The world is a cruel and unjust place. Are you telling me we get that horror of a Minecraft movie adaptation, but Eric Stirpe’s MC:SM prequel about Jack is a no??
THIS?
BUT NOT THIS??
Are you genuinely telling me I have to look at that disgusting pink sheep, but I’ll never know what young Vos and Sammy looked like.
SIDEKICK ACADEMY SOUNDS SO FREAKING FUN. PLEASE I NEED A VERY HEADSTRONG AND STUBBORN YOUNG JACK WHO IS SOLELY FOCUSED ON BEING A HERO TO MEET A MORE RESERVED VOS WHO PREFERS TO BE A HERO’S SUPPORT AND HELP FROM THE SIDELINES. AND JACK DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHY ANYONE WOULDN’T WANT TO BE A HERO BUT YAY THEY MEET SAMMY WHO DOES NOT CARE AT ALL FOR THE ACADEMIES AND CALLS THEM DORKS. AND JACK DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THAT EITHER. AND EMO NURM? WE ALMOST GOT EMO NURM?? FRABJOUS- BUT OH NO THERE’S AN EVIL POWER-STEALING VILLAIN AND THEY ALL HAVE TO FIND COMMON GROUND AND WORK AS A TEAM TO DEFEAT IT. ALONG THE WAY JACK REALIZING HE CAN’T DO EVERYTHING BY HIMSELF AND UNDERSTANDING WHY SIDEKICKS LIKE VOS ARE SO IMPORTANT AND REALIZING WHY SAMMY REJECTS THE ACADEMIES BECAUSE SHE WAS RIGHT THAT JUST GOING TO A FANCY SCHOOL WON’T MAKE YOU A HERO. (OR ALTERNATIVELY FOR SAMMY, SHE DOENST FIT INTO EITHER CATEGORY BUT IS ALSO CRUCIAL TO THEIR SUCCESS.) AND THE FOUR GROW FOND OF EACH OTHER ON THE QUEST AND AFTER THEY DEFEAT THE ENEMY, THEY START GOING OFF ON ADVENTURES.
Guys I’m going to pass out. Eric’s idea is so good and there’s a good chance NOTHING WILL HAPPEN WITH IT?? Sobbing. Actually crying.
For those of you who remember the cork board post, I realized I never elaborated on the parallels-
So. Here’s a compilation of all the Sea Temple revelations and parallels within the game I found: ^^
Starting with Sammy…
The only appearance of Sammy we see in game is her inventory: dyed leather tunic, leather pants, a diamond, bow, and an empty bottle (important later)
Sammy was killed before the events of the game from the elder guardians. Through dialogue, it is inferred that Jack witnessed this, as opposed to Vos’ death (more later)
Eric hinted her design may have looked akin to Angelica from Pirates of the Caribbean
The parrot in the adventure emporium belonged to Sammy and was named Archie 🦜
Onto Vos…
Back to the potion! Eric revealed that Vos was an enchanter who worked with potions. This is important for two reasons:
Sammy has an empty bottle in her inventory (potentially a potion she drank)
Jack offhandedly mentions he needs to “check his enchantments” while having a panic attack in the temple right before they get to the room where his friends died
Side note but the obsidian cage bears resemblance to an upside down enchanting table
Though we don’t get concrete information regarding how Vos died besides Romeo’s comment that he “never would have survived in my Sea Temple that long,” it can be inferred Vos got trapped in the obsidian cage and either starved or suffocated. Stirpe confirmed he was in the temple for 30-40 years before the events of season 2. Because the elder guardians were not killed, the mining fatigue they give would have made breaking the cage essentially impossible
There are many lines in game that suggest Jack did not see Vos die, but assumed he was dead before he fled the temple
“Vos” mentions he survived off of pork chops, however this was revealed to have been a jab at Reuben’s death from Romeo. Whether the real Vos had pork chops during the trip to the temple is unknown
The surname Vos/Vossen is Dutch and was associated with foxes and redheads. While this is completely coincidental, the association with redheads is very funny after Vos is revealed to have been Romeo for the game’s duration. In reality, Vos was named after Chris Vossen, the game’s producer
“Vos” references the poem Jabberwocky when exclaiming “Callou, callay!” (Callooh! Callay!) It is of note that the author, Lewis Carroll, was British
This is merely a side tangent but I’m so ill
Back to Jabberwocky for a moment—the poem is part of Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice in Wonderland, “Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.” The main OST that plays in the Icy Palace of Despair is called Admin in Wonderland. There is also an unreleased track heard in the Terminal Zone that includes portions of Admin in Wonderland named Admin Vos
In the beta version of s2e4, you can find the skin they used in Above and Beyond’s title card. The model, named “skM1_vosAdmin,” appears to be a version of Vos with Romeo’s color palette. (Credits to @theplayajam765 for finding this one) :]
Now for the Admins…
Throughout the temple, there are areas lined with birch wood (Fred’s favorite.) Similarly, the villagers that informed Jack of the temple’s existence lived in an area known as Mushroom Archipelago; the only place with prominent mushroom growth (minus the artificial Mush Room in the Sunshine Institute) was Fred’s Keep—coincidentally also an island
The two structure blocks in the temple reflect Romeo (Tower of the Warrior) and Xara’s (Wall of the Builder) personalities
While not on the cork board, there is a dormant portal in the structure block room of the temple. Due to the portals being utilized by Admins to easily access their cities or builds, it is unclear whether the Sea Temple was supposed to be a gift for Xara or Fred or was always a challenge for potential champions
*Most of Jack’s parallels were mentioned in previous points (Archie, quotes about checking enchantments and Mushroom Archipelago, etc.)
