#spider tribe

[nessiopeia]

How much text is there that implies that the Pale King is slowly, fully subjugating the other tribes? Cause the thing is, it isn’t clear that it’s the same as what the citadel did to the neighboring tribes in their home turf (I.e. very clearly brutally conquering them directly). I know that there are npcs who are possibly hinted to have lived through old Hallownest and were skeptical of PK (Bardoon for example) and there’s Hive Queen Vespa saying in her dream form that the hive didn’t care much what happened to the rest of Hallownest and the weavers who obviously hate him. But like, what do you think he exactly did to them, aside from forcing them to do an alliance with him. Hope that didn’t come off as confrontative, I’m just genuinely curious if there were some lore text I missed (which is easy considering how fucking big even the first game was) that might’ve given a more clear picture of what he was doing to the other tribes. In a way I almost feel compelled to criticize Team Cherry for having the PK be so vague and mysterious that it’s hard to grasp a consistent picture of him and his rule, as opposed to how they did a much better job explaining in detail what the Citadel is doing to the tribes and what Grand Mother Silk’s plans were as well.

There is of course not much. What we have is mostly environmental and the following bits:

"The Mantis tribe and the bugs of old Hallownest had no love for each other."

Seer: "The folk of my tribe were born from a light. Light similar to Essence, similar to that powerful blade, though much brighter still. They were content to bask in that light and honoured it… for a time. But another light appeared in our world… A wyrm that took the form of a king. How fickle my ancestors must have been. They forsook the light that spawned them. Turned their backs to it… Forgot it even."

Quirrel on the Spider Tribe: "Supposedly, there's a village deep in the warren. Its inhabitants never accepted Hallownest's King."

The Fungal Tribe: "Warily shall we accept the will of the Wyrm. Its prescience shields us. Fate and Future we shall entwine."

Mosskin: "Though once our lands, a pale being lays claim to the caverns ahead. [...] Be wary to wander that place."

It really is only the archive and Fog Bugs under Monomon that the King's reign seems more or less accepted happily (based on the elegy she wrote) and of course the other bugs of the other regions who formed the bulk of Hallownest as a kingdom. All of the rest of these seem somewhere between fully antagonistic or at least only reluctantly accepting that the Pale King is inevitable.

As for what the Pale King did: I think its great that Team Cherry didn't explain, because it means I get to make up stuff based on this lore to fill hundreds of pages of fanfic about it! The wider the holes the better I eat.

Personally, I think that the Pale King aligned with the simple insects and moths after chasing off the radiance and becoming the new light of Hallownest. After that it probably depended. I mean he did have an army of armored bugs and five powerful knights. I'm sure they waged war. In fact, the Mantis' alude to making a "truce" with the payment being their independence for keeping the Mantis Door closed and beating back the beasts of Deepnest.

However towards the end, before the Infection truly began, there is some evidence that PK was going around that truce and forming an alliance with Deepnest in the form of birthing Hornet, accepting silk from the Weavers (seen at the stag station near the White Palace) and building two tramways (Though in the collapse one failed and was overtaken by Deepnest again).

There's also the clear implication that some Mantids did not accept the truce. The Traitor Lord abandons the tribe with a contingent of traitors to explicitly take back the Queen's Gardens and kill the White Lady seemingly in revenge for the love his child shared with a knight of Hallownest.

Anyways that's at least some of my evidence! Thanks for the question

[determinedcloudchaser]

My thoughts on why the failed tramway stopped. The Pale king may started a project that caused the death of the workers. But one thing he cannonically always do it with the consent of the other party. He even respect the Mantis and the Hive borders, never expanding beyond them.

Deepnest is not innocent at this, they are proven to use deceipt and lies as their hunting strategy to things they have no emotional attachments to.

Following that pattern of behavior, PK was most likely lied to when the late King of Deepnest told him that the Nest accepts them, and told him that the tram is safe for construction cause they are "friends" now.

And like a sucker he believed it, not knowing it is a trap as a food source. In retaliation he stop but made a pact with the Mantis to keep killing any Deepnest "Beasts".

They use deceipt and traps to lure prey. If you have not been to the Distant Village, the dead bodies in will tell you they were lied to before being killed as food. Even to you, they lie to "convince" you too sit, cause they are friends.

Midwife does this, multiple times. Even if she have done it she will still do it again, no matter how much she apologizes, cause she needs food and it's better her than you.

The Spider's are by nature carnivores, their only source of food are other bugs, which is everyone in the game. So they hunt and kill to survive.

Which puts them against almost all their neighbors since. Food source will always be an issue, If they run out of food, they will have to trespass and kill a bug, or use lies and deceipt to lure them in, then kill them. Which is still murder.

Whether you call PK as a child murder, don't forget Herrah of Deepnest, and her whole clan is also a murderers of bugs with no compassion, cause she sees them as food, for years.

Deepnest already have bad blood with their existing neighbors before PK and Hallownest arrived in the scene

The manstis hate them, the Mushroom refuses to make peace with them. There should be a reason why the mushroom and the Mantis are very hostile to their nighbor,not just for the sake of hate.

But due to the Spiders carnivorous nature and a culture of hunting "lesser species" (Midwife's words BTW). The bad blood is stemmed from defense and survival.

The Mantis aren't even native of the Mushroom clan, but they are a foreign species that settled there. The Shrooms are also ridiculously territorial, but are chill with them cause they share a common enemy. So they keep the Mantis around for their protection.

A mutual exchange, the Mantis gets a home and the Mushrooms gain protection from Deepest.

They did it again with the Pale King, that guy is powerful, and have foresight. They see a benefit from that, like the additional protection from the Mantis. So they accepted his rule and be part of the Hallownest map. Just part but nothing seems to be built over them, a walkway was done but the Shrooms look like nothing was changed much in their landscape and culture.