The Ancient Civilization: A Major, In-Depth Analysis of Everything.

[Blue Moth]

As many know, there is a ton of lore behind the Ancient Civilization of the Ruins. I have seen many videos and threads interpreting the murals, but I am here to interpret not only the murals, but also what we have ingame. There is a lot of implied lore that has been right under our noses that we have missed. So, without further ado, let us begin the analysis of the Ancient Civilization.

Part One: The Ancient Murals.

So, to start, I will indeed be talking about the murals. Starting off, I will not only be interpreting the murals that we most commonly see interpreted, but also the mural in the background of the Metheus Puzzle.

Here we see the lives of the ancients before they were driven underground. They seem to be living lives similar to the lives of our survivors of the constant. They are gathering carrots and berries, and they are harvesting honey from bees. This is pretty basic stuff. It is worth noting the symbols, But I am not going to go translating everything because that would take a lot of time and we only know the meaning of a few of them. If there is anyone who has figured out the meaning of all of the symbols, I would love to know, and it would be very helpful for you to translate them. But for now, let us move on.

Here we see that winter is here. Crops are dying and birds are migrating. The Ancients are gathering resources so they can head to the caves to escape the harsh weather. I personally believe that this is not the first winter they have experienced, but perhaps in the previous year, they had Deerclops show up and cause the death of many of them, so the ancients are trying to escape before Deerclops comes back.

Here we see the ancients bringing their resources underground. The fact that they have yellow and green gems lead me to believe that these gems that are only accessible by us underground were once on the surface world, but the ancients found almost all of them and took them to the caves. I say almost because there is still a chance to get these gems from tumbleweeds, and the Dragonfly still hoards her collection of gems. Also, I believe that the Ancient leading the ones that have not gone underground yet to be the same Torch Bearer we see later, and their willingness to help lead the rest of the colony lead to them being crowned as a leader.

Here we see that the ancients have dug deeper and deeper, until eventually, they found the Ancient Gateway. The Gateway produced a light energy from it, but it also produced some darkness from one end. The dark side seems to be causing death and decay, judging by the bones. We also have the two leaders of the Ancient Civilization, one bearing a torch, and the other wielding a staff. These two are standing at an equal level, representing that they were equal in power. I think that the Staff Wielder is this ancient, who either found the staff, or they made it.

I personally believe that they found this staff, perhaps with the gateway. I also find it interesting that the staff seems to be radiating some sort of light energy from the bottom, much unlike the staff we see later. Perhaps this staff was attached to the gateway, but upon being removed, its energy corrupted.

Here we see the staff wielder using the dark energy to do many things that helped the civilization thrive. We see him getting carrots in the top left area. Perhaps he used the magic from the staff to kill bunnymen, and looting the carrots from their bodies. There is an abundance of rabbits seen in the wall mural, and we do see this ancient hunting rabbits in said mural.

Perhaps this ancient is the one who later became the staff wielder, and he never liked rabbits and he enjoyed killing them for food and for sport. This may be a bit farfetched, but it's something I found noteworthy.

The panel where the Staff Wielder summons gems doesn't really strike me very much, and I can't really find some deep connection to anything, so I'm going to declare that all that is happening here is that he is conjuring gems.

Next we see them making/conjuring screws, wrenches, gears, and other mechanical bits. These were used to construct the Clockworks, which were made to guard the Ancients' valuable or sacred things.

Then we see them conjuring bones from the ground, just like how the Fuelweaver summons bones to aid him in battle.

Before we move on to the next part of the mural, it is worth noting that the Gateway has much more dark energy, with only small bits of light energy coming from it.

Here we see that the Staff Wielder has gained much more power. They are standing tall and mighty, while the Torch Bearer is low, crouched over, and their flame is dying. It makes sense, since the staff wielder has been helping the colony thrive, while the torch bearer only helped escort the colony underground.

Here we see something that could be interpreted in a few different ways, but I think this is showing that the rest of the ancients are trying to warn their leaders of what is yet to come. We see that there is something dark coming for them, but it is being blocked by centipedes. More on the centipedes later.

Here we see that the gateway has reached its full power, and it is lashing out, corrupting some and killing many, we see that the arms and heads of the corrupted ancients have fallen off and have been replaced by shadows. We see the disembodied head and arms of one of the ancients in this panel:

Here we see that the torch bearer has risen up to fight the evil that is corrupting their people, using the light to deflect away the darkness. We also see that the surviving ancients are corrupting things with the dark magic. The Staff Wielder has fallen and seems to be in pain from the dark energy.

Here we see that the imbalance between the dark and the light has caused the gateway to be unstable, and part of it broke.

