I've spent the last year endlessly panning over TGC's work, understanding the source material and what their mindsets were when creating Sky, and here's a brief post on what I consider to be the most important investigation that I contribute to the Lore Community!
The foundational Theme over all other worldbuilding motifs in Sky, is "Connection". Throughout his entire career, Jenova Chen has been obsessed with this word, and says it constantly in many articles about each of TGC's games. You see, every single game that TGC has created are each a different expression of this idea that, in life, all things are connected, tied together, and that all life coexists and works together to create and form the universe we live in. But this Connection, this intrinsic "cosmic web" that ties us all together, is TGC's understanding of "love". Through participating in Understanding that we are part of communities that are greater than each of our single Beings, we are remaining Connected to each other, and that Understanding is Love.
Halfway through Sky's development process, TGC had decided that there would be a Spectrum represented: of Connection and Indifference. This "Connection Spectrum", as we've called it before, was invented for the sake of visualizing the impact the Ancestors (the living mortals that built a kingdom but turned into Spirits when snuffed out by Darkness) would have on the Natural, Connected world of The Light.
This Spectrum would embody many things.
- Care vs rejection
- Tradition vs technology
- Humility vs hubris
- Acceptance vs control
- Faith vs doubt
Whether or not Darkness will be chosen to be an "ancient natural force" or not, what matters to Sky's "main" story is that Ancestors influenced Darkness to spread across the world, harming The Light, and harming Nature and Connection.
Using emotional backdrops in their concept presentations, TGC decided that, effectively, the Ancestor's hubris would be the primary cause of the spread of Darkness.
This disregard, this refusal to love and care for their world, and instead to control and hoard power for themself, is what destroyed their own kingdom.
Rather than seeing the universe as a battle of equal and opposing forces (Light and Darkness), this Connection Spectrum is designed to suggest that all things exist within a scale of engagement or detachment.
1. Connection is the force that binds, sustains, and integrates. It is the will to engage, to acknowledge, to form relationships and create meaning.
[All done!]
2. Indifference is the force of severance, neglect, and detachment. It is the rejection of engagement, the failure to acknowledge, the choice to let bonds weaken and dissolve.
I feel that continuing to explore these Themes as foundational concepts that design everything about Sky will help us Understand so much. ❤️ 🕯️
But now, how and where do we implement these philosophical ideas into Sky, and what in Sky's physical world is inferred by each side of the spectrum? That's what we really need to keep asking. You can see Connection and Indifference everywhere within both Sky's world and the real world, if you try. In the people on the news, the people around you, and even within yourself. I have been no stranger to Indifference, isolating myself in places like this silly blog, and being hypercritical of everything around me.
We need to learn to Love; to care more about our Connections with people and the world around us, and what that means to us.
I need to learn to Love more. And that starts with letting go of Control. We're going to stop being so desperate here. I'm afraid that there will be no more systems, no more attempts to be the one to find The Answer. I'll post however, whenever, out of Love, not longing. Thank you for being here, and I hope that this means something, but I'm at least glad it meant something to me. ❤🕯
To think that, to the veteran Sky theorist, we find a lore moth's question so preposterous. It's a simple question, an innocent, mildly curious inquiry. But upon hearing it, all of Lorechat and Skyblr collectively feel the imminent, eruptive, and possibly volatile pressure immediately swelling within their throats (on their keyboards). We start investing in an aggressive, passionate plan. We fill our notepads and documents and blogs and create visual graphs and boards and attempts at encyclopedias. And in the end we can't find the words, stuttering and drooling in our dumbfoundedness of the gap between us and the innocent newcomer. And the gap between us and the Answer.
All of this over just one question.
"Can you explain Sky to me?"
~~~~~Old Articles~~~~~
Longform reading isn't everyone's thing, and that's okay, but if you want to practice some reading while also hopefully making some connections about the world of Sky, I recommend checking out the articles posted on the Blog to see if you'd like to send a Follow to keep up with new updates!
}}} Defining the Lore (Bible)
}}} Defining Megabird #1
}}} Defining Megabird #2
}}} Defining Beings
}}} Defining Light (Biomatter substance)
}}} Defining Darkness
}}} Defining Diamonds
}}} Defining Descendants
}}} Defining Ancestors
Random Lore panic attacks and zealousy
}}} Defining Spirits
Overly dramatic philosophical posts now and then
This blog is undergoing constant transformation, as a reflection of discovering who I am and feeling who I am becoming. If you are a fan of philosophy, psychology, and intensive literative analysis, you've come to the right place. And even if you're unsure, thank you for checking it out anyways. What I am doing here will not be a one-size-fits-all, and that's okay. Nobody is any more or any less for being in any given place, and it's best that we be where we want to. 🌊
A Doodle on the Screen and a Doodle of Thoughts (Of Desiring Control)
I had a funny interaction on Instagram and felt the urge to make this doodle.
An extremely long ramble below the cut, but to everyone who just stops here, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. ❤🕯
[[[WARNING: LONG READ BELOW CUT]]]
And now that we're below the cut, so it begins.
The existential madness that Sky has driven me to has had me learning a lot about the Human Condition and how people move through a spectrum of helping and hurting others and themselves.
