Who are we?

[C.W. purple]

Are we a pair of sentient hands? A Receiver (human shaped target) but with 2 grippers instead of blingy? Or a inhuman monster? The white may actually be our skin color, and not chalk. We may even be Canadian. The last is we could be Climb-girl. Or John Knuckle, if that that titlecard is not depicting us.

[7spires]

Well, there is the rare event in silos where you can find a painting of the MC alongside an encouraging message and some gifts. Going by that the MC looks human-ish, quite possibly female.

[NegativeZero]

In the endless mode selection, look at the decal on "Endless Superstructure," it seems to depict a female character probably implying that the climber is Holly.

[shrew | Ham Mafia |]

Originally posted by NegativeZero:

In the endless mode selection, look at the decal on "Endless Superstructure," it seems to depict a female character probably implying that the climber is Holly.

with a very deep voice i guess because that jump sfx sounds like a middle aged man getting off the couch

[Edgebug_t4t]

Originally posted by Crochwhisle purple:

Are we a pair of sentient hands? A Receiver (human shaped target) but with 2 grippers instead of blingy? Or a inhuman monster? The white may actually be our skin color, and not chalk. We may even be Canadian. The last is we could be Climb-girl. Or John Knuckle, if that that titlecard is not depicting us.

climbgirl is her name according to everyone dev included (i think anyways check the discord)

[Iuno]

Originally posted by Crochwhisle purple:

Are we a pair of sentient hands? A Receiver (human shaped target) but with 2 grippers instead of blingy? Or a inhuman monster? The white may actually be our skin color, and not chalk. We may even be Canadian. The last is we could be Climb-girl. Or John Knuckle, if that that titlecard is not depicting us.

You are The Climber, also semi-jokingly called Climbgirl by the devs and the Discord community. Very very little is actually known about who or what The Climber is, with the only direct lore drop I'm aware of being that "Climbgirl is 'not entirely human.'" There's a bit more lore that has come out in the abyss, but the exact meaning and implication of it isn't super clear just yet.

According to some of the in-game notes, The Climber encountered SOMETHING in the superstructure a long time ago that 'changed them' somehow, and then they may or may not have died in falling down to the bottom of SB17, that part's not super clear.

[C.W. purple]

Originally posted by Reed:

Why would the character be Canadian; where is that coming from?

There are two voices in the game's settings by the way, one more male sounding, one more female sounding.

My guess is that they're not exactly human, but that they appear human-like, despite the announcement system referring to them as an "unidentified human" in parts of the game.

I also have a theory that they are in some way familially related to the grubs.

I think more will be hinted at in the next biome once it launches, re: that last notion, but we'll see. I expect them to throw some intentional curveballs into the game's story, so I feel as though we'll meet whatever's being alluded to, that has this weird "pact" notion or what-have-you related to the grubs, in the game's in-game notes, in the next biome -- but something tells me the main-character is related to those grubs. I've seen comments made that seem to hint at it, but I'm not clear if they actually do or not. Maybe the main character and whatever character is connected to the "pact" thing on the notes in the game both are related to the grubs in some way, maybe one or the other, not sure. Either way, we'll see.

Pure white skin, like in the Long Dark or and another game i forgor. And the voices thing definitely puts a wrench into the Climb-girl theory.

atleast we know we only have 2 manipulators, so maybe we're even bipedal

i think we aren't a grub or grub-species. Humanity doesn't exactly take kindly to mimics, no matter how powerful they may be. Unless the pact is no contant with one-another.

[CIA demonic fetus powered system]

I personally think we are in some way connected to the Mass. Judging from the skeletons the facility has been abandoned for a while and the facility was not destroyed the mass i think. Also the mass just kinda appears after we wake up/appear in the silo, though it may have been moving through the facility below us. Also it somehow knows where we are in the abyss which may imply that it has some form of connection with us or alternatively we just smell really bad and it could sniff us out or something.

