#originium

[laurarolla]

Arknights dropped the "Babel" event last week and I did actually read through almost all of it (I got interrupted by something partway through the introduction of the Doctor and ended up never reading that cutscene), and it's an interesting mix of various story elements and character histories. What interests me most is our final answer to the origins of the Doctor and the precursors, as well as the purpose of Originium.

The simplest way to describe Originium, as best I can gather, is that it is a possibly primordial element that the precursors discovered/theorized contained a collective universe of consciousness, or could be used for that purpose. Civlight Eterna is an originium art that can tap into this element of Originium to connect to history, providing a potentially perfect understanding to the one using it. This power, passed through the Black Crown, is not unlike the ability of a Newtype, connecting across conciousness through time and without limitations. However, it can also create physical manifestations of power pulled from that history and those connections, as seen with Ying Xiao, Amiya's sword that was created from the memories of Chen's Chi Xiao in Chapter 8.

In an effort to either overcome or escape the threat of some unnamed malevolent force, the precursors created or modified Terra to serve as a garden of Originium, intending to create that collective consciousness for their own ends. The mastermind behind this project, as far as Oracle (the true original Doctor) and Friston have stated is Priestess, who was set up as the next big narrative mystery to solve or explain post-Victoria. The story of Babel shows a version of the Doctor struggling to deal with the moral dilemma created when living, sentient creatures were born on Terra after the start of the experiment.

Kal'tsit went on a whole personal journey to eventually come to the conclusion that the life on Terra has a right to make their own future, and that any of the intentions of the "experiment" should be abandoned. Oracle comes to the same conclusion, with dialouge options the player must specifically click on as they do when speaking for the Doctor in most parts of the story. However, some other voice inside the Doctor's head keeps pushing them to continue the mission, leading to the tragedy of Theresa's murder and Amiya's crowning. Additionally, Theresa took her last moments to destroy the Doctor's memories, an act that Oracle accepts as necessary. It's likely that only be destroying the Doctor's memories could the Doctor be free of Priestess's influence, allowing them to pursue the path that Oracle, their true self and OUR version of the Doctor, would prefer.

Other little highlights of the event for me include: Getting to see Savage in the history of Babel, the Vampire lord continuing to be a repugnant and irredeemable prick, Ascalon defeating a sociopathic enemy by overwhelming his precognition abilities, little Amiya and the Doctor riding a big animal, and Theresis just being the big old complicated walking catastrophe that he's always been.

Oh, and the chain mechanic is pretty awesome, with the EX stages really requiring you to think very carefully about how you need to deploy to actually use the chains effectively. Probably in my top 5 event mechanics in the game overall.

[day-at-rhodes-island]

Everybody ready for another theory?

I've talked about how originium seems to be a form of grey goo, crystalline collections of nanomachines consuming carbon and heat to build more originium, but I don't think that's what it was intended to be.

I mean think about it, it's a pretty bad world-destroying weapon all things considered. It might get there eventually, but anything that has trouble digesting living tissues wasn't built to be an ecosystem devouring apocalypse.

No, I think originium was an attempt to create a different theoretical material. I think originum was meant to be computronium.

Imagine a computer of such monstrously vast processing power that anything could be calculated, and to build it all you have to do is feed it carbon and energy. Just stick that bad boy in orbit and keep tossing it material, let it power itself with solar energy and in a decade or so you could be well on your way to making a jupiter brain.

Then something went wrong. Anything that replicates can make a mistake and pass that mistake along, it mutates, becomes something you weren't expecting. One day a single particle made a mistake, made a single nanomachine in a crystalline lattice of millions incorrectly, and it started to replicate. It began to consume the structure around it, not recognizing it as more of itself. The imperfect crystal spread and fractured the once perfect whole, and pieces fell to the world below.

It burrowed into coal veins, blossomed in the heat of volcanoes, and airborne dust seeded catastrophic storms. Over millennia the originium spread further, changed further, developing varied properties and structures, imprinting information into malfunctioning processing lattices, and the people forgot what was once possible, forgot a time before they lived in a poisoned world.