And one of the central overarching Themes I've been studying is of the concept of "Control".
I've come to realize a potential statement for myself about life:
"The source of all human misery is the desire to Control their circumstances."
Everything you ever feel in terms of loss, passion, and desire, is felt because you have invested different levels of Control into those aspects of your life.
This isn't a bad thing, but rather just an objective study of what makes us want to hold on to things, to keep things, to protect and defend our beliefs and personal morals and attributions.
Realizing this ended up helping me begin to craft an understanding of the Spectrum of Connection vs Indifference that I've been endlessly pouring over.
Through these philosophies that I have extracted from the Core of Sky's messages, I have then taken it all into myself, and applied it to mistakes and trials that I would actively Experience in real time.
My research on what Control is and what it does to our lives on both personal and societal levels has been a direct reaction to realizing that, in so many ways, I have often lived life refusing to Love. In identifying that an obsession with Control is what caused me to not Love others and Connect to them, I've been able to grow.
All because of my research for Sky over this past year and a half. It has been a long process, and it won't ever be done, but Sky is genuinely transforming me into a better person, more and more. It's likely Jenova Chen and those who shared his Vision would never hear my story, even when it is more complete, but I just have to thank this experience for being what I needed. And the best way to thank Sky, is to keep working on being a better and better example of Connection every day. I owe it to every person I've ever hurt, and every person I'll ever care for, to keep learning. 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️
"So why am I still here?"
Is a question I think about quite a lot as these years go by.
Okay, so you've learned a valuable lesson from life and that's wonderful. But... it's over now, right?
Why can't I let go? After all, it's just a game. It's just a story. It's just a community. You've been through plenty of those. Why this one? Why are you so caught up? Why are you still here? Every single other person takes in Sky as a brief-to-annual hyperfixation, then either moves on or idly holds onto it as a keepsake. And yet, after everything you've been through, after all the things you've done... you're stilll here.
Is this not Control? If you were to actually Love yourself, would you not take the leap to let go of these things that could have been abandoned already?
"What does Sky mean to you?"
I think it's crucial to see that all this talk of meaning and hidden layers is a Projection. I look for the nuance because I am nuanced. I am never satisfied with a lack of meaning to validate my place in the universe... because I have been constantly unsure of where I stand at all.
"To Find Purpose"
I remain because I can still use this Space as a Framework, to further Understand, to continue to Define what Purpose is and what I want it to be for me. And so I will do that. Not out of Love just for myself. But out of Love for a world that is far greater than just who I am as a person. Not Sky. But Our World. Our hurting world, damaged and broken by Control. I want to understand more about Control, and those who work so hard to maintain it. I think this can be important. And even if it wasn't 'productive'? I will have Loved anyways.
Take care, be aware, be conscious of what you try to Control, and reach out to others, out of Love, out of Connection, not because you are obligated to, not because "it's healthy for you"
But because this universe is full of Love. You are Loved, everyone, and you are Love. Take care everyone. It will turn out alright. ❤❤❤❤❤🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯
I could just tell you what I think the Answer (to each topic) is, and what led me to that. But instead, I want to ask as many questions as possible. If I'm alone in my echo chamber, I need to be my own worst enemy, the most thorough critic possible. I want to make this fun (for me).
So let's strip this down to the most barebones it can be, and dive into the wonderful world of Lexicology: the study of words.
Darkness.
Darkness, according to Wikipedia, is defined as:
A lack of illumination
An absence of visible light, or
or a surface that absorbs light.
Darkness is a concrete, normal concept about real life, but it has transcended beyond its immediate definition to become a steeple of powerful metaphors expressing endless bounds of human emotion.
Darkness is used to paint a picture of evils, unknowns, dangers beyond the warmth of the sun. Darkness eats the sun, holds it hostage and drains hope, love, and joy. Darkness wants, it hungers, and it schemes. It has a plan. And worst of all, it's very patient.
...at least in writing.
Darkness can mean anything a writer wants it to mean, so it can mean all of those, and it could mean none of those!
Our job as Lore theorists, is to observe what this word means to Sky, and what picture should be painted in our head when we try to understand exactly, just what 'darkness' is.
{{{Continue Reading}}}
Because to the unaware, when they first hear of a "Darkness" in Sky, their minds go to every far corner possible that I had just poetized above.
There is an inescapable tendency among fanfic writers and OC designers to relish and drool over the idea of 'the bad guy'. We are craving an antagonist, and we paint them in our thoughts the moment a crumb of content leans in that direction.
And even better than an antagonist; we are itching for an antihero. For some kind of 'opposite' side against the light. Something to represent our rebellions and battles in real life as we rage against the machine, for whatever our machines are.
"Dark" creatures, "dark" skykids, "dark" elders; a world of possibility opens up and we just can't help ourselves, not even the devs!
[Official Sky concept art by Tom Zhao]
What did you first think Darkness was?
An evil force
The opposite of Light
"I think it's... A metaphor" 🤷♀️
Voting ended onFeb 29, 2024
But enough about Lexicology (the study of words (if you forgot)).
