Forgotten Knowledge Lore [An Extremely Detailed Look at Forgotten Knowledge's contents)

[Scypham]

So, we can all safely assume that Forgotten Knowledge  has alot of lore behind it. After sifting through all the quotes and going ingame to check out everything, I think I've gathered as much of the lore as I can and (due to peer pressure by @Hornete ) I'm gonna share my interpretation on all the contents of this beta.

So first off, we seem to finally have direct confirmation that the event of RoT take place after the Forge and the Gorge given Wicker's quote for the sealed portal. 
ARCHIVE_PORTAL = 
            POWEROFF = "The design is reminiscent of the Gateways we've traversed through before."

 

Spoiler

While this is something that could've easy just been inferred due to the release of the events being before that of RoT, it's nice to have confirmation from a character that they've traversed through the Gateways before. On the topic of this sealed portal, it would appear that it could in theory be a way out of the Constant. Maxwell's quote for it makes him believe it to be something he's flabbergasted of seeing, whereas Wortox's quotes says that he won't tell the mortals since it'll get their hopes up. 
 

Spoiler

Maxwell: ARCHIVE_PORTAL =
            POWEROFF = "It couldn't be...

Wortox: ARCHIVE_PORTAL = {
            POWEROFF = "I won't tell the mortals it's here, it'll just get their poor hopes up.",
            GENERIC = "My my, someone didn't want this door opened."

There is someone else whose name eludes me right now who takes similarly to this, however for the sake of this post I'll only include these two since Maxwell has knowledge from his time on the throne and Wortox seemingly knows exactly what everything in the constant is and its use.

Next up, there's the Lunarune Glyphs. For most characters, they only express two strings of dialogue for them despite there being 5 glyphs similar to the murals in the Atrium. There are three exceptions, Maxwell, Wickerbottom, and Wortox. 

Spoiler

Maxwell: ARCHIVE_RUNE_STATUE = 
            LINE_1 = "These runes are... different.",
            LINE_2 = "I can only glean a hint of their meaning.",
            LINE_3 = "This symbol here keeps repeating...",
            LINE_4 = "\"To change?\" No. It's a name...",
            LINE_5 = "\"Alter\"?"

Maxwell's quotes indicate that there's a symbol that keeps repeating within the Glyphs and he implies it to be a name. His assumption seems to be that either the name itself is 'Alter' or whatever the name is translates to 'Alter' in some way.
 

Spoiler

Wickerbottom:  ARCHIVE_RUNE_STATUE = 
            LINE_1 = "Fascinating! These glyphs seem to be the base that their language evolved from.",
            LINE_2 = "The introduction of shadow fuel must have had a tremendous impact on their culture.",
            LINE_3 = "These glyphs must pre-date their discovery of the shadow fuel.",
            LINE_4 = "This glyph in particular keeps repeating... if only I could decipher its meaning.",
            LINE_5 = "This will need further study."

Wicker surmises that the glyphs were the base they used to construct their entire language, which is why they're different to the regular glyphs we associate with the ancients (many character quotes including Maxwell say they're different). Alongside this she also says the introduction of nightmare fuel likely had a large impact on their culture and that the Ancient Archives actually pre-date the ruins that we've been used to. Which raises some questions that I'll get to at the end of all this.
 

Spoiler

  ARCHIVE_RUNE_STATUE = 
            LINE_1 = "Oh, what's this? A bit of light reading?",
            LINE_2 = "It seems they were quite enamoured with our fickle moon once.",
            LINE_3 = "Now this one doesn't make much sense at all. Unless...",
            LINE_4 = "Oh my! My, my my!",
            LINE_5 = "Hyuyu, I shouldn't spoil the surprise!"

Wortox meanwhile, is a mischievous imp as always and knows exactly what's going on but doesn't tell us much. What we do get however is that the Ancients most likely worshipped the moon before they worshipped the shadows/Them and that something within these glyphs spun a tale that surprised him, as if there's a plot twist to the whole history of the ancients that we're unaware of.

So yeah, the Glyphs likely speak of the history of the Ancients with the moon but we dont get much aside from it was likely before Them, they worshipped it and the lunar entity that the gestalts are extensions of and potentially even the altars' voice are from, has a name that either is or is similar to 'Altar'. 


Onto other matters, Dust Moths are the source of Thulecite. Or rather, they are a source. We've never known about how Thulecite was actually made and the Dust Moths provide us with that answer. According to Maxwell they are the source of Thulecite, and according to Wickerbottom, the chemicals in them all them to process ambrosia (aka processed nitre, rocks and salt) into Thulecite.

