OK long ass Hollowknight post because I've been thinking about this for actual days now
So this is gonna be a long ass splurge and all but bare with me here, I'm writing this up as a timeline from hallownests sort of beginning up to where the Pale king would show up based on all the lore my nerd ass consumed from obsessive playthroughs
So, in the beginning hallownest was split into 7 sort of kingdoms, but only 5 "Higher beings" existed, and we will start with them
The first is Unn, the Verdant god of leaf and vine, taking up her place within green path and what would become the queens gardens as her territory, her mosskin held to a sort of traditional kingdom structure, with knights and priests and other such stations
The second is what would become the Radiance, her peaceful tribe of moths taking their residence within and on the crystal peak and what would later become the resting grounds, her subjects linked via their dreams in a sort of communal intelligence
The third is the White lady, and while there's nothing that explicitly would say so, I personally believe she originated in the cavern that would become the city of tears, the pale god of root thriving in the endless downpour.
The fourth is likely the King of Deepnest, who may have been known as the Blackwyrm but that's speculation as well, either way the king and queen of Deepnest held strong in their own section of the world, their kin described as among the most intelligent of bugs on their own.
The fifth and final "higher being" was Vespa, queen of the Hive, her subjects unified in a hive mind with her at its head, creating a great civilization in their own right.
While not lead by higher beings, 2 other civilizations came to be during this era of hallownest,
The shrumal, a fungal kingdom of a truly communal intelligence. Larger shrumal having larger portions of this communal mind, with smaller ones having less, but all were truly connected and communicated via the prevalent spores throughout the wastes and what would become the waterways, feasting on the runoff and waste of the other civilizations above them.
Then was the final and most obscure kingdom I only really refer to as "the ancient caste" or "Void kingdom" who did not devote to any higher being or communal sense but instead worshipped the very darkness within the bowels of the world, the Void. This kingdom likely originated in the ancient basin or potentially within the abyss although that seems unlikely.
(Its sorta worth mentioning that kingdoms edge may have been ruled by the lord fool even at this time but there's nothing saying he didn't come later either or that he was a higher being or anything)
For some time at least, these 7 disparate civilizations remained in a stable lock-step. All keeping to their own spheres of power.
The Ancient caste, likely as a result of the all-consuming nature of the very force of nature they worshipped, one day shattered this stasis by seeking to expand their dominion across the whole of hallownest, their knowledge of the Void and Soul giving them an edge against the bugs they would face, but they faced 2 major obstacles right away: Deepnest and the Hive.
I base this on the prevalence of soul-totems, which we know through lemm are the work of this kingdom, throughout hallownest, of which few to none existed within these locations. However they were able to push up through the Shrumal kingdom, the shrumal not being as fierce or strong in any was as the beasts of Deepnest or the Hive.
Once through there, it's likely the White lady wouldnt have put up much resistance to their expansion, potentially even letting them through without resistance as she is a fairly passive entity and many of the totems can be found within this cavern even when it becomes the city of tears.
Circumventing the hive the ancient caste sought to go under it, reaching as far out as the caverns beneath where the nailmaster would eventually take up residence.
However their progress upwards continued strong, pushing into the leafy groves of Unn, but her kin resisted with much more force than could be said of the moth tribesmen.
The pacifistic moths would likely have been as lambs to the slaughter before this all-consuming army, eventually forced to beg the Radiance herself to save them. (Keep in mind this is heavily speculative, but I base this on the Radiance recognizing the Knight, a being of void, as an "Ancient enemy", and the word ancient is used most often in reference to this kingdom).
The radiance would have brought victory, blazing a path through hallownest and shattering the Ancient caste's civilization, driving them to obscurity into the abyss.
The Raduance herself however was greatly affected by this, I believe she was so injured from the fighting that her physical form was "killed" forcing her to retreat into the Dream-realm, giving her followers the final command "Remember Light". The moths would build the statue at hallownests crown and seek to further unlock the secrets of the dream realm as a result of this, eventually crafting the dream nail. This is also likely when the first moths began to take up arms, although still few would do so.
So at this point hallownest was in a sorry state, the Radiance was more or less dead, Unn would have been severely weakened from the fight and retreated to her lake to recover, and the White lady was further isolated within her forest of root (probably), the Shrumal had lost a great deal of Biomass. Both Deepnest and the Hive however were in fairly good shape and could have even expanded, but for the wisdom of Vespa and the King of beasts to not expand beyond what they could reasonably control.
It was during this time period then that the Pale King would arrive. Whether he knew the weakened state of the kingdom or not, there was no other power that could or would resist his sudden arrival and rapid expansion of the lesser insects that lived within Hallownest, those that may have been overlooked by the other higher beings and their tribes suddenly had minds with which to think, and all were drawn to his immense power and pale light.
The White lady, also a Pale being, would be taken for his Queen and the cavern she inhabited would become the City of Tears, and She would be gifted the Queens garden area as a personal retreat, further Weakening Unn and assuring her Gradual fade from power.
The moths, Seeing this new, more bright light forgot the radiance, Sealing her away and devoting themselves to the Pale king (if you want to blame anyone for the infection, its them).
The subjects of Unn, weakened and no longer in contact with their god, yielded to the king, but maintained their devotion to her.
The shrumal also yielded to him, believing his Prescience able to shield them from yet another catastrophic war in which so much of them would die.
Deepnest and the Hive utterly rejected the new King, Deepnest going so far as to go to War with the king when he attempted to expand into the territory, while the Hive merely cut themselves off entirely.
The Mantis tribes also resisted, but struck a deal with the King to guard against invasion from deepnest in exchange for their Independence.
The Pale king built his palace away from the city, in the Ancient basin, likely to keep an eye on the Abyss and to grant himself the privacy to devote to his own projects.
And thus came the Era of the kingdome of Hallownest, the Pale King controlling and Leading the vast majority of the region into a sort of Golden age, which would last until an experimental mining operation in search of a possible new energy source would infect the mind of one miner with the Image of the Radiance, her light distorted and Angry after being forgotten, sprung forth as the plague and brought the Kingdom to ruin.