[paladinguy]

The only Arknights lore video you need | 𝙉𝙀𝙒𝘽𝙄𝙀 𝙀𝘿𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉™ Part 1

[sameoldgb]

It just dawned on me that oripathy and the catastrophes are such a great analogy for capitalism. It grinds people to literal dust, which in turn feed the system back. Natural disasters on such a scale that individual people or groups are powerless to stop. And society grew around it, despite it.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

“Yeah, you see, my boss is directly responsible for my wife getting captured by a dark church of the deep that worships the very eldritch god I took part in slaying several years ago. So now most of the time my wife’s body is controlled by a separate consciousness that comes from the black crystals they implanted in her spine, and that consciousness believes itself to be of a nun of the church of the deep, which means she worships the very dark god that I slayed. And to make matters worse, when I killed the eldritch god it’s blood mixed with mine and now I’m its vessel and I have to resist giving in to its corruption to avoid bringing about the cataclysmic demise of the entire world as the oceans would swallow the land and creatures of the deep would devour and assimilate everything until there was nothing left at which point the hivemind mass of the dark god will spread across the cosmos seeking more worlds to devour. On top of all that, the nun in my wife’s body has my wife’s insatiable libido. and ever since she found out that I’m the vessel of her god she’s been constantly begging me to ‘fill her with my divine seed’ and to be honest the whole thing is making our weekly game nights really awkward for everyone.”

[pelko-p]

"You got to try it, bratan"

[swagburger4]

i keep forgetting to post my art here. my slugsona…

[burstfoot]

Muelsyse is so funny

[den-ai-d]

Rangers...my old man! You can't be this cool while only being a two star 😭

[starcrashedsatellite]

Shennong emotes for your emoting needs

[oltammefru]

Some dots to connect:

[day-at-rhodes-island]

I have a question for you (well many questions really, big fan of your blog by the way),

do you think it’s plausible that the Sarkaz created originium?

I ask for two reasons: First, in the “A Walk in the Dust” event (WD-7 after story) it’s mentioned twice that the special blue originium crystals were found in a specific ancient sarkaz ruin (and also that current technology can’t replicate them). Second, that smug sanguinarch goes on a tirade in the main story (11-17 before story) where he says that the sarkaz and everybody else have different origins and that all of terra used to be kazdel. 

This strongly suggests to me that any ancient sarkaz ruin was probably a teekaz settlement or something and that any super hi-tech stuff found within was teekaz technology. So my thinking is that if originium was created by somebody for whatever reason, it was probably them.

Excellent question! I appreciate the cited sources.

While the ancient Sarkaz did create new variants of originium (the diαbolic shards that were used to create Ifrit are another example), I don't think they created originium itself. Not because of anything that disproves it, but because I think there's a more likely option.

There is a different ancient race of people that has been consistently associated with supertechnology: whatever the hell Doctor is. My best guess (with the information we have right now) is that they were the ones responsible, and Kazdel came after.

[adorablegorilla]

Thinking about how Joyce is just. Such a naturally affectionate person. She can't express it through normal words because of Device #9 but she still finds ways to show how much she loves people. Hugging Silence when she's overworking herself. Making visual novel jokes to the Doctor about her "affection leveling up" and pranking them in her E2 line. Helping Ifrit see Saria bc she knows it would be best for them. Immediately taking the opportunity of being able to speak normally for a brief time in Dorothy's Vision to tell Silence how grateful she is for their companionship. This funny owl has so much love and affection bursting out of her and she won't let her condition stop her from expressing it.

[partycannoninc]

[pelko-p]

You. You have been invited by Gummy.

[kurozu501]

genuinely feel like the rhine lab record of originium manhua is a better arknights story then the games main plot tbh lmao.

An actual focus on curing originium through the story of ifrit's condition in the past, and trying to save the darya girl in the present. A discussion of medical and scientific ethics vs a "results at all costs" perspective. The story is simultaneously about a lot of big picture arknights lore stuff like the columbia scientific community, the secret military project ifrit represented, the sarkaz shard she was implanted with, etc, but its also this really small personal character story about silence, saria and ifrit forming a tiny happy found family in a den of vipers. How they were eventually torn apart by both the lies others told them and their own actions. The constant flashes between the past and the present creating an incredible contrast and mystery as we slowly uncover how things got this way with some of the best writing ive seen in ages. its fantastic.

i really feel like its a much better introduction to the world and themes of arknights then the game itself.

like at the end of the manhua when silence calls herself powerless but then valiantly swears to someday find a cure to originium, to save ifirit, joyce, and all the others suffering, THATS the first time i actually felt invested in the supposed overarching goal of finding a cure to the disease. that's supposed to be the whole plot reason rhodes island exists? but in the games actual story our main characters doctor, amiya, and kaltsit are always too busy running around fighting terrorists and sarkaz royalty. There's zero focus on actually finding a cure. and thats fine, that stuffs not bad, its just kinda funny to me that if we do ever reach a point in the story where they achieve a cure, im gonna be happy for silence, not amiya.