I believe that the Staff Wielder and the Torch Bearer used their combined efforts to shut down the gateway. Unfortunately, it seems that the Torch Bearer was corrupted by the darkness in the process of doing so. I don't believe that they are dead, because there is no skull and bone to show death like it did with the other ancients who died. I think the dark killed the remaining ancients, but it left the torch bearer corrupted and the staff wielder enlightened. I believe this because the throne they sit upon seems to shed a lot of the light energy. I also believe that they are covering their eyes to symbolize that they have turned away from Them, who is primarily represented by an eye.

Something I forgot to mention is that I believe that the power from the gateway comes from Them, and when the gateway was at the height of its power, that's when you see Them.

Welp, That'll wrap it up for now. The second mural seems to tell a much different story that I have not seen analysis of in the past, so I will be the first one (to my knowledge) who covers it. It is a bit more speculation-y than the first one, but I believe I have evidence to support it. But until I cover that, I will see you guys next time!

 

[Pikapikap]

[viberr]

i read this whole thing and there was not a single game theory joke. unacceptable

[ZTheNecromancer]

Can't help but wonder about how long this took you.

[Bluepufferfish]

TLDR: Walter is the ancients and Them

Just trust me on this one. I swear it's what it said please. 

[Nino123]

6 hours ago, Blue Moth said:

 

 

 

 

I think that this picture show us the cane bearer using dark power to improve farming (carrots), science and technology (screws), magic (gems) and black magic (shadows). He used the gateway to feed the ancient people and to improve the ancient civilization's skills.

Later, Shadows corrupted him and his people, killing them, since the torch bearer tried to stop shadows with her torch (torch symbolise the light where cane is the darkness).

 

Your analysis is pretty cool, il like the idea of centipedes protecting the Ancient from shadows.

[Notecja]

2 hours ago, Nino123 said:

Later, Shadows corrupted him and his people, killing them, since the torch bearer tried to stop shadows with her torch (torch symbolise the light where cane is the darkness).

I believe most of the Shadows we know in game are leftover of Ancients after they shed their shells/bodies. Somebody else in their analysis told about this theory and kinda feels right.

[ShadowDuelist]

Seems to me that the gateway held an unlimited power when balanced right by the light and the darkness. But the ancients instead, focused too much on the powers of the darkness and the nightmare fuel, given that the cane wielder could create unlimited resources with it.

Could it be that the torchbearer, the "light" side of the powers to control the gateway, was actually wielding lunar energy?

[Maxposting]

3 hours ago, Notecja said:

I believe most of the Shadows we know in game are leftover of Ancients after they shed their shells/bodies. Somebody else in their analysis told about this theory and kinda feels right.

More rather that Shadows erupted from the ancients, and moon moths just covered their bodies.

[GetNerfedOn]

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Seems to me that the gateway held an unlimited power when balanced right by the light and the darkness. But the ancients instead, focused too much on the powers of the darkness and the nightmare fuel, given that the cane wielder could create unlimited resources with it.

Could it be that the torchbearer, the "light" side of the powers to control the gateway, was actually wielding lunar energy?

I was thinking this too considering that Lunar forces directly come in conflict to Shadows.

But the next question would be this: are Lunar forces really truly benevolent considering they also mutate what they touch? 

I'm imagining they aren't, and that we'll get a Smash Ultimate, World of Light-esque situation where granting too much power to one side leads to them achieving total dominion over the land, and the only real way out is to expunge both sides from existence.

[Articestone]

I don't know why but i have a theory that the Ancients make thulicite themselves though it take a long time /difficult to do so or it is a rare minerals they found rather than the Moth  make thulicite and after the inbalance of nightmares and lunar, there was chaos of magic.

Some of the Ancients after being affected by the nightmares, broke their mortal shells and escaped as aggressive  nightmare creatures and are tamed by Them? Aggressive due to the nightmare corruption.

While the rest just mutated and degnerated into drunk and depressed moths that created thulicite. Reason is that lunar magic help them with their desires or wants by mutating them in a twisted way , like spiders gaining long range attacks so they don't need to go close range and die, hounds gaining a second life to come after the survivors and get revenge.

Thulicite can be used with nightmare fuel to craft weaponary, armor and staffs which bring tremendous help to society,very useful. So during the chaos the Ancients are in despair and depressed and wish for thulicite to make items to defend them from the chaos and escape. Lunar magic then fufilled their wish and give them the ability to make thulicite easier and faster by eating their resources. But slowly after they used up the remaining resources around the area, or they need exposure to lunar magic to survive so they make a journey to their previous base, the archives which have lunar magic.

