

[Demeggy]

I've never actually read the Primer, so it's a complete surprise to me that it was even there. Is this the Fiction Primer linked off the rimworldwiki.com site? (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub)

[Hykal]

Yes, that's the one but it's also available in the main menu.

Graser weapons, which has been mentioned in the primer for years, finally makes an appearance in the latest Biotech announcement, for example. As are all the Xenohumans.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Demeggy:

I've never actually read the Primer, so it's a complete surprise to me that it was even there. Is this the Fiction Primer linked off the rimworldwiki.com site? (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub)

No idea where you found that link, but it can be read on the wiki.

Do note that the primer is old, some of the stuff on it isn't canon anymore :P But you can probably see anything not contradicted by newer stuff as canon.

[whatamidoing]

Originally posted by Demeggy:

I've never actually read the Primer, so it's a complete surprise to me that it was even there. Is this the Fiction Primer linked off the rimworldwiki.com site? (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub)

There's a little link for it in-game on the title screen iirc, but that looks like it.

[Hykal]

https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Lore#Cryptosleep_Revival_Briefing

You can see some of the (obsolete) canon stuff too, like the space dwarves thing in the Longsleep Revival Briefing section.

[Demeggy]

Very cool (the links taken from the Fiction Primer link on the wiki, so it must be the 'latest' copy of the primer).

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Demeggy:

We also know that humanity once populated the Rim heavily, but overtime, returned to the glitterworlds, leaving ancient structures and evidence of their presence behind.

This isn't quite the case. The issue is there is no FTL and the rim is really far away. The rim is actively being settled but it's dozens or hundreds of years to get people or information to or from the rim worlds. The vast distance in space means most planets in the rim are more or less on their own, and civilizations rise and fall on them constantly. The planet the game takes place on was likely a mid-world at some point, and some sort of war caused it to fall many years ago. This war was probably not against mechanoids, considering how many ancient vaults exists that are full of mechanoid guardians created by that civilization. The limited mechanoid presence on the planet suggests they are remainders of a defense force gone rogue.