#the Saint ascending the Artificer is just Unstoppable Force vs Immovable Object

[its-rat-time-babey]

Rain World Artificer Headcanons:

(This is talking about a post-Scavenger King Artificer by the way)

The Artificer cannot ascend, that part is obvious, but the true extent of that inability to ascend is insane. Her killing of the scavenger king permanently bound her to the world in every single sense of the word.

When a creature dies of old age or generally natural causes in Rain World, they reincarnate as another member of their species (or whatever is genetically closest if their old species is extinct) in the same cycle. The higher karma and therefore less bound to the cycle the creature is, the less the creature remembers of its past life.

But the Artificer is so low in terms of karma (even when compared to other creatures at karma level one) that when they reincarnate, they remember EVERYTHING. Even other creatures at karma one forget something, however small that thing may be, but not the Artificer. They remember their past lives like it was yesterday.

But that’s not all. The Artificer is so bound to the cycle that the very cells and DNA in their body remembers what it was like before reincarnation, and after being reborn as a new slugcat, the Artificer’s body will slowly change back to that of the old Artificer over the course of several years. Her fur falls out to be replaced by dark red fur, her body heats up until plants like bubbleweed burn at the touch, her spit slowly becomes more flammable and sticky, one of her eyes loses its vision, etc.

Her Citizen ID drone also always eventually comes back to her as well, as Citizen ID drones were built with the intention of being able to find their old owners after they reincarnate.

And finally, the Artificer can’t just not ascend. She can’t become an echo either.

Despite the Artificer disappearing when attempting to ascend with the implications that she became an echo, we never see a slugcat echo in any future campaigns. Even the Saint in their pilgrimage to see every echo doesn’t see her. In the same game where whether or not you ascended as a character like the Hunter affects the next campaign, that seems strange. So I’m running with that information and using it for whatever I want.

You become an echo when you attempt to ascend, but there’s something preventing you from ascending fully. Something binds you to the world and holds you back, so you get stuck in between existence and non-existence and become an echo.

The Artificer fits all of those requirements for becoming an echo. They attempt to ascend but her anger and past violence holds her back, so she should get stuck in between life and death and become an echo. But that doesn’t happen. The Artificer is so angry and full of violence that instead of getting fully stuck between existence and non-existence, she ever so slightly tilts the balance towards existence, as her low karma just barely outweighs the process of ascension and she comes back to the physical reality.

Or at least her conscious does. Her body is completely vaporized by void fluid for understandable reasons (it is some kind of hyper-acid after all), so the only thing that actually comes back is her consciousness, which immediately has to reincarnate into a new body. It also takes a long time for her consciousness to actually leave the void, several years in fact, but it eventually happens. So void fluid ascension is basically just reincarnation with extra steps and a several year delay to the Artificer.

Even the Saint would struggle to ascend her (and with how the Artificer just keeps coming back, she’s probably still around somewhere by the time of the Saint. (Probably thriving with her naturally high body temperature and ability to create heat making it easy to live in the ice age)), with the Artificer either shrugging off the Saints ascensions or taking multiple ascensions to stay down. And even then they’ll eventually come back to the physical world. The Artificer is permanently bound to the cycle and nothing can remove them from it.

The Artificer (or at least my version) is basically the Anti-Saint. The demon to the Saint’s angel.

Both are slugcats that are permanently bound to the cycle, with even void fluid being unable to ascend them, but:

The Saint cannot harm others.

The Artificer is a destructive force of nature that sent the entire scavenger population into a permanent dark age with her violence and destruction, leaving countless dead in her wake.

While the Saint cannot ascend themselves, they selflessly ascend others, even those that cannot ascend like Iterators.

If you take the game mechanic of death taking your karma level down by one as more than just a game mechanic, then the Artificer actively prevents other creatures from ascending by killing them and by doing so, lowering their karma.

The Saint is an echo and therefore exists in a state beyond the cycle.

The Artificer is permanently bound to the cycle and exists in a state permanently within it.

The Saint’s cycle is never-ending and bound to a certain point in time, with ascension bringing them back in time to the beginning of their journey.

The Artificer is bound to a cycle, but that cycle forever moves forwards in time, with ascension and death by old age just making them reincarnate into a new body at the beginning of its own new cycle.

The Saint is the last slugcat in the timeline.

The Artificer is one of the first, beaten only by the Spearmaster.

The Saint is the living personification of Karma Ten, the highest level of Karma and the Karma amount required for ascension.

The Artificer is the living personification of Karma One, the lowest level of Karma and the furthest you can possibly get from ascension.