What are people's thoughts on different echos?

[Blazing Skies Endless Winds]

Just talk about Echos and Ancients on here, if you have any theories about Echos. I am sure people would love to hear your point of view on them, have a Nice day.

[guyaoun]

I personally find it really interesting how saint's undergrowth echo implies that not all ancients had a choice on whether or not they ascended, and some ascended despite not wanting to.

[Blazing Skies Endless Winds]

Originally posted by guyaoun:

I personally find it really interesting how saint's undergrowth echo implies that not all ancients had a choice on whether or not they ascended, and some ascended despite not wanting to.

Yeah I know, but it is weird that Rhinestones just pops up out of nowhere. Like where he is found is a collapsed pipe system, and there is no room similar to their echo room in drainage, so that is very odd?

[guyaoun]

Originally posted by Blazing Skies Upon Moon Lit Seas:

Originally posted by guyaoun:

I personally find it really interesting how saint's undergrowth echo implies that not all ancients had a choice on whether or not they ascended, and some ascended despite not wanting to.

Yeah I know, but it is weird that Rhinestones just pops up out of nowhere. Like where he is found is a collapsed pipe system, and there is no room similar to their echo room in drainage, so that is very odd?

It's similar with the Submerged superstructure echo, it only appeared after moon collapsed. My theory about this would be that these echos may just appear in whatever place they feel most connected to, even if said place wasn't in the same state as it is at the current time. Undergrowth was likely uninteresting to the echo local there until it became the lush oasis it is in saint's time, as the echo seems to love nature a lot it probably would have resided somewhere else until the undergrowths became lush and embraced what tied the echo to the cycle.
As for the submerged superstructure echo, they do not appear until moon is collapsed, and they talk about her construction, so they may have only had a strong enough connection to reside there once the futility of their life spent building the superstructure got visible, once moon's structures collapsed and all that work became just "metal in a frozen puddle".
Just a theory, but i think it would make sense for echoes to not be entirely stationary. Saint isn't stationary too, and as their ending shows, they are an echo.

[Justice]

Echoes are ancients who failed to ascend and stuck in between worlds/transition.
In sorta ghost state

[Raukk]

As for the Echoes appearing in some campaigns but not others, I think of it as the Echoes always being there, but the area isn't always accessible to the player. For instance, Rhinestones might have always "been there", but that room only exists in Undergrowth in that world state but not Drainage System.

The problem with this logic is Saint's secret eighth Echo can only be encountered in their campaign, but not in Rivulet's, at which time the location is identical. Perhaps this was just added as a secret challenge rather than a canon event? Or perhaps there is actually a reason behind it. To quote Andrew, "I don't know the lore implications of that, nor how any of that void sea stuff really works..." (when talking about an Artificer-Gourmand story concept in dev commentary).

Also, Six Grains moves to the top of the Leg after Pebbles collapses, even though their original position still exists. Even if the "location" is actually "the highest point in FP's structure", that wouldn't cut it because (I think) the fallen Husk is actually taller than the mostly intact Leg. Perhaps this is to encourage exploration, because otherwise Six Grains and Pebbles would be right next to each other as with Distant Towers and Moon in Shoreline.

[Jevmen]

Vanilla establishes that echoes are bound to a memory, all of them share some dialogue traits where they are very focused on something arround them.
-Sky islands: the noises of the antennae
-Chimney canopy: The wind and the views
-Farm arrays: The fields and crops
-Shaded citadel: Their past memories stored in the memory crypts
-Subterranean: The Ancient civilisation found in the depths
-The wall: Five pebbles himself

We can assume when the things they are bound to dissapear, their pressence does as well, otherwise there would be like 99 echoes per square meter from unlimited past civilisations, is easy to assume they get cycled arround as the old worlds sink into the void sea.
All the ones we find in game were Benefactors in the past, we dont see any echoes of ancients, other creatures/lifeforms or older civilisations than the ancients, so it makes sense to assume the echoes dissapear as their worlds sink down the world.

In the depths you can see the Ancients knew how echoes looked like, and scavengers also know of their existence. They even have unique intecations where they look up in the sky when an echo is present, except this is no longer the case since the DLC removed the echo inmunity the scavengers canonically had only the undergrowth toll to be slightly easier to skip. which is extremely lame considering that was a major lore element flushed down the toilet for gameplay convenience.

Im not gonna comment on Downpour lore, it adds some interesting stuff but mostly is covered in plotholes for tryign too hard to tell a story in a non-narrative game.

[Darkest King]

I like how most of the echoes talk about the place they're currently inhabiting the way it was when they were alive, or about their past, and it goes to show that there was nothing wrong with the void fluid that made them that way.

They turned into Echoes because they thought they were ready to ascend but they actually weren't. They still had worldly attachments to let go of.

[Blazing Skies Endless Winds]

Originally posted by Darkest King:

I like how most of the echoes talk about the place they're currently inhabiting the way it was when they were alive, or about their past, and it goes to show that there was nothing wrong with the void fluid that made them that way.

They turned into Echoes because they thought they were ready to ascend but they actually weren't. They still had worldly attachments to let go of.

Well not really, spades, burning skies and Rhinestone. Don't seem to have wanted to Ascend, so they probably where forced to. As said before by Guyaoun.

Originally posted by guyaoun:

I personally find it really interesting how saint's undergrowth echo implies that not all ancients had a choice on whether or not they ascended, and some ascended despite not wanting to.