Death and reincarnation [SPOILERS]

[Kligan]

After playing through the Artificer's campaign and thinking on it... I'm a bit confused about something.

According to Pebbles and Moon, no one in this world can truly die. But instead are stuck in endless cycles of reincarnations. That's why the ancients built Iterators, to help them find a solution to "true death" or "ascension" as they called it. That's what void sea is for.

So, does that mean whenever player makes a mistake and slugcat dies, they get reincarnated "at the last save point"? Is that what its supposed to represent?

Because if that's how it works, then how did Arti's pups actually die? Wouldn't they just reincarnate "at the last save point"?

I'm struggling to make sense of it :D Maybe it's just a game mechanic and nothing more, and I'm overthinking it.

[Teal V2]

Well, you technically do not die, because thrown spears in walls also disappear if you "die" and respawn, but spears stay if you hibernate.

So, when you "die", game does not save your "life actions", aka, it did not happen.
Map is refreshed, tho. But it is more for the players to not uninstall the game after the first 15 minutes.

So, how karma decreasing comes to player dying but their character actually not dying?
Good question.

Maybe all actions you do between hibernations are played just theoretically, like
"What would happen if I went there and did that...."
When this theoretical journey leads into death, your inner "karma" decreases as you would have made a lethal mistake, which is against the requirements of ascension.

So, only the runs where you end up hibernating count as actual "real" happening. All deaths are theories.

Those are my guesses, tho.

[45]

the game kinda plays fast and loose with the terms of the mechanics, cycles is the most notable. in game a cycle is the rain cycle but also ticks up per death, not a reincarnation but it works thematically as long as you dont think too much about specifics the message still holds.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by 45:

the game kinda plays fast and loose with the terms of the mechanics, cycles is the most notable. in game a cycle is the rain cycle but also ticks up per death, not a reincarnation but it works thematically as long as you dont think too much about specifics the message still holds.

I don't think cycles go up per death. My Artificer playthrough end screen was 30 cycles, and 101 deaths. If it ticked up, it would've been 131 cycles.

[Moh]

The only thing i can think of is that the slugpups are in a different timeline and because Artificer didn't die with them, she doesn't go into a different timeline where the slugpups are alive. The slugpups are probably in a timeline with a different Artificer.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by Ms Namelesa:

The only thing i can think of is that the slugpups are in a different timeline and because Artificer didn't die with them, she doesn't go into a different timeline where the slugpups are alive. The slugpups are probably in a timeline with a different Artificer.

Well, yeah, but in that case it would've been logical to just off yourself and go back to a "checkpoint" where Arti was safe with her pups... That's some RE: Zero territory already :D

[Kligan]

I guess, this is what I'm struggling with the most...

If we just assume that "restart at a checkpoint" is just a game mechanics and has nothing to do with the lore. In that case I fail to comprehend the motivation behind slugcats descending into the void sea.
If death is death, but you get reincarnated into another life, as another being... what's so bad about it? Why would you want to completely remove yourself from the world, instead of just keep living? Maybe make another family and so on, instead of dissolving into the void.
The ancients were obsessed with "ascending" and "true death" because they were hyper religious and spiritual. Why do slugcats do it? Just because an Iterator told them to?

[Goblin]

How I interpreted it when I originally played through the game:
History is cyclical. In our real world Buddhist religion your karma decides what you get reincarnated as in your next life, which is not too long after your previous one (and possibly not even bound by the direction of time? Not sure). In the game, it means you die, eons pass, all buildings disappear, a new species of ancients appears, builds iterators, crosses themselves out, and all your actions repeat... up until the point you regain control.
This happens to every living thing. Not all are sentient enough to realize it, and just live life without much meaning, but smarter ones have a trigger after which they remember the cycles and all the suffering, and want to cross themselves out. However, they think that means removing themselves from the cycle entirely, when in reality the void sea doesn't eat your existence, merely your memory and trigger. That's why the Ancients appear again, build iterators again, and cross themselves out again without realizing they've done it before, and why you can start a new run of each slugcat.
I'm not sure if voiding also somehow moves you into a new physical reality, since the ancients seem pretty convinced their fellows who take the big dip don't reappear even if they themselves die the "normal" way. Nor what such a different reality would be like for the first ones to restart the cycle, if the others are there too before crossing themselves out or if it starts really empty. I'm also not sure how this works with dying of old age, if such a thing even exists in this world.

There's probably a bunch of problems with my theory, especially with new lore that I don't know yet. But in Artificer's case I guess she didn't trigger her "awareness" until after losing her kids, and thus is stuck cycling the parts after that until the next cross-out reset. When you void dip as her, she gets to live another cycle with her pups, only to lose them again.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by Goblin:

When you void dip as her, she gets to live another cycle with her pups, only to lose them again.

That's not how I understand that ending.
She can't let go of her hatred and of the death of her pups. That's why she cannot gain max 10 karma ever. That's why void worm doesn't lead her to the light. She meets her pups (or at least the vision of them), and then she dissolves into the void, thus becoming an echo, same as the ancients who couldn't undergo their ascension for the same reason - they still had things binding them to the world.