Spoiler

Maxwell: DUSTMOTHDEN = "So this is the source of the Thulecite... I must say, I'm underwhelmed."

Wickerbottom: DUSTMOTHDEN = "It seems a chemical reaction within the bodies of these creatures creates Thulecite."

So yeah, thank this little bugger for all your lategame gear I guess lol. Seriously, look at his sad face, this poor thing needs a raise for it's labour.

Spoiler

There's also the matter of the sentinel of the archives. There was a mural I beliiieve from the Metheus Puzzle that had quite alot going on with it. One such thing were these strange centipede-like creatures that existed in the bottom right and bottom middle of the mural. Now I'm not saying that these sentinels are these centipedes, however I will say that it could be likely that they were inspired by these centipedes.



I have just a few more things I'd want to go over. The most important thing being the Mysterious Energy.
 

Spoiler

This thing only appears if you have all three Celestial Altars (the one found on the lunar island, the one obtained by beating the pearl version of the Crab King, and now the one obtained through the use of the Astral Detector obtained from the Ancient Archives). Once you've constructed all 3, this orb of light wrapped in caution tape appears in the center of the three. We don't have much information on it other than we'll have to wait and characters can't see what it is, which could likely mean that it's not just an orb of light. Wormwood refers to it as 'seed' but I believe he's referring to how it's merely a small taste of what's yet to come and we'll need patience to see what it grows into. Could also be that whatever it is is quite literally a seed, we'll see. What's important to note here is that it has the same caution tape and the Ancient Gateway once did in A New Reign, which we played a critical role in the lore. So I'm assuming that whatever this is is the central piece of Return of Them and we'll soon find out how all the pieces of the puzzle are meant to be pieced together.

That about does it for major lore I'd say. A couple extra things: Wicker implies that the water from above is what mutated the mushtree biome into the Grotto and that the Fountain of Knowledge is a curious structure that contains liquified knowledge, which likely has to do with the Lunar/Celestial Magic. She also surmises that the Terra Firma Tamper was used for ancient farming techniques since it can technically create fertile land (grass turf and the likes). Also just a neat tidbit, Ambrosia is a food from Greek mythology that was said to be the food of the Gods and would grant longevity or immortality to those who ate it. Which could explain why the Dust Moths are there, or I'm looking too much into things.

Thaaat about does it for information. There's alot of things to be questioned in all this. How did the Dust Moths survive being in a cut off portion of the Ruins for centuries? Did they survive off of the dust that was in the Archives (they are implied to be the reason it's in such a pristine state, they dusted it for centuries, and they do eat Ambrosia which comes from refined dust, which could've also made em immortal but I prefer to stay away from that possibility personally).

Why are the Gestalts in the caves once you activate the pedestals stronger than the ones on the island? It's possible that the Gestalts/the Lunar Entity simply has no reason to harm you while you're on the island, but in the caves due to it being connected to there again it can fight against the shadows. It's also possible that similar to the shadow part of the ruins, there's something quite strong that's channeling the magic which we ended up awakening with the Pedestals, and that awakened conduit is much stronger than the moon's natural conductive properties for Lunar/Celestial magic. I prefer the latter possibility.

Did Charlie want to wage war on the gestalts/moon? We know the Grotto is a warzone once we activate the pedestal due to various things within the files referring to it as such such as a component I believe is called grottowarmanager, the sound file  for activating the pedestal being something along the lines of warzonestart, and Charlie's Nightmare Ramparts which I believe are at the edge of the biome where there's fissues, Ramparts are essentially part of a defensive wall for a fort, so it seems she's using them to mark her territory as she and the moon declares war on each other.

Why does she want a war and what's her grand scheme? Thaaaat I have no answer to at this point.

If the Ancients worshipped the moon and had such advanced technology before (as we can see in the Archives), what happened that lead to their civilisation being on the verge of collapse (as seen in character text for Atrium murals) and then resorting to the fuel? I believe the answer has to do with the moon itself, it appears its power is potentially being unsealed and becoming greater (I believe a post in the forums mentioned this sometime this year) which would imply something could've sealed it away long ago and made the Ancients resort to using shadow magic that was introduced by Them. Which may also imply that Them could've sealed it away, this and the fact that they're opposing forces does bring that possibility on the table.

Why was the Archives sealed away? The answer to that could be in Wicker's quote about their culture shifting when the fuel was introduced, the introduction of the fuel could've lead them away from using Lunar/Celestial magic. In the Metheus Puzzle murals we do see that the gateway is different in each one, becoming more saturated with shadow and Thulecite while originally it had a very balanced and symmetrical form with black and white, possibly being Shadow and Celestial magic at balance.

