Backstory/Lore?

[mcsproot]

Is this somewhere inside or outside of the game, or are you just left to pick up titbits?

From what I can tell, the Earth flooded (or the continents sank) leaving only 4 inhabitable islands. Then the Vek, giant bug aliens, came and destroyed what was left.

In some alternate future where the Vek were defeated, the Mech pilots (or their backers) realise that they were very lucky, and those most timelines were unable to stop the Vek. So they risk their lives to save the infinite versions of the past that failed to stop the Vek.

Is that anywhere close to right?

[David]

My head canon is that the time travellers come from a destroyed timeline where they discovered a limited form of time travel going back to certain crisis points before humanity was mostly wiped out by the Vek. Then they go back in time to try to save as many people as possible. They keep going back in time to try to recreate the "perfect" survival scenario.

Perhaps the Vek aren't aliens, but used to live under the planet (whichever planet it is) and humanity disturbed them. Kind of like G.O.W.

[DarkExcalibur42]

From what I can tell, runaway global warming destroyed the Earth. There are still 4.6 billion people living on it, which means there are more islands than just the ones nearest the Vek threat.

With the landscape so badly changed from environmental cataclysm, Archive, Inc. set up a museum island to show what human civilization used to look like. R.S.T. Corporation (Renfield Science & Technology?), who developed advanced terraforming technologies (I presume intended to restore the Earth) turned those devices against the Vek in a scorched Earth strategy that didn't pan out. I can't really tell what Pinnacle Robotics' story is other than they have built and maintained artificial intelligence and robots for decades (centuries?), some of which have gone off the rails. And Detritus Disposal seems like they must be just doing all the trash management for all the other corporations.

Then, the Vek appeared well after this global oceanic catastrophe (falling out of space? or awakening deep within the Earth and crawling to the surface to over-run it?), and began to destroy the world.

The temporal breaches the mech pilots are using to save the world now only go back two weeks, though its unclear if the technology originally came from further ahead in the timeline.

Because of the huge amount of time travel going on, many of these pilots are from alternate time lines that don't exist any more. A lot of them are from different futures. After reading their backgrounds, here are some quick bullet points on the pilots:

• Ralph Karlsson has survived over a hundred failed timelines, making him a likely candidate for being the first time traveler to work against the Vek threat. He refuses to identify which of the islands he's from, and may in fact be from further away (possibly a space station or space program). The original time pods resemble space travel tech, and may have been from a timeline where those resources were adapted to the needs of time travel.

Archive, Inc. Pilots:

• Gana was an old construction bot Archive reworked to use in combat against the Vek. People distrust him, fearing he may malfunction as many robots have on Pinnacle, and his bizarre speech patterns caused by his hasty conversion encourage that fear.
  
• Harold Schmidt previously held jobs on Detritus and Pinnacle before moving to Archive to restore Old Earth robotics, which suited his social isolation needs. He volunteered as a mech pilot in his original timeline so he could get hands-on with the exciting new mech technologies.
  
• Lily Reed drifted ashore on Archive as an orphan and was raised there, and took to mech piloting faster and more naturally than any other Archive volunteers.
  
• Prospero worked as a recylcer robot at Detritus that was sold to Archive, Inc. as a groundskeeper at a discounted rate after suffering an industrial accident.

R.S.T. Pilots:

• Abe Isamu is from a future where R.S.T. held the time travel tech.
  
• Camila Vera was originally an R.S.T. cartographer scouting terraforming sites who took up mech piloting to avenge the death of her adoptive mother, C.E.O. Jessica Kern.
  
• Silica served as a terrain architect for R.S.T.'s terraforming ventures, his design incorporated R.S.T. and Pinnacle technologies.

Pinnacle Pilots:

• Archimedes is from a future where humanity had Artificial Intelligence caretakers, or Sentients, overseeing all their populations.
  
• Bethany Jones was a Pinnacle physicist and engineer who developed shield technologies.
  
• Isaac Jones is biologically Bethany's brother, but they were twins in a pregnancy where their parents had to choose which one to save due to a medical complication. So they've never met growing up, and in timelines they do meet (both being travelers from alternate Earths) they don't know this.
  

Detritus Pilots:

• Chen Rong used to oversee one of the Teleportation Waste Sites and directed the sorting and distribution of trash. He was a volunteer pilot in his original timeline.
  
• Henry Kwan held a low level filing job on Detritus because of his reckless behavior, but scored highly on the mech aptitude tests given to volunteers for mech piloting.

Interesting details about the mechs:

• The Rift Walkers are the original mechs used against the Vek, making them as old as Ralph Karlsson.
  
• The Rusting Hulks and Blitzkrieg are R.S.T. designs that weaponized their terraforming and weather technologies.
  
• The Zenith Guard mechs are from a timeline where Pinnacle and Detritus worked on them as a joint project.
  
• The Frozen Titans' shield and cryo technologies makes me suspect they originated with Pinnacle, though this is not officially mentioned.
  
• The Hazardous Mechs share A.C.I.D. technology with Detritus, which is an odd origin for them given how chaotic they are and how safety-oriented Detritus is in general. Though they do fit Henry Kwan's personality.

Tie in with FTL:
Given that some of the FTL races can crash to Earth and join your squad, it's clear that those civilizations exist out in space. But it's unclear when this Earth lines up with the story of FTL.

The Mantis pilot, Kazaaakpleth, would return to space if the technology to construct a ship existed on this Earth. It doesn't, so he stays here and destroys Vek for fun (no really, he's nuts). EDIT: Turns out Kazaakpleth is also from a quest[ftl.wikia.com] in FTL!

The Rockman pilot, Ariadne, is actually from a quest[ftl.wikia.com] in FTL, suggesting the Earth of Into The Breach occurs during the events of FTL or that she herself fell through a temporal breach.

Either humanity abandonned the Earth after founding the Federation and the corporations left behind are piecing it back together, or this era of Earth history precedes their development of interstellar travel and unless the time travelers stop the Vek the Galactic Federation will never be founded.

[Gerk]

Originally posted by DarkExcalibur42:

The Mantis pilot, Kazaaakpleth, would return to space if the technology to construct a ship existed on this Earth. It doesn't, so he stays here and destroys Vek for fun (no really, he's nuts).

The Rockman pilot, Ariadne, is actually from a quest[ftl.wikia.com] in FTL, suggesting the Earth of Into The Breach occurs during the events of FTL or that she herself fell through a temporal breach.

It's interesting you bring up Ariadne's quest but not Kazaaak's, unless Kazaaakpleth'kilik is in fact a different Mantis from the one in ITB (I assume they dropped the last part for space constraints, and/or maybe it was some title or some such.)

[DarkExcalibur42]

heh i was editing the post when you posted that, since i forgot about him till i started digging through the FTL wiki

[David]

Blasphemy, how you can forget Kizpalethki'kapleh but remember Ariadne. Kzplekkaale-klek best character in FTL.

All hail your new mantis overlord, Kaleeki'kakpleh.

[DarkExcalibur42]

I forgot Ariadne too, but the Into the Breach wiki specifically mentions her quest.