[RCMidas]

And according to a conversation between Seven Red Suns and Five Pebbles, death by old age is a thing, even for the effectively immortal iterators. I'm guessing that eventually the natural breaking apart of your body leads to a cycle when everything fails all at once, and your soul simply transmigrates to a new body - perhaps not instantly, as the nature of the Great Cycle suggests the linearity of time is...more flexible.

Now, the worrying thing about this, is the possibility that as the new body's neural networks develop into maturity, they become sufficiently complex to interpret the memories of the soul from its previous existence. Even natural death is not enough to break from the cycle, and over many lifetimes, that could easily drive a species to suicidal mania.

Also, let's consider that the Iterators are mostly inorganic/microbial masses - their processing strata are explicitly mentioned to be made up of microbes. They are a multitude of lifeforms that make up a single one, like jellyfish. When an Iterator dies of old age, it probably signifies the complete, irrevocable collapse of this interconnectivity and the splitting of their soul across the remnants of their microbial makeup.

[Ashby]

Looks like there cannot be a clear explanation as the whole concept of death-rebirth is open to a wide variety of interpretations to the extent where it can be perceived not like a literal samsara, but a metaphor unrelated with gameplay mechanics.
What is certain though, when slugcat dies, all creatures they killed this cycle respawn, but when they hibernate, all killed are killed for good and then replaced via lineage mechanic. This allows to assume that all karmic beings exist inside their own individual cycles that can intersect, but still separated, unless they are "attuned" together.
So basically, in game terms, Arti just continued her progress after losing her children instead of letting herself pass away and relive it differently. This decision may seem counterintuitive, but it is actually natural if her hatred towards scavengers proves to be a stronger motive for living than being a mother.
This hypothesis is supported by the fact that there is a glyph "mother", same as achievement, composed of second karmic symbol "Procreation/Lust" and third karmic symbol "Communication/Bonding". Arti however was stuck on the very first karmic level of "Rivalry/Struggle", below previous two. So apparently, she had no true understanding of motherhood, but she sure had a very good understanding of bloodshed and vengeance. So, death of her children became a way to subconsciously justify to herself her own existence succumbed to a "sin" of struggle, as she did not take a decision to overcome it by rejecting her path of violence.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by Ashby:

Looks like there cannot be a clear explanation as the whole concept of death-rebirth is open to a wide variety of interpretations to the extent where it can be perceived not like a literal samsara, but a metaphor unrelated with gameplay mechanics.
What is certain though, when slugcat dies, all creatures they killed this cycle respawn, but when they hibernate, all killed are killed for good and then replaced via lineage mechanic. This allows to assume that all karmic beings exist inside their own individual cycles that can intersect, but still separated, unless they are "attuned" together.
So basically, in game terms, Arti just continued her progress after losing her children instead of letting herself pass away and relive it differently. This decision may seem counterintuitive, but it is actually natural if her hatred towards scavengers proves to be a stronger motive for living than being a mother.
This hypothesis is supported by the fact that there is a glyph "mother", same as achievement, composed of second karmic symbol "Procreation/Lust" and third karmic symbol "Communication/Bonding". Arti however was stuck on the very first karmic level of "Rivalry/Struggle", below previous two. So apparently, she had no true understanding of motherhood, but she sure had a very good understanding of bloodshed and vengeance. So, death of her children became a way to subconsciously justify to herself her own existence succumbed to a "sin" of struggle, as she did not take a decision to overcome it by rejecting her path of violence.

Hmm... Interesting theory, however, it is still possible for her to reach all theway to 9 karma. Which I, personally, interpreted as - even after all the struggle to do so, she can't fully let go of her hatred. And that's why she wasn't led by the void worm to the light and got dissolved into an echo.

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Now, the worrying thing about this, is the possibility that as the new body's neural networks develop into maturity, they become sufficiently complex to interpret the memories of the soul from its previous existence. Even natural death is not enough to break from the cycle, and over many lifetimes, that could easily drive a species to suicidal mania.

I guess that's why the ancients strived for true death.
I wonder, if slugcats by being descendants of ancient's creations (primitive slug-like creatures for cleaning pipes, that were "too much like house pets", according to 5P) share this similarity with their maker. And thus by achieving full consciousness granted by mark of communication, they also strive for ascension?

[PizzaCake]

I think it's cause the slugpups weren't really dead, they got separated from the artificer and ended up somewhere else, where artificer never got to encounter them again, and somehow the pups end up in the void sea, probably in a pile of junk or something like that.
As for the cycles, Moon tells in a pearl reading, "like death like sleep, you'll wake back up" makes me believe that when you die, that reality becomes a dream. So maybe though knowing dying isn't really true death, animals disregards it as just a dream, even slugcats, until they get proven otherwise by the iterators.
Considering that Artificer is just an animal before the player controls her, she probably ended up sleeping to survive the rain, but probably regrets doing that afterwards.