Romeo’s first gauntlet did not have Curse of Binding which is why Jack is not seen wearing it
No further comment
^ Last but NOT least, there were a few bonus cutouts of maps, Stirpe’s pitch bible for Minecraft: Story Mode s2, and his main post regarding the Jack prequel (I will forever be distraught over this prequel guys I can’t-)
Note: this is not a COMPLETE guide to all Jack, Vos, and Sammy’s lore. For that, I recommend perusing Eric Stirpe’s blog for answers regarding them. This post is solely dedicated to pieces of lore that connect characters or plot points (and includes a LOT of speculation.)
That freaking temple that I hate. That freaking temple that I hate. THAT FREAKING TEMPLE THAT I HATE.
Would you believe me if I said I accidentally printed stuff out too big and there’s like 15% more parallels I can’t add? Anyways. I’ll be decorating it later with beads and small arts. (Psst if you have a doodle of Vos, send it my way and I’ll try to print them all out.)
Dude the Scientist!Romeo AU sounds badass! Or maybe my weird butt just plays way too much Resident Evil. Was there any other snippets of lore you might have of this AU? How would Vos handle all the experiments?
Yes! There was quite a bit of lore for this storyline before it was scrapped. The plot mainly followed Vos falling asleep in the obsidian cage and waking up on an operating table in some weird lab with no memory of how he got there. It’s all downhill from there as he is subjected to experiment after experiment and slowly turned more and more into a fish. Jack does eventually find him, but things go awry-
Enjoy some old rambles I found which I’ll add onto below: (TW: human experimentation)
I’ll try to sum up the AU as best I can. Romeo isn’t fully an Admin, but he does LOVE to play god. Specifically, he enjoys crafting challenges and nabbing any “losers” to toy with and experiment on. Most subjects were turned into mindless brutes that patrol the lab and make sure the other experiments stay in their rooms. Vos is one of the first human subjects and is Romeo’s FAVORITE. As “the loser of the Sea Temple,” Romeo saw it fitting that Vos would be turned half fish as a constant reminder. He also just wanted to see if it were possible to successfully graft gills onto someone to breathe both air and water. (Spoiler: it’s NOT! Vos ends up having difficulty breathing either.) All cells are custom-tailored to their patient’s needs. Vos’ is literally just half iron floor, half swimming pool that can be viewed by the glass walls. It’s very cold and he hates it. :[
As for how Vos specifically handled the experiments… uhh not well. The first few were extremely traumatic; suddenly having altered vision, a tail that makes you off-balance on land, and no longer being able to talk requires getting used to. He was most upset at Romeo for cutting his vocals. (“Fish don’t talk” was the Admin’s reasoning, but in reality he just preferred his subjects not scream the entire surgery.) After he lost his voice, Vos became paranoid and reclusive. The botched gill surgery only furthered that. He spent most days leaning out of the pool; whenever it became too difficult to breathe air, he would submerge himself and whenever water breathing was too harsh, he’d pop back up for air. Some experiments I forgot to mention above: hand/foot webbing, one of his eyes was replaced with a guardian’s, and he has a heart of the sea. Fun patient fact: all patients have a lodestone tracker; Vos’ is a clamp on his tail.
Back to the lore… Jesse, Petra, and Jack eventually try and solve the mystery of people vanishing and that’s what leads them to the lab. (For the record, disappearances are rare but noticeable. Think one person from each town.) Upon entering, the three steal and don lab coats and keycards to try and figure out what’s up. Jesse is actually the one that stumbles across Vos whilst exploring. I’m just imagining him unknowingly unlocking the door and sneaking into a patient’s enclosure to see… nothing remarkable! because a certain fish is hiding at the bottom of the pool. After finding nothing interesting in the room, Jesse turns back around to see a large, scaley figure struggling to open the door he came through. And upon realizing they’ve been spotted, the patient panics and flees back into the water, giving Jesse a look that says “please don’t tell anyone I just tried to escape I won’t do it again.” Meanwhile Jesse is just thinking “ohmycodthat’saperson.” But it’s all good because Jesse lets him out and he’s reunited with Jack who explains to the group that this goliath grouper is his bestie, Vos. Some hijinks ensue when they are spotted by the Warden and Vos flees, but Jack and Petra get to the file room and find out the truth of what happened to everyone and Romeo is defeated by Jesse and the lab falls apart yay!
