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goatedmilk23 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

*Spoilers*







Was it ever stated that Luke's lived for thousands of years? I don't remember reading that during Luke's ablaze scene...


But, to my knowledge, there's no indication that he was created differently than the other humans. My best guess to how he was acting during his Ablaze is that humans can gain access to the memories of their past lives once they become adept enough at burning their mana. After all, if they can see the future, why not the past? 

So, yeah. As far as we know, Luke and Alon only share history with each other in this life. (I mean. Alon knows pretty much everyone, but that's besides the point)

I'm sure some more scholarly dogs have been curious about it, but that's not really going anywhere without the complex thought to back it up-- as well as all the pieces (i.e. human mana, which is exceedingly rare). Shelter's leaders have their own reasons for not digging into it, and the Canine country is under the Observer's rule, who is unlikely to want his dogs looking into history to make them easier to control. 

We don't know about the other races, and I doubt we ever will in this game.

Ooh, lore tidbits in the crossover, ey?  I gotta catch up on those 👀

And Cooper lore in particular?? He's the one boi (on the game's banner) we haven't reached yet!! Wonder how important Shepherds are to this world...

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drakoky20 days ago(+1)

⚠️SPOILERS⚠️








Let's start with the short part: Cooper. In the crossover with "Demons Within", Thistle talks about Cooper with Resnick. Later, Cooper pulls out what looks like a bible or religious book and starts talking about Mother Earth, but since it's Resnick's POV, he gets lost in his own thoughts and stops listening. By the way, you need to play the first chapter of "Demons Within" to get the code for chapter two.

Now, the dream scene between "Luke?" and "Max?" is weird, but there's this line that stands out:

"Well, it's been like a thousand freaking years and I've been dying for one of those herbal coffees."

He seems to at least remember his life before the world broke. And since Luke can loop through time, what feels like a couple of years for the dogs could be hundreds of years for him, kind of like what the Observer tells Gunner after Alon's vision:

"To you it felt like no time passed at all… but to me… FUCK!!"

So when Luke says "a thousand years", it's genuinely unclear whether that's an expression, literal, or just his skewed perception of time.

There's also Alon's theory that humans shatter when they overuse their powers. According to him, Luke has been unusually careful, and maybe that's exactly why he lost his memories: as a way to protect himself from breaking apart.

In Alon's route, when he describes his vision of a future Luke:

"You talked about yourself. About the nature of our realm. About the Humans, the Monsters and us. How everything came to be. At least as much as you knew yourself."
"You were there when everything started and, as fate would have it, you were there to see the end too."

Luke never explicitly says he's thousands of years old, but the context makes it pretty clear he's been around longer than anyone else.

One last thing, the Observer recognizes Luke immediately and says:

"You... I know you. You are Dawn's brother, aren't you?"

And we're definitely not talking about his lion brother Sansun.

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goatedmilk20 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Fascinating....

‼️SPOILERS‼️







I completely forgot the Observer's dialogue there, purely because a lot of his scenes aren't replayable 😭

I still don't think he's literally lived for thousands of years; he still grew up under the care of Tharros, and Alon mentions him appearing young when he first sees him. But if the Observer recognises him, that means that every time someone reincarnates as a human, they become the same one every time -- likely the one they lived thousands of years ago. So for now, I still subscribe to the theory that humans are able to gain back all their memories through Ablaze (a bit paradoxical considering Luke's Ablaze required burning his core life experiences, but he said himself that he forced it when he wasn't supposed to, so that seems to be an outlier)

And...it sounds like they knew each other? Or were at least acquainted (before the world shattered and, presumably, the World was born). It'd be most reasonable to leave it up to coincidence for now but...that is very interesting. Do they both have something binding the fragments of their soul together so they come back whole?

Either way, I'm hoping we get to meet this 'Dawn' at some point, seeing as she is their common link -- despite never being mentioned before by Luke >.> (I hope we meet any of his family really, past or current! but I'm getting off topic -w-)


Resnick is a gem, but him listening to the boring exposition would make these lore conversations a whole lot easier 😭

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drakoky19 days ago (3 edits)

⚠️SPOILERS⚠️








You're right, everything here is just speculation, but Alon does explicitly state that humans are in a constant cycle of reincarnation. They just shatter and return as one of the six races, over and over. Luke could easily have gone through multiple cycles already:

"No matter how many Humans claw their way back into reincarnation, they always end up shattering themselves back into the six under the vastness of that power."
"There have been many Humans through history. Each of them, a World-changer. Each of them, shattered and forgotten once again."
"You were careful with your power. Respected and avoided it, like you should. And yet even you had weakened and almost perished from it when pushed against the wall."

And I really want to know more about Dawn. It's a feminine name, which would actually make her the first female character in the story. The Observer seems to had a complicated history with her, based on his tone, she seems to have been a serious obstacle to him at some point:

"You... I know you. You are Dawn's brother, aren't you?"
"It makes sense why you would try to fuck with me. You were always on their side, right?"

I'd love to learn more about Luke's family in general. The main story feels locked into the loop of the Skies Ablaze day, so maybe a spinoff could give us a look at Sansun and his father Tharros, or at least have them appear in one of Luke's memories. Though honestly, part of me just wants to see them show up at Shelter someday. Imagine his dad walking in, looking around, and going "look at you, taming all these dogs and having them worship your cock, I'm so proud of you, son" ... okay I'll stop there.

On a more serious note, I'd love to see more of the other races too. The "Reincarnation" ending already hints at how interesting it could be to follow Luke outside of Shelter, him living in the Saurian kingdom (Also, Luke says that is a beautiful place) for a while sounds like it'd be a great story on its own.

Lastly, yes, Alon's route isn't replayable, which is why I went through the game's files, collected all the scripts and merged them into a single file (it's not clean, since the scripts are sorted alphabetically and not by chapter order). I just feed it to Claude to scan for specific lines I remember. It makes it a lot easier to revisit the parts I want to explore more deeply.

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goatedmilk18 days ago(+1)

I still don't think we're getting anything about the other races in this game...but I think it was this game that had plans for an rpg type thing after it was done, so maybe in that one..? (take that with a grain of salt though, that could've been an entirely different creator >.>)










And yes, humans are in a constant cycle of rebirth. My point was that not only is their soul retained, but their body as well, seeing as the Observer wouldn't have been able to recognise Luke otherwise, which is interesting compared to other reincarnation systems -- even from this same universe! (Rune, Alon)

Woahh your hypothetical Tharros is unhinged xD

I'm going to hope for a post-credits epilogue where we get to meet them all =w=

I mean, it has been established that all mana types will be necessary for the longevity of Shelter, so there is an in-lore incentive to have additional characters of other races, living in Shelter. Maybe some could become part of the core group..?

Samsun has technically already appeared, but it'd be really interesting to see his interactions with the dogs, and the Opal Pride cats, or just his dynamic with Luke himself! And of course, his sprite, along with Tharros'. 

But yeah, just getting to see Tharros and Samsun and Zerek in the present would really be the greatest thing for me :)

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