Was any information ever found on what these weird floating circles in the lower portions of Migration Path actually are? They're so weird. They look kinda like empty void spawn eggs to me, but they just . . . . Float around.
I honestly don't know... Migration Path as a whole is a pretty big mystery to me.
The bubbles themselves are a Fairy Particle preset (similar to the floating glyphs found inside of the House of Braids) and can be found in the files under mods/watcher/fairypresets/pathbubbles.txt
The fact that they're bubbles at first makes me think that Migration Path is underwater, however several of the rooms the bubbles are found in are open-air rooms, and none of the rooms in the region contain any water.
The region itself appears to be some sort of elevated rail bridge. It seems to be primarily used by the Tower Crabs found in the region as a means of migration (hence the region's name):
I'm not sure what the bridge spans- the area around the bridge mostly appears to be desert, though the western side of the region also has some rooms that are reminiscent of Sky Islands, albeit with sand and dried up plants:
In addition to the bubble Fairy Particles, there are also a few different FloatingDebris objects found throughout the region.
There's one called "Big Tube" that I can't really figure out the function of- it seems to sit in the background and fill the entire screen in most rooms. I think it's there for ambiance more than anything else, to give the "sky" a darker look.
However, there is also lots of Stardust.
Stardust is most commonly found in Outer Rim, of course:
But it also occasionally shows up in other regions, such as Heat Ducts:
Despite Stardust's lore importance, its usage in Heat Ducts seems to be purely cosmetic.
I'm not sure if its usage in Migration Path serves a similar cosmetic purpose, or if it does have some sort of lore implication.
The appearance of the bubbles in Migration Path do appear concurrently with the Stardust, primarily in the region's lower rooms:
In addition to this weirdness, I think it's also worth mentioning that the larger "claw" shaped objects in many of the lower rooms are called "Drill Legs" and "Drill Shells" in the level editor:
And many of Migration Path's walls are made of a new material called "ShellWall" and "ShellBrickWall" that I can't find in any other levels:
Because of this, I believe that the lower half of Migration Path is made up of discarded Drill Crab shells. However, the ones seen in the level editor are MUCH larger than the Drill Crabs and Tower Crabs we see in-game, which makes me think that they can grow much larger than the ones we see.
Perhaps the Drill Crabs we see in-game are smaller descendants of these larger crabs, which may have been large purposed organisms used for construction. They might have helped build the elevated railway, or maybe their shells were even used in part of the structure itself.
I'm not sure how this relates to the bubbles or Stardust, but the shells do show up in a lot of the same rooms as these particle effects. Maybe the bubbles are the result of some form of decay or offgassing?
I also think it's worth noting that the level editor files for Migration Path are sorted into four folders, which I assume were intended to be different subregions:
These "subregions" refer to the different rooms which start with A, B, C, D, and S, respectively. Here's a map of the region with the different "subregions" color-coded:
The name "Tethered Isles" makes me think of "Sky Islands", which might be why they appear so similar. Perhaps Migration Path is an elevated railway spanning a large ravine, connected to a communications array similar to Sky Islands. The rails could possibly be elevated in order to protect them from hazardous rain, or something else.
I'm sorry that this doesn't really answer your question, haha. The bubbles you mentioned are unique to Migration Path, which is kind of an enigma on its own. Its not exactly clear when or where it is located, or why it was set up the way it is. At the very least I hope I gave you some ideas.
If anyone has any other insights, I'd love to hear them.