What about what we can actually see in person? (In game)
As we begin to observe the world around us, we have an immediate official Rule that every theorist seems to agree on:
If it hurts your Light, it's Darkness.
[By the way, damage to your Flame is not damage to your Light. This will someday make sense later.]
The game warns us early on to 'protect your Light', and as we travel through the realms we find creatures that attack us; creatures that the game warns in loading screens are 'dark' entities, "hungry for your light". The rainfall and sludge in wasteland are also harmful to your Light, showing that Darkness may be carried in water.
Within this rule we now have a small list of Things-That-Hurt-Us:
Forest rain
Wasteland water
Darkness crabs
Dark Dragons (Krill)
Shardfall, and Dark Shards
And for the loremoffy, that leaves them with a bunch of questions and dots to connect. Starting with the creatures on the list, we're instantly alarmed, especially as moths entering the false temple for the first time. These two 'enemies' are canonically named by quests and loading screens as 'dark' creatures. "Are they dark evil minions of the bad guy??" gasps the moth, audibly. They certainly seem evil, attacking you with no [some] hesitation. If they are 'a part of' the Darkness, then that seems to guarantee the Darkness wants/exists to attack Light.
And what of signs of 'evil' darkness that don't appear to hurt you?
Darkness plants, also canonically named so, don't hurt you, but, foreign and invasive in appearance and nature, they do seem to be uninvited guests in a land that didn't really expect them. They appear in places that are wet and dimly lit, and have been seen to trap exposed light, be that smaller creatures of Light, memories of Light (released by Shardfall or memory/spirit quests), and lastly, the spirits of Ancestors, who's shells have been cracked and exposed to the Darkness.
The plants appear to keep and store Light, mostly inside small orb-like sacs. This along with the fact that it traps Beings of Light and memories of Light, seems to show that whatever this 'Darkness' is, it doesn't 'get rid' of Light, but rather bury it, keeping it perpetually contained, encased within a strange tomb indefinitely.
More official concept art by Tom Zhao
These things are slowly and painfully choking the land, killing whatever still dares to perch on the ground. They may or may not be 'evil', but whatever they are, they're a plague, a disease. Are they what make the Dark creatures the way they are, or do Dark creatures and Dark plants all appear because of something deeper down the rabbithole?
We follow the trail of Darkness, worse and worse as we grow near its source, and find that the worst of the Darkness comes from the ruined kingdom's heart of society. Whatever Darkness is, the Ancestors obviously seem to have something to do with it. From here the lore moth can trail down a few paths. The Ancestors were either the direct cause of this Darkness, or created it by accident. It was either directly connected to whatever they were doing, or they didn't expect Darkness to be a factor at all. Regardless, we'll look at why Darkness is on another day.
But What is it?
The goal of an Answer is to be able to summarize everything you know about a subject, into a bitesize, consumable, tolerable answer. And to answer what Darkness is, after all of this blog-long research and meditation; one specific word is the Answer.
noun
noun: pollution
the presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects.
Pollution is the word that matches everything we know about the way this Darkness spreads. It has been introduced into the environment by the Ancestors, and is affecting the world. Pollution contaminates and poisons, killing the world with no intent of its own, but destroying everything nonetheless. This is the perfect word for what we've seen in our journey so far.
But how does this tie back in to the beginning of this post?
We had determined that the possible definitions of Darkness ellicit:
Lack of Light
Opposite of Light
An Evil
Absorption/Burying of Light
We are beginning to find that Darkness in the world of Sky does not 'lack' Light, as it instead traps and stores Light in a perpetual sleep.
🚫 [Darkness]: a lack of Light
We have also found that, being released by the Ancestors of the ancient kingdom, Darkness is not seemingly malicious, but instead a force, a storm, almost 'natural' in its ways, with no conscious mind of its own. We cannot create a face of pollution in real life enough to visualize an antagonist we can 'defeat', unless you generalize a concept of rich old fat men. It is the same way with Darkness in Sky. It's probably not 'evil', but it's not okay.
🚫 [Darkness]: an ancient evil
But we have confirmed that it does absorb Light, which is a concrete definition of 'darkness' in the dictionary.
[Darkness]: content that absorbs Light ✅✅✅
And because of that, we've come full circle! 🎊🎉🎇
Wait, we didn't address if our Darkness is or is not synonymous with the definition "opposite of Light"...
Well, maybe it's better we hold off on that thought for now. Because in order to say it's the opposite of Light, first we have to Define what Light is. And I think its safe to say we won't get there for a while. 😅
You're crazy if you actually read all of this, but thank you so much.
I think I'm really going to enjoy making these, so long as I can make them s l i g h t l y coherent. Have a good day/night yall!
I've mentioned the term 'loremoth' quite a lot, but haven't really elaborated on my definition of it. Within Sky's in-game social community, being a 'moth', or a new player, is a visually traceable status, showing on their backs and of their clothes, showing by the lack of seasons they've experienced and glitches they've overcome. But the Lore community is a Space held externally from the game, leading to it not being so much of a visual dogma, but rather more of... An Experience.
Hungry new lore theorists are fueled by their own personal preferences of thumbnails, baits, and key words; pulled in by what they find interesting, and after they devour that magical initial subject, they hopefully will look and then find the next thing.
