Maxwell and Clockworks

[Reiko24]

Why does Maxwell call the clockworks "his creations" if the Ruins are full of them, suggesting that the Ancients were the ones who have created clockworks?

[gaymime]

while the ancients may have made clockworks i think maxwell is the one who made THESE clockworks specifically from the designs that already exist(if i am correct he didnt make the damaged rook but he did make the clockwork pile and the bishop)

[BalkanCockroach]

I had the same questions so if you wanna read the discussion here it could be helpful. It's either a plothole or Max just redesigned them. Honestly everyone had different opinions so it's up to interpretation at this point.

 

[NPCMaxwell]

28 minutes ago, gaymime said:

while the ancients may have made clockworks i think maxwell is the one who made THESE clockworks specifically from the designs that already exist(if i am correct he didnt make the damaged rook but he did make the clockwork pile and the bishop)

Thanks, I always assumed he saw the ancient clockworks and took inspiration from them so 'our' clockworks are Maxwell's.

[Reiko24]

1 hour ago, gaymime said:

while the ancients may have made clockworks i think maxwell is the one who made THESE clockworks specifically from the designs that already exist(if i am correct he didnt make the damaged rook but he did make the clockwork pile and the bishop)

I see. Thank you.

[JeMiChi]

I'm just going to come out and say what I think; that Maxwell IS ancient and he was there when the ancients fell. Time works weirdly in the Constant in general, and even stranger on the Throne. But obviously that doesn't prove whether he was the original designer of the clockworks or not. I keep thinking that the character in the ancient murals is an artistic interpretation of Maxwell himself, so he would have been the creator of the gears and such. But he may have used servants to build the clockworks, which would explain why he mentions the builders. So I think the clockworks in the caves were his creation as well, sealed inside when he plucked the entrances as the calamity took place...

[NPCMaxwell]

11 minutes ago, JeMiChi said:

I'm just going to come out and say what I think; that Maxwell IS ancient and he was there when the ancients fell. Time works weirdly in the Constant in general, and even stranger on the Throne. But obviously that doesn't prove whether he was the original designer of the clockworks or not. I keep thinking that the character in the ancient murals is an artistic interpretation of Maxwell himself, so he would have been the creator of the gears and such. But he may have used servants to build the clockworks, which would explain why he mentions the builders. So I think the clockworks in the caves were his creation as well, sealed inside when he plucked the entrances as the calamity took place...

 my favourite interpretion of the canon ancient murial and will always be

[PunkShark]

the clockworks on the surface is maxwell's work, they're different because they are not built on fuel unlike the leaky broken versions down in the caves. The broken clockwork piles i think are Maxwell's work trying to "repair" them while the alive version are things that "survived" the downfall only to be messed up by the fuel, otherwise their mechanism would've shut down long ago.

Although i am curious if the clockworks were "always" clockworks, we know the city was highly technological and advanced 'specially looking at the archive compared to the ruins. So it makes me wonder if all the pieces and cogs the fuelweaver created were for everything in the ruins that were highly technological only for the fuel to break everything down and create what we now know as the broken clockworks. Maybe them being reminiscent to the inkblight trio is where the fuel created that idea from, but that's quite rough for a theory.

Another possible theory is that the fuelweaver ancient created all of the clockworks after the downfall as guardians for fools who would follow their path. pieces of what was left of their mechanism turned into these guardians.

TLDR: Maxwell took inspiration from the cave variants and fixed them which is why he has such an ego on calling it "his".

[gaymime]

hot take; the bishop looks a lot like the spooky ghost guy from hamlet, the one that gives you the stuff for making the void cloak

 

also the way i interpreted maxwells many random quotes is that he either came in when the ancients had already obliterated themselves and there was "nothing" in the sense of it all being totaled OR he was on the throne before they rose and while they reigned and after they fell and during that time he did what he always does and got helpers(like wilson) to do/make stuff for him while he was away on his throne and only able to spy on others from afar

[Radicaljoe]

The one thing I know is maxwell really misinterpreted bishops, because he says that he misunderstood the design of the atrium knowledge basins. I assume this means something about the bulb on the bishop's head was not supposed to be for firing energy, but instead holding knowledge. So Maxwell does appear to have at least made bishops because there is no way they should exist anywhere without him, because their design is because of Maxewll not understanding what the atrium knowledge dispensers are.

[-Variant]

14 hours ago, Reiko24 said:

Why does Maxwell call the clockworks "his creations" if the Ruins are full of them, suggesting that the Ancients were the ones who have created clockworks?

It's a huge jigsaw of both older lore, out of place lines, and most importantly, Maxwell's ego!

The Ancients made the originals, he mentions them once in his quotes, and they're shown doing so on the murals.

This quote also goes in hand with explaining all the Clockworks down in the caves. They were built and left behind by the Ancients.
A smaller fun fact is that the areas they appear in are called Military biomes!

The surface clockworks, as others have noted, are mostly likely working ones he's either found or repaired himself. His ego leads into him claiming the repaired ones as his own, as one might with something like a car repair!

That all explains both his quotes claiming them, and their existence in large military like armies down below.

That leaves us with the Archives quote, which to this day I still feel like it doesn't make sense and/or is a retcon of sorts.
I don't understand how he'd 'misinterpret' a design that's been around way longer than him. The Bishops existed long before he showed up, he didn't design them, so their bulbs being used for the Knowledge toilets doesn't add up. Also only one of the bulbs looks similar! A very odd quote.

[BalkanCockroach]

52 minutes ago, -Variant said:

Maxwell accidentally made a weapon from toilet blueprints lmao.

[ZeRoboButler]

7 hours ago, BalkanCockroach said:

Maxwell accidentally made a weapon from toilet blueprints lmao.

I'm not sure if i'm impressed or appalled... 

[arubaro]

19 minutes ago, grm9 said:

you sure that he didn't just make ancients build them? he also seems to know AG and FW, how atrium works, what does sacred chest near 2 bishops and full ruins crafting station do, how to read a thing on an archive mural etc., he could've been there before ancients got turned into shadows or died

That would be kinda paradoxical since he entered the constant because the shadows kidnapped him but, according to what we know about the lore, the ancients made the shadow entity interact with the world 

[Reiko24]

1 hour ago, grm9 said:

you sure that he didn't just make ancients build them? he also seems to know AG and FW, how atrium works, what does sacred chest near 2 bishops and full ruins crafting station do, how to read a thing on an archive mural etc., he could've been there before ancients got turned into shadows or died

How do you know that Maxwell knows FW? There is no evidence of that. 

[Reiko24]

44 minutes ago, grm9 said:

at the very least he seems to know that he's a he

He just probably knows the story of Metheus and Cyclum