I have a bit of a crackpot theory that the mass somehow created us to escape the substructure or perhaps it's using us to learn by proxy hence why it evolves when escaping the habitation hatch. Though the obvious counterpoint to this theory is "why would the mass try to kill us if it needs us to escape.".

[C.W. purple]

Originally posted by Feds are in the bread:

I personally think we are in some way connected to the Mass. Judging from the skeletons the facility has been abandoned for a while and the facility was not destroyed the mass i think. Also the mass just kinda appears after we wake up/appear in the silo, though it may have been moving through the facility below us. Also it somehow knows where we are in the abyss which may imply that it has some form of connection with us or alternatively we just smell really bad and it could sniff us out or something.

I have a bit of a crackpot theory that the mass somehow created us to escape the substructure or perhaps it's using us to learn by proxy hence why it evolves when escaping the habitation hatch. Though the obvious counterpoint to this theory is "why would the mass try to kill us if it needs us to escape.".

girlsmell so bad you can track her from another sector

[Bob]

Originally posted by Feds are in the bread:

I personally think we are in some way connected to the Mass. Judging from the skeletons the facility has been abandoned for a while and the facility was not destroyed the mass i think. Also the mass just kinda appears after we wake up/appear in the silo, though it may have been moving through the facility below us. Also it somehow knows where we are in the abyss which may imply that it has some form of connection with us or alternatively we just smell really bad and it could sniff us out or something.

I have a bit of a crackpot theory that the mass somehow created us to escape the substructure or perhaps it's using us to learn by proxy hence why it evolves when escaping the habitation hatch. Though the obvious counterpoint to this theory is "why would the mass try to kill us if it needs us to escape.".

Not a good idea to theorize the lore based on the in-game interactions, because it brings up even more questions. Why does the mass only want us? it doesn't kill (or eat) the Bloodbug, the Barnacle, the Strider, not even Shrale.

[Iuno]

Originally posted by Bob:

Originally posted by Feds are in the bread:

-snip -

Not a good idea to theorize the lore based on the in-game interactions, because it brings up even more questions. Why does the mass only want us? it doesn't kill (or eat) the Bloodbug, the Barnacle, the Strider, not even Shrale.

The reason it doesn't go for other denizens is because The Mass specifically prefers to fuse sapient life. Only humans have dark neurons, and The Mass really really wants those for some reason (presumably to interact with the peripheries somehow).

[Smrdo_Mudich]

Voice 1 is Jane White Knuckle while Voice 2 is John White Knuckle

[peepperson]

my personal guess is that the climber we play as got wrapped up in some absolutely wild periphery nonsense that either hurled them forward in time a couple decades or kinda trapped them in some kind of alternate-dimension stasis until the events of the game. Maybe they died somehow, but were brought back to life through some wonky periphery science WAY past their original place in time. There's clearly a lot going on with them, so it's hard to say; It could honestly go anywhere at this point.

Would at least somewhat explain why everything shows signs of being abandoned for so long despite our own player character being seemingly just fine, and why the Mass seems to "wake up" the moment we reappear in the Substructure. Everyone is either fused into it or dead by other means, so it makes sense that the moment sapient life pops back into existence it goes nuts.

WK's lore is honestly so interesting to me because outside of the obvious BIG stuff like the Mass, the Face, etc, it seems like so much of the horrific insanity that led to the downfall of the Substructure existed largely independent of everything else, if that makes any sense.

I mean, there's like a BILLION different things that went wrong!!! You've got the Delta events, the Vent Thing infestation in Delta Labs, Habitation Blue's Lambda infestation getting way out of control, evil squid things from another reality invading Tangled Sink, a freaky ass door killing workers in Pipeworks, Teeth getting loose in Service Shaft- So much of the structure has gone completely to sh*t all on its own, seemingly entirely disconnected from The Mass, which is ostensibly the "main" threat of the campaign. Like, I can only begin to imagine what's going on in all of the other Habitations we don't see- The idea that they might all have had their own ridiculous cataclysmic problems that led to their downfalls is pretty amazing.