Each of these sudden lore hooks end up being their Drive to have more, to dig for more, and to understand more. They feel it's become special to them; that they're in on 'the secret' now.
And one of the best topics to make loremoths feel like they're in on an absurdly colossal secret...
Is the topic of the Megabird.
[[[Continue Reading]]]
In the early crazes of Lore, during the first year of Launch, interest in the Megabird skyrocketed, and when curious Sky players asked others who seemed more involved and invested in theorizing about the story, many users of Lorechat in Skycord would casually reply, "Well it's basically the god of Sky".
Most murals and concept art depict the Megabird as a giant flowing golden angelic thing, with extravagantly long wings or tails. Sometimes it would be made of feathers, sometimes it would seemingly be shown as made of Creatures of Light.
Early concept art refers to it as "One", some concepts say "Megabird", while others say "The Megabird", and late-stage concepts begin to refrain from calling it Megabird or 'The Megabird' at all, instead detailing a concept of "The Light" that was still unarguably the same 'character' from before. Post-launch content has never described it as The Megabird.
Despite this, Megabird ended up being heavily personified from 2019 to late 2021 by the community, and fans gobbled up anything about Megabird, especially Megabird as a character; as a god who would interact with the Elders and skykids. Megabird's fanbase grew to the point where it'd be given nicknames; it's most famous moniker being "Megan the Megabird". If only for the sake of having a character to use as a foundation for bountiful headcanon and fanfics, people seemed to cling fanatically to the idea of Megan; to the idea of having a deity. Perhaps there are or aren't some further psychological takeaways from the eagerness of the fanbase to have a 'god of Sky', but let's move on to a different notation for a while, and head back into the game.
Picture posted to Tumblr by lowkey-loki245
For the 4 years that players found themselves in the Descendant's era, creatures of Light have always been seen migrating at all times towards the beacon of Ascension in the Eye of Eden, but this isn't an absolute rule. Creatures often will be found frolicking and soaring wherever they want, far from the main path to Eden. Mantas will take elegant laps around wide open areas, and rarer creatures are either hardly or never seen ascending up into Orbit.
But water doesn't halt its cycle, and Light shouldn't either. Water rushes down mountains, through valleys, flooding plains and reservoirs, yet not all of the water gets to the Ocean like it should. But though it gets stuck in spots, underground rivers and evaporation ensure the water cycle will always occur. It has to be the same for Light.
The lore community has long since determined that all beings in the world of Sky (so far) all are made of Light. {There can be a post explaining that on another day, because not everybody is so willing to believe this.} This includes: creatures of Light, Ancestors, Descendants, and yes, even dark creatures are made from Light; just warped light, to be exact.
If we're to continue with our comparison to the water cycle, then this means all of those living Beings are made out of {metaphorical} water. Water flows from the Source and descends until it reaches the Main Body of the ocean, and all Light cycles throughout the world until it can get to Orbit again. This cycle of the life energy of Light flowing in and out of a main body is exactly what we need to focus on, and lo and behold, quite a few pieces of concept art confirm this.
The meaning and purpose of some of these concepts have been long forgotten, and don't reflect the lore of the game today in post-launch, but there is one big theme going on here that they still intend to this day; all Beings of Light will eventually journey to rejoin the Megabird.
We talked before about how they slowly transitioned towards using a simple base word to describe the megabird instead of giving it an almost characterizing name, and I believe they had to have done this intentionally. (Well, as intentional as TGC ever gets.)
We can and may still call it 'the Megabird', but from now on we understand that we are referring to 'the Light'. So, why did they depersonalize Megan into a character-less thing? As we ascend through orbit and into the Ocean of Light, the Main Body of our life energy; lore theorists all over the interwebs would still be looking for the character Megabird. "Where is Megabird? Surely it's that constellation above us? Maybe it's the giant gate that sends us towards rebirth? Maybe it just hasn't shown itself?" But as the voice of Aurora calls to us and the warmth of the ultimate Light pulls us in, vaporizing darkness as we come, I just have to ask:
"Isn't that the Megabird that we're entering?"
A pure, deep, limitless orb. We are drawn in by its intensity, and as we get closer to being Absorbed we can see creatures swimming in and out of its surface. In the Sea of Light. All things here in unison, all things belonging to One; each moving speck of Light, a drop of water in an endless pond of pure harmony.
Whenever we enter the Light; when we enter the Megabird, we become dissolved into that sea, and we join One in it's neverending song.
You might notice we're not going to end with any solid Defining going on, and that's because you're supposed to take this in and think about what you make of it. It'll be important for part two.
But we'll have to research further into proving THAT on Thursday, because unfortunately, this post has gotten way too long.
{{{Megabird Part #2 is out! Click here to continue Our journey.}}}
Thank you to the two readers who got this far, and I hope you can all think critically, never perspire, and have a wonderful rest of your week.
Alright, I'll admit it. We throw around the word 'light' in here quite often. I'm not proud of it, but it's unfortunately a necessity.
To clear up some possible misconceptions, let's understand that throughout this blog's lifetime, I'll be using 3 primary versions of the word 'light'.