 Lastly, who are They? Maxwell has a quote for the moon archive statue where he wonders if They are even aware of the Archives, which outright rules out Them being the Ancients since they built the area, and the moon since that's who they worshipped. My strongest assumption at this point is They would be the shadow equivalent of the moon entity and the only time we've truly seen its unknowable form was in this mural of the Ancient Gateway, where an eye is present within it.



With all that being said, that concludes my extremely long post about all the lore within Forgotten Knowledge and my interpretation on it. This took me an hour to write and looking back I should've totally just made a video rather than explaining all of this through text, but I got caught up in the heat of the moment due to being a lore junkie and at this point I feel like I should commit to posting it lol. To anyone who finishes reading this and to anyone who even partially read it, I'm grateful for you lending me a couple moments of your time to read my interpretation of all of this. I hope it was an enjoyable read. And apologies if this could've been formatted better. This is my first real post in the forums and I'm not quite sure how everything works for me to format it better.

[minespatch]

I'm hyped for future updates with the archive. There is so much we could learn.

[sinisterrkid]

Excellent stuf!! I love how Wicker, Max and Wortox are the main vehicles of lore from the characters. I'm still intrigued by Wickerbottom's quotes about moon glass, saying it's likely organic matter. She also had some tidbits about Thulecite having some organicity to it, and the moth's reveal is super satisfying to me. Although I totally get Maxwell saying he's underwhelmed . I think it's so cute and funny and unique and sad, totally in style for Don't Starve.

 

57 minutes ago, Scypham said:

If the Ancients worshipped the moon and had such advanced technology before (as we can see in the Archives), what happened that lead to their civilisation being on the verge of collapse (as seen in character text for Atrium murals) and then resorting to the fuel? [...]

I do like the idea of moon magic having been sealed away and the Ancients having to resort to nightmare fuel, though I do think it was more about them being slowly corrupted by it, tempted towards it. But I don't know. Could be either option.

[minespatch]

4 minutes ago, sinisterrkid said:

do like the idea of moon magic being sealed away and the Ancients having to resort to nightmare fuel, though I do think it was more about them being slowly corrupted to it, tempted towards it. But I don't know. Could be either option.

Lesser of two thulian evils?

[WebberMain]

Oh,great post!I wanted to make one.Anyway,the sound which plays when you activate the thing in the Archives is called ShadowWarStart.About the "Did They knew about it"line,I think yes they did and did not want us to find it,because its moon powered.Now the really interesting thing is,in the new lunar cave biome.You can see Shadow Creatures and Gestalts fighting.Literally fighting between each other.That´s the first time something other than the player can hurt the shadows in DST.Also,the mysterious energy ball has the tape,which we seen only once before,on the atrium.And if atrium was the portal trough Them tried to enter  the Constant,oh we can only think of what this ball is capable of.We are at the brink of War and,possibly  at the End Game of DST.

[QuartzBeam]

Isn't Thulecite supposed to be stone infused with nightmare fuel?

If so, the presence of both thulecite and moon rock in the Archive would implies the Ancients indeed used to have a balance between light and dark.

[WebberMain]

1 hour ago, QuartzBeam said:

Isn't Thulecite supposed to be stone infused with nightmare fuel?

If so, the presence of both thulecite and moon rock in the Archive would implies the Ancients indeed used to have a balance between light and dark.

Nope,some of us thought it was made by Ancients bursting trough their bodies,then the exoskeletons were used to build thulecite things.But looks like its just a product of a  biological process.But i wonder,WHAT made Ancients abandon moon power and adopt power of the shadows.Manipulation by Them?Or,what if there were 2 different nations,unified by the Metheus and the staff bearer?We will propably find out soon

[fimmatek]

9 hours ago, Scypham said:

This took me an hour to write and looking back I should've totally just made a video rather than explaining all of this through text, but I got caught up in the heat of the moment due to being a lore junkie and at this point I feel like I should commit to posting it lol. [...]

You did a great job, your post summarises the lore, both what certain and what is just possible/theory.

I'm glad you did write it down, it's easier to search in it, to quote it and to make a quick overview. Thank you for your time and effort you put into this post!

[Maslak]

Just to add something:

The food item is actually called amberosia, which is a pun. Amber + ambrosia. Nice thread!

[Well-met]

Thulecite is poop?

poggers

[Scypham]

59 minutes ago, Maslak said:

Just to add something:

The food item is actually called amberosia, which is a pun. Amber + ambrosia. Nice thread!

