Story Discussion (possible spoilers)

[FleshTorpedo]

Anyone able to gleen the story towards the end there? The prequel comic that was released was an amazing insight into what casued our pal Constructs damage and his purpose. The ending was a little vague (obv thats the point with no spoken words) but as i understand, the Dark Queen at the end was either an alien that crashed onto the planet and started to try and convert the resident species (symbyotic?) OR that the Dark Queen was one of the ruling class (the ones sitting in the chairs that were covered in tentacles and slime) that had been converted by an object that crashed onto the planets surface. Thoughts?

[FleshTorpedo]

Yea i did both endings. What my questions were pertaining to was the assumed story the "Dark Queen" was telling our Hero. The arm and fist gestures made it seem like a comet or "ship" of some kind crashed. I was curious to know if that was anyone elses take away. I HIGHLY suggest you read the offical prelude comic because its explains exactly what happened to the (as you described) "Hand to the Queen" and what happened to the roboitc construct that helps you along the way. https://www.runicgames.com/hob/comic/#page1

[magickmynd]

From what I can understand from the combination of what the queen is pantomiming and from the murals you can access with your sword, the race of people that the player character comes from left their home planet for some unknown reason. Either it was dying, running out of power, there was some kind of calamity, etc, I'm not 100% sure. They left their home or planet and had a colony ship travel to a new planet. It appears they crash landed there and started taking over and colonizing the planet, turning it into a giant machine, incorporating nature and technology. However, it appears there was already a native species there.

The native species either felt like or knew they were being invaded and saw the reconstruction of the planet into a machine as either heresy or destruction of the natural order. The native species fought back and created the corruption to attack the machine people, destroying a vast majority of their colonizing opperation and halting any further progress.

During that time machine sentinels were sent out to find individuals with the ability to combat the corruption. This has failed many times before, as is evidenced by the fact that there are all of those ancient, rusted husks around with sword fragments.

There was even a case before where a selected champion joined with the native forces to serve their queen rather than fight to eliminate her. So the two endings are kind of a grey area. On the one hand you have the supposed "good" ending, where you fight the corruption and release the remaining colonists to finish converting the planet, and everything looks green and happy.

Then there is the "bad" ending, where you decide to join forces with the "dark" queen and your robot companion goes looking for another champion to combat the corruption. Personally I have a hard time deciding between the two endings as to which one is the actual "good" ending.

On the one hand you have a native species who is fighting back against unnatural invaders trying to defend their home and be at peace with nature, whearas on the other hand you have a technologically advanced species fleeing their home, either because of natural causes or destruction of their own creation, to find a new home. Either to learn from their mistakes and become closer to what they feel like symbiosis with nature should be, or just to recreate the world to what they knew from their original home.

I think both endings have a lot of merit and reasons to go with either one.

[FleshTorpedo]

Damn i never even thought of that... That what she was gesturing was our Heroes species crashing into the planet and disrupting what was already there... Great insight, ill need to keep playing to find more of the murals that you speak of!

[SerMaddin]

Have you also noticed that the plague had a different structure in the "bad" ending? It looked somehow more solid and also had those yellow glowy things on it like the queens hair. While still infesting everything it looked less dangerous and not so viral as before. Maybe you helped the queen to control the plague somehow.

Also noteworthy. The first hand of the Queen helps you during the game and even saves your life and your Robot pal even stops you from attacking her. Is he still trying to rescue her and did we actually kill her at the end? So many open questions.

[oak]

I like that theory, and it fits with how it *felt* during the end scene (I've only completed the ending with taking the Other Mothers hand, I went back to take the 'fight' option, but still can't beat them), but I was grasping at intuitive straws to get that.

It revealed my only real complaint about the game (I've sunk 38 hours into 1 play through, and will be replaying in other saves plus trying to complete all collectibles, I absolutely LOVE the game): the ending is quite quick for the storytelling it's trying to wrap up, and if you haven't found enough collectibles it leans more into the vague side than I like.

I've not collected enough sword parts to unlock all the lore rooms, which by all accounts helps getting a better understanding of the world, and so from a storytelling perspective it's a little frustrating to get to "the end" and not have the full story because I didn't find all the sometimes craftily hidden collectibles. I wound up reach the pinacle of the story with only 2 lore rooms opened and effectively guesstimating (based on a little info from the game and the weight of decades of scifi trope knowledge) what my motivation would be for getting there and just taking her hand. There's very little I'd change about the game if I had the power to do so - adding just a *smidge* more digestible exposition at the end (pre and post choice) would be it.