Light, or visible light, is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye.
The Light (in the Sky), also known as the Megabird.
Light; the direct physical substance/energy found in Sky's world.
So as we begin to prepare to Define Light, we have to remember that the subject matter for the day is #3:
Light: the direct physical substance/energy found in Sky's world.
Let's begin. [[[Long read/article ahead]]]
[[[Continue Reading]]]
Loremoths and even most non-Lore players do a fun little double take when first realizing that Light (the substance, not the Beings) has been around them in-game all along.
Walking across the butterfly field, as you step through the prairie, the blades of grass, tiny dandelions, and quaint colorful red yellow and white flowers light up around your feet, reacting and breathing in response to your presence and footfall. Their glow is genuinely incandescent; their light feeling alive.
You look around at the butterflies in the distance, the mantas beyond that, the birds traveling far beyond where you can catch them.
You think back to the tales of the conceptual Megabird, and how everything is made of Light. All things.
The Flora (plants) of Daylight Prairie are made of Light too.
We can determine this due to the way they react to our presence. It's not even the ones you touch; just that you get near them is enough. The fields are not just sensing you, they are sensing your Light.
This is intriguing, but it's not even the strangest thing to focus on here. Reliving the memory of the Laughing Lightcatcher, we watch them as they harvest Light orbs from the Stream of creatures migrating through the land.
We can also see the Green Light Orb from Bird's Nest behave very similarly to the cutscenes, but since it is an Elemental Light, we can't be sure it's a perfect sample of evidence. These Orbs are tricky to analyze just from these two 10-second shots from a cutscene, but lets lay out both what we understand and what is a possibility.
What we know:
The Orbs travel inside the Stream just as the creatures do.
They are generally found closely gathered to/by groups of mantas.
They eventually fall out of the stream on their own.
Possible meanings:
The Orbs get stuck to the mantas.
The Orbs are Light shed from the mantas.
In general, what the existence of Light Orbs means for our investigation is that, in a broad sake of making sense; Light can gather itself into a substance.
Time to Define. Cambridge.org's dictionary has the most preferable wording on Substance, for our purposes anyhow.
substance
noun
material with particular physical characteristcs
We need to break this concept of 'Light' being a 'thing' down until it is truly just a material, a substance; a collection of mere utter compounds, atomic particles even. But in order to do that we need to Observe it.
Just like when we investigated Darkness, we need to find a Source. Well that's easy, due to concept art (and our work so far with Defining ol Megan); all Light falls down into the world, shed from the Megabird.
We have to assume this Light falls:
As shapeless content.
Anywhere and everywhere into the world.
Which means it can end up collecting anywhere and onto anything, clumping up, mixing together; and generally forming however it wants.
We know from here-on, that from here it can take the form of living Beings. (For reasons and with details we'll study on another day).
But this means that there has to naturally always be some sort of building blocks of life inside our substance of Light.
We can see from the Elemental Orbs found throughout the world that Orbs wander. Moving through the world, they float around listlessly, circling random spots. Even without consistently larger forms such as normal creatures of Light, this fallen substance of the Megabird (Orbs) seemingly are still naturally seeking purpose. With the visual affirmation of the Orbs shooting along in the Stream of Light, alongside creatures migrating to Eden, we can decide that the purpose is still the same as materialized Beings of Light; to rejoin the Megabird.
Perhaps it is easier for the Orbs to make the migration if they properly form into full creatures, and this is why they wander when outside of the stream; seeking some way to take the form of a creature. (Again, this formation will be discussed another day.) Otherwise, if they get caught/stuck on a creature of Light, or land conveniently in a Stream of migration, then they'll hopefully make it that much further to Eden. (Though it does show that they fall out of the Stream quite easily.)
Regardless, this intentional momentum shows that even Light substance is alive.
We can't assume it is technically a 'creature'; or even just an ill-bodied 'basic' creature of Light. Which means it has to be a group of organisms... organisms smaller than butterflies, perhaps smaller than singularly visible by the Ancestor's eye.
I'm talking about insinuating a concept of Light micro-organisms.
"A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic size, which may exist in its single-celled form or as a colony of cells."
--Wikipedia
We're not gonna get too complicated trying to rationalize micro-organisms in Sky (in this post anyways ehe) but going forward with assuming that this is something along the lines of what our substance is supposed to be; this can change a lot about explaining why the traits of Light occur, as well as how they occur within our set environments.
Because now we observe the main, supernatural trait of Light;
the distortion of Space.
space /spās/
noun
"the dimensions of height, depth, and width within which all things exist and move."
[Sky concept art by Tom Zhao]
The most notable features of Light are as follows:
Defiance of gravity
Distortion of visible lightwaves
Ability to dramatically morph itself
Ability to draw in external content/material
Functionality as tether/access-point to the Megabird
We observe the first trait virtually everywhere in the world of Sky; with Captured Light levitating the kingdom's contraptions, corrupted Light swirling shattered power diamond shards through the air, and biologically through creatures of Light, Orbs, and Descendants.
The best example for the second trait is found all throughout the Vault of Knowledge. Captured Light is used to project holographic images, warping the imagery in front of us. This concept of Light visually distorting what we can see in front of us will also be important another day.
