What is element and where did it come from?

[ToothedJaw]

Hello ark nerds. I am writing this to engage the nerdy side of my brain and I would also love to know who else is looking to fill in the mysteries in Ark Extinction.

My question is where did element come from?


THE NATURE OF ELEMENT
First lets look at what it is. Element is a resource that seems to live. It has warmth and sound and is used as a metal and energy source. It also seems to have an effect on people that makes it seem sacred to them. Rockwell is a good example of this. She Who Waits also mentions this in her notes.

Element seems to actually be an energy consumer in some way. Santiago describes in his explorer notes that element actually releases a compound or that it replicates in VERY small amounts. On its own, it could take thousands of years to create a teaspoon unless it is replecated by other means.

it was used by mankind in the far future to build cities, technology, and weapons. In the wake of a war, element was used to combat the opposing sides. This is considered replecation and a once stable material soon began to corrupt living systems. People got sick, animals became corrupt, and the organism began to have a mentality of its own. It eventually manifested itself into a hyperpowerful entity we know as the king titan. In fact, the titans and all too likely the bosses are based off of element.

On that note, I would guess that the titans are the "natural" creation of element while the gorilla, spider, and dragon are man made replicas used to train the survivor.

THE ORIGIN OF ELEMENT
I am unsure, but She Who Waits may have described element as coming from the sky. It could be an alien life form or resource.

Santiago describes the nature of element which makes me believe it also could be a natural resource that only became known in the last few centuries.



FAN SPECULATION

I think element is a living organism and resource. It gives out heat and sound. That and it replicates means that it contains traits of a living organism but it is used in all manners of life.

If we reached a level of industry and invention that rivals what we have today, what would power it? What is more efficient and available than all fuels and energy sources today?

The answer: it doesn't exist. What if mankind made a new energy source that doubled as a metal. You can grow it anywhere, it is easily refineable, it is long lasting and moldable, it pairs with already existing resources like metal, and it doubles as a hyper efficient energy source.

I don't think it came here on a space rock or that it was burried in the soil for millions of years. I think mankind made element so that he would never need to dig for gold, oil, or rock. I think it was manufactured to be the perfect object: an item that could do anything, however, when we gave it life, it began to evolve. It found a mind of its own, and began to eat the earth.

What do you guys think? Honestly, this seems realistic and possible for this storyline. I may have missed something in the explorer notes though. I'm all ears.

[ntengineer]

IMO the biggest clue is the broken moon on Extinction. I think Element is just that... an element... that was discovered on the moon that was able to provide wall that you mention. There is already elements that can provide heat, weapons, etc. So this would just be a new element. The broken moon I think is what led the planet to its current state.

I imagine it went something like this.
- We find Element on the moon
- We learn how to use it, turn it into things, melt it, etc.
- We get greedy, and mine the moon too much.
- Moon has serious problem and breaks apart, sending parts of itself down to earth.
- Those parts contained more raw Element than could ever be brought down with ships, so it begins to corrupt the earth.
- Leading to where the state of the earth is in Extinction.

I imagine when the latter part of that started happening, they started using what little time they had left to build the ARKs. And to somehow take people out of history and transport them there. Then shortly afterwards most people on earth died. Or possibly the ARKs were already built and were part of a plan to colonize another planet.

One thing we don't know in the story, is how long the ARKs have existed, and how long Earth has been barren. It might have been 100s or 1000s of years.

[ToothedJaw]

good ideas! No telling how old the arks have been around. We may never know. She Who Waits never mentioned how long. She lost track of time. It's likely been millenium.

I like your theory about the moon. The destruction of the moon itself would have massive impacts on the earth. Nights would be darker, tides would stop moving in, rivers would dry up. Animal behavior would change also.

I think you are right about the moon rocks falling to earth. Although I don't know if we have enough info. If the rocks in asteriod drops in the game are moon rocks then the earth wouldn't have as long to disentegrate them. Therefore, large rocks would hit the earth. However, if the earth lost its poles, it would dissable the magnetic field, causing rocks to fall often, radiation to seep in, and generally create an extinction like world.

I don't know that the moon was the root cause tho. Diana describes that she was a fighter pilot durring a futuristic war and Santiago confirms that if man used element in warfare it would replicate beyond control.

As for the making of the arks, I would imagine that in the wake of an element war, the climate would have changed so drastically that the obelisks would have been invented to regulate temprature and enviornment. I think by the time they knew the planet would die, the had all the parts made. All they needed to do was test it. The prototypes on earth did well for that. Setting up an artificial enviornment with animal spawning and a titan boss. After the trials, they were ready to launch.

I used to think they used space elevators to get the arks up to orbit but now I am unsure. As for people from thousands of years ago, I have no idea. She Who Waits says that she was able to see Diana's soul wherever she was and that she was able to bring her back to life. She also mentions that the city contains the power to resurect our character. She goes on to warn us that after the arks are returned, there is no more respawning. Haven't ascended yet so I can't be sure about all that.

Would be cool to see an expansion or modder make chapter 2 of extinction: tons of trees, life, no element, and an ark down with us on earth like in the cutscene.

Thanks for your ideas!

[Dakuwan]

Noice.

[Aorka]

To me, the nature of element sounds very similar to Tiberium from the C&C Tiberian saga: an alien substance that crashed (seeded) on earth as a meteor, capable of consuming surrounding matter to turn it into more tiberium and releasing energy and radiation in the process.
The radiation mutated people and the ecosystem in general but the crystals themselves have been used by mankind to power their machines and to develop tiberium based superweapons.