During the journey many could have died thus there are few moths at the archives. Without salt they cannot make thulicite but none of them could have go back up as moths. I would assume collected dust is their only food and without it many starved. Then they evolved / mutated themselves / lunar magic to improved their survival ability but as a result failed to retain their thinking ability and thus cannot communicate. The moths are probably depressed all the time as the 2 times they mutated/evolved it was in harsh times and when they are mutated/evolved within despair, the emotion if despair is stuck in their subconscious mind thus they are depressed all the time 

T.L.D.R. Just some of my ******** and canon

[Scypham]

2 weeks of nothing and I'm getting replaced already lol. Jkjk, it's nice to see an in-depth lore post about the Ancients. It's a pretty solid post! Though the title's a bit misleading since it's primarily mural based and doesn't look at the archives and such, but it's a good general post on the Ancients nonetheless and I assume it took you a while to compile what you did so you got sidetracked and tired, which is totally understandable. I'm likely gonna cover similar material and a bit more on my own Ancient post eventually. Hopefully nobody thinks I'm copying this one lol. Ancient lore is hella interesting since they're a primary force in what lead up to the events of the current game, yet there's so much we dunno about them like the extent to which they worshipped the 'Moon', how the fuel was actually introduced to em (aka what caused the 'dark wave' to wash over the city) and so on. I look forward to future lore posts if you're gonna do em! I was planning to do one today myself.

[Blue Moth]

23 minutes ago, Scypham said:

2 weeks of nothing and I'm getting replaced already lol. Jkjk, it's nice to see an in-depth lore post about the Ancients. It's a pretty solid post! Though the title's a bit misleading since it's primarily mural based and doesn't look at the archives and such, but it's a good general post on the Ancients nonetheless and I assume it took you a while to compile what you did so you got sidetracked and tired, which is totally understandable. I'm likely gonna cover similar material and a bit more on my own Ancient post eventually. Hopefully nobody thinks I'm copying this one lol. Ancient lore is hella interesting since they're a primary force in what lead up to the events of the current game, yet there's so much we dunno about them like the extent to which they worshipped the 'Moon', how the fuel was actually introduced to em (aka what caused the 'dark wave' to wash over the city) and so on. I look forward to future lore posts if you're gonna do em! I was planning to do one today myself.

I do plan to make more posts to follow up my first one, there is just a lot to cover in one post, so I thought I would make this an ongoing thread where I cover the lore of the ancients from the murals, the other murals which seem to tell a completely different story, the different biomes of the ruins themselves, and the inhabitants of the ruins now.

And also, as many of you have already said, yes, I do believe that the light energy is most likely lunar magic, I just avoid calling them by what they are ingame.

[Zeklo]

I'm very curious about @Blue Moth &@Scypham's opinion on the melty brown substance that the Atrium's present state consists of. Any particular thoughts?

[Blue Moth]

2 minutes ago, Zeklo said:

I'm very curious about @Blue Moth &@Scypham's opinion on the melty brown substance that the Atrium's present state consists of. Any particular thoughts?

I think it could be a new things: Cobwebs, Dust, Moss, or perhaps it is just dirty cobwebs. It is not outside the realm of possibility since there are an abundance of dangling depth dwellers in the Atrium. I may need to look into this more for a better answer, though.

[PasssionFish]

Translations (kinda) to runes here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IQ8pFhdRU1EQaisSea_-ckvhYq1ryI_ZJ2hcsxyX6DA/edit#gid=0

16 hours ago, Blue Moth said:

Some symbols have multiple interpretations, so here is what the text above the carrots say : ancient/worker/give/thulian,           offering/carrying/possesses/holding,    carrot,  berries/farm, so It must be just a label saying "ancients posses carrot farm."

The art right below the sun looks like waves... are they living underwater? probably not but just a thought.

Text above sun: Moonrock/flight/sky/spider/tallbird/rain ,     Crow/bird , another sky symbol,  redgem/starcallerstaff/sun/day/hot, another sky symbol, and another bird, so I think this one is another simple label since there are some small dots painted and what looks like a wave I think its raining maybe, so          "rainy day, birds, sun, and more birds" so a normal day.

Text below mountain:  Bones/shadow atrium/ cave/wormhole/hunt, greengem, orange gem, purple gem, yellow gem, guess what, its another label!

"cave with green orange purple and yellow gems"

Thats all im going to translate for now, nice post btw.

Also this:

Spoiler

EVIL CARROT! Among us corpses be like:

 

[Blue Moth]

Welcome back, ladies and germs, Today I am going to continue my analysis of the Ancient Civilization. Today I am going to talk about the mural from the Metheus wall, as well as some of the biomes in the ruins

Part Two: The Ancient Murals (Continued)

This Mural is a lot less talked about than the other one, but it has very interesting things on it that I would like to delve into today.