It's ability to draw in and absorb external material is Observed in the creation of Elemental Lights and the birth of Beings of Light; both of which draw on residual matter in their environment and are then influenced to create a form.
This distortion of Space occurs on multiple levels, notably:
Absolutely none of these traits are able to be 'explained' through 'science' as I traditionally do, unless someone in the Lore community wants to donate some useful information from Einstein's Theory of Relativity that I wasn't aware of yet. When we don't understand something, the best course of action is to just do our best to continue and observe. Perhaps it'll someday make more sense.
Either way, now that we can 'visually' comprehend our Substance of Light, we can understand that these 'micro-organisms' of Light are the substance somehow causing all of these traits.
And here we are at the end, after all. I packed a lot of information in, and without explaining half of it due to avoiding tangents, but there's still a lot we can put in our summary here, so let's roll and get Defining.
Light, as in the substance, is:
any collection of genetic (or biological) material/soup shed from the Light in the Sky
capable of distorting Space on a visual, gravitational, biological, and telepathic level
And we're done! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Of course there's a million nuances and a million unanswered questions, but I think this Definition is quite suitable to leave this topic on for now. And after all, aren't unanswered questions the Lore community's most favorite thing ever anyway?
I'm not sure if it'll be 'soon', but we will eventually tackle the Anatomy and phase of life of the creatures of Light; so the foundational groundwork we've made today will be incredibly important when that day comes. ⏳⏳⏳
I don't think this one was as important as some of the other groundwork articles I've worked on so far, but every little foothold of content I make will help so that, when I get to articles where it's just 100% my theories; the 2 people who read these all the way through will understand everything. But even if you're just one of the skimmers, I still thank you for checking out the deets. It's all important. ❤️💪
What are you look forward to more?
Creatures of Light anatomy
Ancestor/Descendant Magic
Voting ended onMar 14, 2024
Have a good day/night y'all, and remember to check back on Friday night for the next post!
In the real world, real people will do things, or see something incomprehensible, and they will connect with that small bit of information or broken sensory concept, and develop on it.
In the real world, we see nature, the beauty of the world, the social complications of our confusing and dissonant race
And we make Connections.
We think, we dream, and we Feel.
Further than what we see in front of us and feel on our tongues and fingers, we claim this 'feeling' as within our Soul, and we find Meaning.
This is what Spirituality is.
My goal here would have been to ask you, the reader of these articles, to make these same connections of Spirituality, to draw on your emotions and your Soul, in order to Feel more complex things than just what is on the surface; but about Sky, about the World of Sky, and about what parallels can be made to our real lives, our real society, and our real living breathing world.
But then I remember: You already do.
You take Beings, mere characters in a walking-sim game, and you develop on them. You define a passion in illustrating a world around these figures, and you develop on and revel in that world, and what it does to these characters. The Elders, the Ancestors, our Skychildren, and the Prince/King Resh. We worship these Beings, and we fall in love with the concept of them so much that we can't imagine Sky without them.
These are Religions.
The third and most (personally) generally reliable definition of religion in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is stated as:
a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
which can be attested to by so many of our attempts to care for and develop on these Beings. Just observe the fanbase of the Forgotten Valley Elder.
(Link to the infamous Tumblr post about it at the bottom of this article; post is by SoupofOwls [@whitebookposts], art in the sceenshot is ThatSkyMoz [@thatskymoz].)
I've said a lot of words and we've made very little ground here, so let's get it rolling now.
You may have noticed in the last post that I actually avoided using my traditional format of solidly Defining things. (Yes it was totally intentional I swear. 😃)
This occurred because of the nature of this two-part approach to the Megabird. First, we defined the Physical concept of the Light; the one that we can see and interact with. And now, we'll be discussing the metaphysical aspect of it.
According to Wikipedia, Metaphysics is:
the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality.
I had wanted to try an approach where, instead of leaving the physical plane to the physical and the theoretical to the theoretical; I presented a concept of the Megabird, something that you see and feel and witness. And instead of explaining to you what I think you're supposed to feel about it, I left it up to you. And now we'll be talking about something we are supposed to only feel, and not see.
Yet this time... we will bring it back to comprehension, if only in a theoretical way. And it's up to you to think about it on a level that makes it 'Mean something' to you.
Now let's make a Distinction.
Spirituality is not necessarily Religion
Religion is an organized measure of 'faith' and service to a belief, even within personal, subjective terms.
Spirituality is not necessarily organized; but is the search within oneself for meaning, for purpose, and for something that is 'greater' than our simple, material lives.
Every time you feel a connection to society, to communities, to nature, to something more vast than you comprehend just in your life around you; you are Understanding some sense of spirituality, of being drawn to feel connected to something greater than yourself.
And to make that connection Matter.
Because everybody wants to belong to something greater than themselves.