Oh I didn't even pick up on that! That's a pretty nice detail. So I guess it's more of a solid resin which is why the survivors don't seem eager to eat it, the moth's the only thing that can really process it. Or I'm overthinking things lol.

.

41 minutes ago, Well-met said:

Thulecite is poop?

poggers

It's moth vomit. At least, I interpret it like it being used similar to how bees produce honey.

[PasssionFish]

11 hours ago, Scypham said:

the name itself is 'Alter'

Walter is an ancient confirmed

[DaZoul]

1 hour ago, TheHollowKnight said:

Walter is an ancient confirmed

Too late I already made that pun hehe

But that could actually explain how stupidly brave he is, I guess. (Dont take me seriously, of course he isnt an ancient... unless...)

[Wardin25]

Three things.

One, this is kind of exactly like Hollow Knight's lore

Spoiler

(Moth tribe worshiped Radiance, and when the Pale king arrived they worshiped him, which caused the Radiance to start the infection)

Second, all this was caused by a piece of the moon falling. That begs the question, what caused that piece of the moon to fall?

Third, Thulecite is made by sentient roombas

[Scypham]

On 10/17/2020 at 11:29 AM, Wardin25 said:

Three things.

One, this is kind of exactly like Hollow Knight's lore

  Reveal hidden contents

(Moth tribe worshiped Radiance, and when the Pale king arrived they worshiped him, which caused the Radiance to start the infection)

Second, all this was caused by a piece of the moon falling. That begs the question, what caused that piece of the moon to fall?

Third, Thulecite is made by sentient roombas

First, I've seen people make that connection with Hollow Knight alot since I made this and given my profile picture, you'd think I would've made it as well lol. 

Second, I totally forgot about that part of this whole puzzle! If we go down the road of 'the moon's power is being returned to it after it's been sealed for so long' then it could be that the moon's current form isn't its true form and with its power coming back it's breaking free of its (potentially physical) cage to show what it really is. Or as its power is growing stronger it's growing more unstable which is causing it to break. There's a few ways you could explain it since we know its power is appearing to grow. Why that's happening though is something I have no clue about. 

While thinking about a response to that question I ended up going on a total tangent about what Charlie's plans could be since the moon falling apart is almost definitely linked to her coming into power given that we've now learnt about how significant the moon is to the lore. I figure I might as well share it given how much I've written but I'm incredibly sorry for going on this large of a tangent.

This is based on almost pure speculation and it originates from the Metheus puzzle (my one piece of information to support this).



You can see the Gateway in all of the murals, but its appearance is always changing. The first mural (the one in this message) you can see it had a complete frame, it had a symbol similar to the Ancient Herald's headwear, and most importantly there were both black and white lines both in and surrounding it. In the next image it has significantly less white and there's more black 'arms' or 'tentacles' reaching out from it. In the next image we see (what I assume to be) Them attacking the Ancients from the Gateway and the white only appears in the form of runes and also the torch one of the Ancients held. The final mural shows the Gateway partially destroyed and distorted, with shadow tentacles appearing from it and being significantly more untamed than the tentacles we saw before. Now, you could say this is just artistic interpretation. But the fact that such a central piece of lore changed appearance in every depiction of it when it was used is something I think should be taken into consideration.

Now to relate this to the moon, since we know that the Ancients once used Celestial/Lunar magic it's possible the white coming from the Gateway was said magic and overtime the use of it diminished, or perhaps the effect of it diminished as the Ancients turned towards using the fuel more and more, this allowed Them to appear and bring about the ruin of the Ancients. However, we know that either the Gateway was too weak to sustain Their arrival or the Ancients managed to partially destroy the Gateway since we see it damaged still in disrepair even now. We can see it's clearly working still but perhaps it's not fully functional. After all, nothing damaged could fully function, especially an interdimensional gateway I'd imagine. So it's possible Charlie's plan is to repair the Gateway and in order to do that she needs the power of the moon. Or, perhaps similar to the Ancients, she's planning to use the power of the moon to control Their power through the Gateway. We're not quite sure what exactly could happen if you're able to use both lunar and shadow magic for something. The closest we ever get to that would be the Celestial Portal, the Moon Rock Idol and Walter's slowdown ammo. All of these use Moon Rocks and Purple Gems, Moon Rocks being associated with lunar magic and Purple Gems being associated with shadow magic. The portal and the Idol are both used to make a better portal that's capable of warping space to bring a survivor into the world in exchange for another (and the idol). As for Walter's slowdown ammo its description says "what laws of physics?" which implies the ammo bends reality or something of the sort.