Like we said last time, this is just showing some basic stuff, ancients living above ground, etc. The symbols don't have much to say either besides "ancients are gathering stuff" and "sky bird sun bee etc." So, moving on.

This is where things start to get interesting. We see an ancient hunting rabbits (with symbols saying "ancients hunt rabbits") and we also see a giant centipede, (whom I believe to be leader of the centipedes) and this centipede has rabbits. (the symbols saying "monster has rabbits.") I think that the ancient here killed the centipede ruler's pet rabbits, which angered it and caused it to become an enemy of the ancients.

Here we see the ancients gathering thulecite to make weapons to fight off the centipede. I think this is the case because the symbols say the ancients are gathering and using thulecite, and the thing the ancient is holding looks like a thulecite club.

 

I think the ancient holding the club was killed by the centipede in battle. they are completely colorless, so that leads me to believe they are dead. The other ancient seems like they could be placing the club on some sort of memorial. It doesn't really go with the text, but it is a thought.

Here we see the ancients trying to make offerings to the centipede to try to make peace. I believe the ancients also modeled the sentrypedes after them as a form of tribute. The symbols don't say anything interesting, just labeling what each individual possesses.

Here we see what I believe to be an ancient finding a staff and the ancient gateway. I think this ancient later becomes the staff wielder. I believe this to be the gateway because this somewhat resembles the gateway, and the symbol on it means "Key" as in ancient key.

I think that this is the archive switch, due to the white gem on a pedestal. It doesn't really connect to much besides the sentrypedes, but it is an observation.

Welp, that is all I have to say about this mural, so, let us move on to talk about some the ruins themselves.

 

Part Three: The Ruins, the Biomes, and the lifestyle of the Ancients.

So, it is time to delve deep into the ruins, because there is a lot to cover. I am first going to talk about the village biome, which interests me the most out of the main ruins biomes. (by "main ruins biomes" i mean the ones that are in singleplayer and DST, no atrium or archive.)

The village biome is very interesting to me. As we know it now, it's just a bunch of banana trees, monkey houses, relics of chairs, tables, vases, etc., and walls. But I think that this biome was much more than it is now. People don't really think much about the biome's name: Village. I think that this was once a literal village, that contained the households of the ancients, which is where these relics all came from. I believe that this is the first part of the caves that the ancients started building their civilization in. I'm now going to address the general structure of this biome.

This biome consists of muddy ground with runic tile built over parts of it, and with some walls on the outskirts of these tiles. There are also relics of common household items like tables, chairs, vases, and dishes on these tiles.

Splumonkey pods are also on these tiles. I believe that these were all the homes of the ancients, and there were once walls surrounding all of this tile, and each of these large squares of tile were houses. some of these houses have partially been buried, which is why some of them are partially covered with mud. Each ancient lived in their own square house with their various household appliances. Now for the splumonkey pods, where things will get a little more interesting. I think that these monkeys were once pets to the ancients, whether or not the ancients brought them from the surface or if the monkeys were always in the caves is unknown. I think the monkeys were much more well-behaved than the ones we know now, because the ancients kept them as pets instead of treating them like a nuisance. I think the ancients found the soon-to be village that had banana trees and lichen, so they set up there so they could have a constant food source. If the monkeys didn't already live down here, then the ancients may have also chosen this place so they could have access to monkey food. The ancients built the splumonkey pods for their pets to act similarly to how a doghouse or a cat bed works. Also, perhaps if the monkeys lived here already, maybe the monkeys picked things up and gave things to the ancients, which lead to the ancients wanting to keep them around.

Now for some story-related stuff. I think that one day, the ancients all left home without the monkeys, when suddenly a wave of dark energy from the gateway corrupted or killed the monkeys and the ancients, but all the ancients died before they could return home, leaving the monkeys to fend for themselves, eventually becoming feral. They wait for their masters in the village, stealing anything they can get their paws on so they can give it to the ancients once they return. It's sad in a way, but it doesn't stop them from being really annoying.

 

Welp, that's all for today. I hope you found my analysis interesting and I'd appreciate if you share any thoughts you have. See you guys next time!

(also thank you @TheHollowKnight for giving me the ancient rune translations.)

[Maxposting]

Someone should translate the murals...

[Blue Moth]

1 minute ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

Someone should translate the murals...

Someone did! here is the link

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IQ8pFhdRU1EQaisSea_-ckvhYq1ryI_ZJ2hcsxyX6DA/edit#gid=0

(granted, only part of it is confirmed)

[Maxposting]

11 minutes ago, Blue Moth said:

Someone did! here is the link

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IQ8pFhdRU1EQaisSea_-ckvhYq1ryI_ZJ2hcsxyX6DA/edit#gid=0

(granted, only part of it is confirmed)

I meant the murals, not the puzzle.