But this 'something' is not always people; not always a 'community'. We have our own thoughts, our own expressions, and our own descents into madness and deeper ponderings, just as I do here every Tuesday and Thursday. This is exactly why Religion is different from Spirituality. Spirituality is personal and isolating, brazen and impulsive, spontaneous in its ways and surging in the emotions it instills in you. I have always been spiritual about Sky, and its tumultuous social stratosphere, but I hope to make this attempt at Writing a 'religion'. Our personal searches, outside of our attempts at daily/monthly rituals, are what make us Spiritual beings, and what make us Individuals.
It is through this that you have a Soul.
'Soul', as defined by Oxford Languages, is described as
"The spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, [often] regarded as immortal."
Everything about your thoughts, emotions, and character are considered 'Soul', and it is believed by many, a very generalized 'many', Religious and Spiritual ideologies... that the Soul that is created by your Journey through life never ceases to exist, even after your body has long since de-materialized. While this is a fascinating general topic, I want to stray from it, and observe two of some of the most unique and influential ideologies in the real world, to hopefully draw some parallels we can use for Sky.
<<<PLEASE NOTE: I do not and have never practiced the religions and practices I am about to reference, so my understanding of them is only as great as my light digging and many days worth of research on spiritual topics. I am also summarizing them in a way that only touches on their spiritual aspects and not their religious; only merely as a way to draw parallels for Lore purposes. I do not mean to offend or disrespect anyone's beliefs, but if I get something wrong, feel free to message me about it, because I will always love to learn. >>>
To start, let's look at the anti-agent of the concept I explained above: Buddhism.
Buddhism is a religion that describes the Soul as impermanent. The Soul has arisen out of your creation, and will be erased upon death. All life will be erased and shuffled into everything else, and you are no exception.
Buddhism treats Reality and the material world as a blip, an inconsequential circumstance in the grand scheme of things, with the only thing that truly matters being the conscious Escape from this circumstance. If your Soul has been born for no reason, you might as well use this chance to Free yourself from this existence, and ascend to the 'True Reality', which you can only enter if you are able to consciously break free of holding on to this 'lower world'.
How can we tie this to Sky?
If all Beings are made of Light, and after Ascension they enter the Sea of Light, are they then 'erased' in the same way Buddhism expresses? If a drop of water, its own little body, falls into the Ocean, is it still that drop of water, or is it now the Ocean?
We can also potentially see a concept where Ancestors and possibly also Descendants believe it would be better to Remain as One with the Light, and not ever be rebirthed back into the 'lower world'. [That'll be a topic for another day.]
We've obtained some nice fresh inspiration from Buddhism! Let's now turn to take a look at Hinduism.
We quickly find that Hinduism is a lot less dismissive when it comes to the concept of Soul, but not for the reasons you might first think.
Hinduism proposes that the universe, all matter, all living beings, all essence of the 'Everything', is 'god'. And 'god', is a natural, essential essence within the 'Everything'.
Alright... so we can immediately draw the parallel. All living Beings are made of Light, and the Light is all of Life. Not 'in' Life, not 'a part of' Life; but just is. If that's not enough, Hinduism elaborates a bit more.
All creatures have a Soul; all Souls are a part of the 'supreme Soul'.
There it is. Now our concept of a One-ness with the Light is starting to shape itself rather swimmingly. We can start to understand that that consciousness; that the Soul doesn't get Erased [at least in Sky 💀] upon death, or upon merging with the Light. Instead, the experience that the Being had down in the world, is absorbed into the Greater 'One-ness'; joining the collective mind.
A chorus of voices, all different, but all the same.
It is important to note that Beings of Light do not have to Ascend in order to 'Connect' to the Light. Through meditation, both Ancestors and Descendants can contact Souls within the Light. This is seen when we interact with Elders upon meditating at their temples. The connection to the Light can be focused on by the Being, and therefore strengthened. This will be important on another day.
Souls bleed in and out of the supreme One-ness, gaining new experiences and living a new life every time, then joining back with the Light to commune together with every other Soul as one almighty Being.
This revelation matches interestingly with the last thing to note from Hinduism, which is that, through meditation and intense connection to the One, the goal is to:
Bleed into the Eternal One; finally liberated from Passion/Soul/Death/Rebirth.
Which proposes a concept that Beings of Light could possibly hate being separated from the Megabird. This can mostly be expanded upon on a later date, but we can note that there are theories that the voice of Aurora, the melody/theme song of Sky, is the voice/programming of the Light, beckoning us and all Beings of Light to return.
This is groundbreaking information, because it redefines our initial concept that the Megabird/Light is not sentient or 'alive'. It is sentient and it is alive, because it is all living Beings of Light, communing together.
We've come a good long ways to get to where we are now, and I did not do a very good job of keeping things concise. Regardless, let's wrap this up.
From the last article, we learned that:
the Megabird is a 'Sea' of Light in space, hovering in Orbit over the world.
We learned in this article that:
pieces of Light are shed from it
this shed Light gains/builds their own Souls/Consciousness
these Souls are summoned back to the Megabird over time
their experiences are added to the collective wisdom of the Light
Because of this, we can now begin to understand that The Light appears to have intentions. It has goals, and intentionally does things for a reason. Whether the collective consciousness of the Megabird is fully 100% aware of all Beings and what they each do for the collective, we may never know. Does the Light give Descendants the freedom to live and play and explore by intentional will? Or is it not aware of what they do exactly, and just pleads for the Descendant to return? 🤔
Perhaps that is a mystery for another day, or for us to decide on our own. A lot of this theoretically was subjective even to the Ancestors, which means there could've been many different Religions and beliefs about what their Connection to the Light should be and how they should manage it. It will certainly make for an interesting read someday.