[C.W. purple]

Originally posted by peepperson:

my personal guess is that the climber we play as got wrapped up in some absolutely wild periphery nonsense that either hurled them forward in time a couple decades or kinda trapped them in some kind of alternate-dimension stasis until the events of the game.

Rise and shine, Misses Climbgirl. Rise... and... shine...

[Superkuzia]

Originally posted by peepperson:

my personal guess is that the climber we play as got wrapped up in some absolutely wild periphery nonsense that either hurled them forward in time a couple decades or kinda trapped them in some kind of alternate-dimension stasis until the events of the game. Maybe they died somehow, but were brought back to life through some wonky periphery science WAY past their original place in time. There's clearly a lot going on with them, so it's hard to say; It could honestly go anywhere at this point.

i honestly think this is fairly plausible considering what we see throughout the game (and what we might see later down the line in the nest), despite how weird it sounds at a glance. the artifacts right before the abyss definitely seem like very big evidence that there's definitely something a lot stranger (and potentially bigger) at play other than the mass and whatever other threats we encounter. i also believe the save system might have something to do with the artifacts as well, both the 'visions' that appear when you save, and the fact that a seemingly normal floppy disc can bring you back to life at a moment's notice.

personally, i believe the people who were working at Habitation Yellow were experimenting on the artifacts, something like that one room in Delta Labs, which slowly led to the downfall of it. hell, it could even be the fault of Habitation Blue, considering the nest supposedly takes place there (note that i haven't actually gotten past the abyss yet, so i might just be wrong on a few details). Habitation Blue might've originally gotten their hands on the artifacts, and subsequently died off, and in the process managed to create all the bugs we see in the game, and either the workers at Habitation Yellow went mad from the artifacts, died, and somehow managed to create the mass from all the bodies, or the bugs just naturally spread over to Habitation Yellow, the workers there weren't prepared enough, and died, also potentially leading to the creation of the mass from how many people died, and also the creation of the others.

i'm not very good at theory crafting (or just guessing in general), but i believe the artifacts might be the catalyst for what would be the superstructure we go through during the events of the game.

edit: okay yeah, i definitely should've read a couple more of the files. in the same file that gives the code to one of the shortcuts, they practically confirm my theory that they were ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around with the artifacts.

[Bob]

Originally posted by Iuno:

Originally posted by Bob:

Not a good idea to theorize the lore based on the in-game interactions, because it brings up even more questions. Why does the mass only want us? it doesn't kill (or eat) the Bloodbug, the Barnacle, the Strider, not even Shrale.

The reason it doesn't go for other denizens is because The Mass specifically prefers to fuse sapient life. Only humans have dark neurons, and The Mass really really wants those for some reason (presumably to interact with the peripheries somehow).

Right, an obvious bandaid-lore to me but I'm fine with that. and yet another question shows up, why doesn't the Mass not eat the Teeth? the Teeth was a human, did the so-called dark neurons disappear after it transform into the Teeth? I don't see any reason to not eat the free food(or free mass) that just goes into your mouth itself, is there any downside?
Even if every Mass related lore is patched up, there art still a lot of questionable things going on in the game, such as... why is the bloodbug not affected by the airflow? why does the giant fan blades not hurting the bloodbug? why does the turret seems to have infinite amount of bullets? why doesn't jumping drain our stamina? I don't want to dig into the rabbit hole too deep.
Maybe everything can be explained by the Periphery magic, which I don't have a problem with. What I'm trying to say is, not every in-game interaction should be treated as part of the lore. We rarely see the Teeth goes into the mass, nor the bloodbug bump into the spinning fan, so that's fine to not having any interaction mechanics for it.
I don't want the devs spenting too much time on thoes minor details.