Bonus: my favorite sequence in the AU is during the escape. Upon being caught by the Warden, instead of detaining everyone, he merely just creates distrust among the group by stating that the Vos they’re harboring is a failed and dangerous clone. He’s very much NOT a clone, but Jack becomes worried for Jesse and Petra’s safety and threatens that if “the clone” won’t go back to where he came from, he’ll turn Vos in to Romeo. Vos cannot talk and thus can’t defend himself and when Jack draws his sword, he panics and flees. Now trying to escape the lab by himself, Vos stumbles into a random cell and is immediately caught in a spiderweb. Xara is revealed to have been meshed with the spiders from the Sunshine Institute maze. Oh and she’s huge. She promptly picks Vos up and is like “oh I wonder how pissed off Romeo would be if his prized subject were to die…” but after looking closer, she feels bad that such heavy experimentations were done on a human and decides that Romeo would be even MORE upset if his prized subject were to escape and be happy so she lets him free. (Don’t worry guys- Jack does realize that OOPS that WAS his buddy when Petra finds Vos’ patient file. And they reunite and it’s all good.)
That’s most of what I can remember for now. Resident Evil is cool as hell and I hope you enjoyed. 🐟
Miscellaneous Sky City folk (mainly Reginald and Milo) rambles because I can:
Being the head guard, Captain Reginald’s main priorities are tending to Benedict and Isa. What time he doesn’t spend with them, he’s usually at the jail making sure order is maintained and prisoners are well-kept. Because of this, he doesn’t spend much time outside with the residents of Sky City like the other guards do.
Being so close with Benedict, Reginald understands how crucial every little resource is. In his eyes, the worst crime (aside from harming the Eversource) is to purposely throw something into the void.
Reginald first met Milo when he was imprisoned for “egregious wasting of resources.” The captain was appalled to hear someone had dropped a block over the edge, but upon overhearing a conversation between Milo and another cellmate, he quickly learned it was an accident and felt bad for the poor man lamenting the loss of his garden. He did attempt to convince Isa to let Milo out, explaining things as a misunderstanding. However, Isa declined, stating that if she bent the rules for one person, she’d have to bend them for everyone. Although she did entrust a dirt block with Reginald to plant near Milo’s inn to replace the one he lost. :]
Time in the cell made Milo bitter. Before that, the innkeeper always been an upstanding citizen. He felt betrayed that his little mistake had not been seen as an accident considering he had no previous record of troublemaking. (Unless you count advocating for a less strict system of resource distribution troublemaking.) Chatting with Reginald was one of the only things that kept him sane in the dungeon. Milo often asked how his inn was faring without him and had occasional questions about the Eversource. I don’t have a good idea of how long he was imprisoned, but he does describe it as “a very, very long time” so I’m lead to believe a few years at least. (Maybe 5-10 or 15 at most?)
WOW WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE?
JOKING. I highly doubt he was in the cell for 30-40 years.
Ok sorry back to the rant. When he was finally released, Milo was overjoyed to find a dirt block with a small flower waiting for him outside the inn. He assumed one of his friends requested it for him.
The punishment for discarding resources over the edge is not only time in jail, but also having your requests for more resources revoked. This ensures that no one maliciously continues wasting materials. This is also a major reason Milo started Build Club: the law no longer allowed his requests for resources to be granted. :[
Build Club spawned out of Milo’s idea of a better world where he and his comrades had the freedom to create whatever they wanted with no regulations. It started with him rambling about his ideas to those who stayed in the inn and to his surprise, his beliefs were shared among many of them. Eventually his friends opted to save their requested resources to create the hideaway that would harbor the rebellion. Milo also had suspicions that land existed beneath the city, but Isa forbade him from trying to test his theory as it was dangerous and would likely result in loss of resources if he didn’t get himself killed first.
Guards seem unphased by outsiders which leads me to believe that people do occasionally enter Sky City, but probably use ender pearls to travel between islands? Honestly I have no good explanation for why the guards are so nonchalant to “strangers.”
The iron golem Jesse created in Build Club looks out for the residents while they get accustomed to life on the ground. It especially likes following Milo and the club members around. Isa probably questioned where the heck it came from and Milo accidentally let slip that it was from Build Club. “WHAT IS BUILD CLUB?” “Uh… oops.”
It took everyone a while to warm up to the Aiden after everything that happened, but the Blaze Rods did eventually redeem themselves.
The creeper explosion left Captain Reginald with burn scars. While he still does his best to take care of the founder, the sight or sound of a creeper causes him to freeze up.
Reginald calls Benedict “ma’am.” Send post. 🐓
Most of the folk in Sky City are tall. Not Milo though. He’s short.
Bonus: When I first played Order Up, it took me forever to choose whether to turn myself in or flee because I couldn’t decide whether I liked Reginald or Milo more. (Too many of my decisions are based on me wanting to get character dialogue.) Having played through both their paths MULTIPLE TIMES, I still can’t decide. They’re both neat.