If you made it this far you're a trooper, this stuff isn't very light to tackle. Thank you for reading, and I hope everyone has a good rest of their week. If you actually enjoyed this for some reason, I highly recommend you Follow. Adios y'all 🎉🎊😴
What was most interesting to you?
Our personal 'religions'
Difference between Religion and Spirituality
Application of Buddhist concepts
Application of Hindu concepts
The Megabird having intentions
Voting ended onMar 8, 2024
Also, here's the post explaining the Valley Priestess by Soup of Owls if you were still interested:
This was also going to be another complex topic to dissect, but fortunately, complication and technicalities are not supposed to be the point of these posts.
Unfortunately, that's still something I have a hard time understanding.
The point of these posts are to categorize specific themes into notable groupings, and give said grouping a Name. This course of action will create a Terminology, and one that we can continue to use for the foreseeable lifetime of this blog.
Ancestors.
I give myself so so much runaround with the term.
We are trying to answer quite a lot of questions surrounding these characters, such as:
Who are they?
What are they?
How are they?
When are they?
And why are they?
And though I could spend an entire article on each of those, the goal here is to condense it down into a single sentence broadly and tactfully answering only as much of them as deemed necessary.
So first let's talk about Who they are.
There has been more and more dispute over the concept of Beings during the kingdom's history, notably/generally over firstly the Elders, and then more recently with the presence of the Embers on the horizon. The Elders and Embers both have a decent amount of evidence or rationalizations behind them being special Beings; functionally a different 'species' from the Ancestors.
But I think that we, and by we I mean me, need to stop getting distracted by the fact that all of these Beings are 'different' from each other. What matters, is that they all lived in the same kingdom at one point, one way or another. All of their eyes, all of their hands, have worked and toiled and led this kingdom to the point where it had once mightily stood. This belonging to a community is important, and needs to be contrasted with one notable thing;
They are not creatures.
At this point in the kingdom's history (as well as within the mid-phase concept art of the game) there was a clear categorical divide between Ancestors and creatures of Light, and I think that we can retain this divide to be used for the blog today. If creatures are pure Beings and Ancestors are not, then it is because Ancestors are not properly Connected to the Light.
We will go into this in further detail on another vocab post, but if we note Creatures as the 'natural' life flowing throughout the world, then we can counter that with the idea that:
Ancestors are the 'unnatural' presence in the world, due to their separation from the Light.
We've got the first part of our Definition locked in with who and what they are, and the next question I want to ask is the last question I think we'll need, which I personally believe will be the most important:
When?
The term Ancestor should be a no brainer, and when we first hear the term in relation to a character it gives a pretty clear image in our mind almost immediately. Allow me to demonstrate the most perfect example that any kid who grew up on Disney movies will immediately understand:
[[[Scenes from Mulan, showing a man praying to his Ancestors to watch over and guide his family, and the Ancestors deciding how to help their descendant.]]]
Ancestor noun : "A person, typically one more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is descended."
It is still very up in the air whether ANY Beings physically/directly reproduce. They don't; I don't believe they do.
Due to this, we will assume for now that the term Ancestry in Sky refers not to a direct heritage of blood, but generational heritage. Even if Beings just materialize, fallen from the Sky, they are still found and raised by those who came before them, as we can see in Stargazer's memory. This heritage of raising the next Beings that appear is functionally "generational", and therefore once enough generations occur, at some point older generations can be considered a newer generation's ancestor.
But where do we draw the line? Where is the exact moment when our nearest/youngest Ancestors existed? Or more specifically, when?
Fortunately, the answer we need is pretty simple, even though it's about to help us all tie it together.
We know Ancestors possibly survived "the Event" at Eden, but we can't know if any were 'born' into the world after the apocalyptic fallout at the end of the war.
We don't know how soon the 'first' Descendants started appearing down in the world. While I'd argue the very first players at the beginning of Launch were the first Descendants, some theorists argue that this is not provable, and perhaps Descendants were canonically born even before the first players started playing.
The complications and the discourse is chaotic and uncoordinated as ever; what else is new? But I have an easy way to nip this in the bud and make a clear cut decision for everyone, that I believe TGC would clearly prefer us to have implied is the most direct "truth" to our "when".
Any Ancestors, Elders, or Embers that existed BEFORE the 'Explosion' occurred during the Eden Event, are definitively Ancestors.
And from here let's make it just that much simpler with that study we did earlier up there on what is Nature and what is not.
Unnatural Beings that existed before the 'Explosion' occurred during the Eden Event, are definitively Ancestors.
And there we have it! This is the Definition I think we can confidently leave this at for now. Of course it can get deeper then this, but I need to sleep, and the loyal one or two people who read this deserve a break. Thank you so much for reading, and have a good day/night, y'all!
I really hope I get on the next one (or two or three) soon and not get stuck again.