[Sora]

after finally completing the story i have my own take on element as well as other forms of it (element ore, element dust, element shards).
So my take is that element itself is a man made hybrid substance that was made from element ore and combined with stabalizing metals/resources to make a stable element and is why when crafting element from element dust you get unstable element first (needs time and energy to become stable even after mixed). Thus making element a man made combination of element ore and whatever else that they used to stabalize it. Now onto why they made it, well we know element is used as a power source/fuel, crafting resource, and ammo. So basically it does everything, which leads to my theory that the name element refers to the fact that it can and probably did replace all other elements' use in the future.
So where did element ore come from? we can only mine the ♥♥♥♥ from aberration so we can assume aberration has some sort of connection to where element rose from or where it was discarded. My theory here is it was discarded onto aberration causing the ark to shutdown and malfunction. However, the harsh surface of aberration killed off the elements corruption and only affected a few things (reapers, seekers, and nameless). However, since they could just be a result of the arks harsh conditions i dont think they were corrupted. We know that after injecting himself with element ore rockwell became well...a boss fight corrupted thing. So how did he become corrupted but nothing else did? Well that leads me to the next thing, why is it mined only in aberration? and why does the corruption on earth feel alive compared to aberration? well my guess is that the element found on aberration never sunk into the soil, while in earth it did and even tho its been removed in its purest form, it still holds the earth with its already corrupted soil and everything below.
So element ore, it can only affect you if injected into the blood. we can assume if injected into a dino it would either kill or corrupt it like rockwell. Element ore can also be refined into element on aberration, so that confirms that if we cant mine it on extinction that at least any surface/available ore is gone. The only element you can get after is from the already made items on extinction (lights, seats, defenders, enforcers, tek dinos). So element ore itself might of been the source of the issue and therefore the king titan being heavily corrupted could have been created to stop any and all halt to humans trying to take the element away. Given that the arks can destroy the corruption, my guess is the king titan could easily destroy the arks and thus stop the corruption being purged.
Next, we know element shards and dust are just forms of element, they are made from it direcrly and can be made back into it with ease. Not much info needed there, im just assuming element dust is more like a fuel that normal element it terms of efficiency in machines (similar to gas vs oil).
So final thoughts about why this all happened and why it couldnt be stopped unless you destroyed the king titan. Well we know the "element" spawned him as well as every other corrupted dino on the map. Killing the big boss however, would cause the threat the element had to be neutralized. Which means, the king titan himself was a nuclear deterrent against the destruction of the element from the earth. Meaning the king titan was the sole reason the element couldnt be destroyed earlier on and why the arks had to be created.
Also lets talk about the titans, you can tame them by destroying the corruption on them. So i assume that titans are actually either man made or engineered to combat the corruption early on but instead got corrupted and then abandonded by humans. While the king titan is fully corrupted the other titans are not. So im assuming that the king titans are either completely corrupted and distorted "normal" titans, or the elements take on the human made titan...just with a little bit of element juice pumped into every fiber of its being.

So in conclusion i believe that element may have a parasitic type relationship with earth. And it spawns the corrupted dinos as a defense from the host or foreign invaders from destroying it. However, the element that corrupted the earth was its purest form and once removed and placed on the most desolate ark, it was deactivated and supposed to be gone for good...but well the ark was never deactivated and soon survivors and dinos alike spawned there. The element in the earth couldnt be purged because it spawned a king titan everytime they tried to destroy it, and given humans couldnt stop it, they fled and created arks to train the perfect weapons against the element. And once the king was gone, the element lost, it used all its remaining power to summon its "god" and like king leonidas and batman, these perfect survivors made him bleed. The element had to recharge, but it was too late. The arks were already about to land, and the element already weakened, couldnt fight back. Thus retaking earth from the element.

Also just for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles, lets just appreciate that the things that purge the element on each ark are too high for the king titan to destroy and therefore could probably purge the element if given time, the only reason it couldnt is that the king titan being defeated drains element, and not it being summoned. kinda a plot hole there if my theory is somewhat right. OH well, lets just assume the writers had no idea their game would take off as big as it did and left out a lot because of this

[ToothedJaw]

Cool thoughts. I think they confirmed Aberation's element in an explorer note. It's been a while, but I think that Santiago, Helena, Me Ing (I know I've butchered her spelling), and Diana get into the Overseer's control room and put a BIG bomb in it. That caused the ark to go into chaos. The element (though it is man made, it grows exponentially) Took over, especially the liquid element. The survivors were able to use it to create a "tek city" which can be found in the safe zones in aberation. Rockwell, wanting to know more about element (and it was growing on him hahaha) began testing the liquid, refined form. He eventually injected it into his arm, and then his body, creating the horrific monster we destroy later on.

Earth looks the way it does because element was mass produced. When humans figured out it was spreading uncontrolably, it was too late. They created the arks as the inhabitants of earth succumbed to the creatures born out of the new, evolved, earth. Only the sanctuaries in orbit carried life outside of the Titans' control and when we beat the king titan, the sanctuaries safely return life as we know it to earth so that the element can be purged (IDK how I don't think they specified on that process but Helena says it at the very last cutscene in the game).

I'm kind reading and writing as I go. Yes, element is VERY similar to the flood from halo. It has a hive mind so it forms intelegent beings and can take over wild animals. The lesser animals are "controled" by the king titan to protect it and the element.

They teased rockwell's return so I'd love to see the game makers expand the story. I think Atlas might be a prequel. Don't know. Good speculation!

[Helios]

Exstinction is realy close to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_Planet_of_the_Monsters making Element a Nanite like substance. One of the core thesis of the movies is that every civilisation that is advanced enough creates something like a monster that destoys that civilisation element might be that double edged sword.