Alot of this is just "hey this looks like this is what's happening" hence why I said it's almost purely speculation. I am however, at least confident in saying that the gateway once used celestial magic, given the information we have about the Ancients due to the beta and that the Ancients using more and more of the fuel lead to Them appearing in the Gateway.

How Charlie caused the moon to fall is something that's purely speculation for now. We know both Them and the moon can influence the Constant despite neither of them being at full power/present and that they oppose each other so it could be that they influenced each other's power as well and Charlie realising she needed the moon, allowed it to grow in power once more and grow unstable in order to get something from it to assist in bringing back Them.

Super speculative theory, can't stress on that enough, I'm confident on some parts of it being the case due to evidence to suggest it, but not all of it. Especially why the moon fell apart and how Charlie could've played a part in that. 

3. Yeah Thulecite is compact dust from a Ruins Roomba basically lol. I love that comparison, thank you for sharing that.

4.I apologise for the fact that you asked one small lore question and I went to town with talking about a theory related to it as a result.

[Wardin25]

22 minutes ago, Scypham said:

4.I apologise for the fact that you asked one small lore question and I went to town with talking about a theory related to it as a result.

Honestly, theres nothing better to read than theories while sailing to pearls island

Also: Winona has appeared in all shortcuts that show lunar zones (Supposing that the new update trailer will have something to do with the beta tittle screen), so maybe (a strong maybe) she (Charlie) is trying to take advantage of their shared blood to confuse the moon?

[Scypham]

1 hour ago, Wardin25 said:

Honestly, theres nothing better to read than theories while sailing to pearls island

Also: Winona has appeared in all shortcuts that show lunar zones (Supposing that the new update trailer will have something to do with the beta tittle screen), so maybe (a strong maybe) she (Charlie) is trying to take advantage of their shared blood to confuse the moon?

I can't say that I'm a believer in that, I'd prefer to think that Winona just shows up often because of how they've emphasized that Charlie's soon to be unveiling her grand scheme and she's her sister so klei felt like showcasing her for RoT trailers/menus that progressed the story. It's a possibility, I won't deny that. But in this case I prefer going with the simpler answer.

[YouKnowWho]

One thing I find interesting is how we've actually seen Nightmare Ramparts before

 

And hey, considering the way these things spring up I'm pretty sure they might be where we get the obelisks.

Though, the thing on the left is itself called an ancient obelisk, so maybe we already knew that part.

[Zeklo]

2 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

One thing I find interesting is how we've actually seen Nightmare Ramparts before

And hey, considering the way these things spring up I'm pretty sure they might be where we get the obelisks.

Though, the thing on the left is itself called an ancient obelisk, so maybe we already knew that part.

So this is why I thought the art looked strange. I'm so used to seeing the other one. 

The shading is a bit different, and so are the lettering. Hope it'll get touched up a bit.

[Cassielu]

Maybe Crawling Nightmare is from Dust Moth under the influence of Fuel.

They looks so close.

[Quoth143]

Maybe Charlie is trying to pull a double-cross on Them. She wants to open the gate and maybe doing so will give her the key to free herself from Them. 

[maciu67]

On ‎10‎/‎16‎/‎2020 at 12:39 PM, QuartzBeam said:

Isn't Thulecite supposed to be stone infused with nightmare fuel?

If so, the presence of both thulecite and moon rock in the Archive would implies the Ancients indeed used to have a balance between light and dark.

Maybe Thulecite is rock that can powered any kind of magic.

 

On ‎10‎/‎16‎/‎2020 at 3:35 PM, Well-met said:

Thulecite is poop?

I heard about the theory that thulecite is plastic.

[user1464576869]

I already miss Thulecite being shed flesh of mutilated souls.

[sinisterrkid]

4 hours ago, Cosheeta said:

I already miss Thulecite being shed flesh of mutilated souls.

I never really understood why people put forth a theory that basically meant thulecite would be the opposite of special from the Ancient's own perspective. If it's just their own corpses or mutated flesh, the fact they had always used it for various purposes would go against both their society being peaceful and prosperous before the corruption, and thulecite being a precious material.

I mean, it's cool to imagine a material made of dead living matter until you remember that's basically what oil and plastic is.

[Maslak]

It kinda made sense, because Ancients appear quite crustacean, and crustaceans shed their exoskeleton multiple times before reaching maturity. Why waste it if you can build dope walls and canes from it? But yeah, imagine humans doing pavements from trimmed nailes, yuck.