I Have No Clue What's Going On

Let's speculate about Architect Society!

I think there are some misinterpretations about how Precursor society works. It makes sense considering how vague a lot of the canon information is, but let me provide some of my perspective and interpretations on what we get in canon.

Architect society definitely deserves more speculation beyond just characterizing them as a race only focused on progress. The current information we have about how Architects operate is underrated in terms of how interesting it is. They definitely aren't a stereotypical hive mind. How Precursors perceive themselves is different from how they actually appear to function. AL-AN's answers don't lack bias. He is an unreliable narrator and often withholds information, so it's crucial to look deeper into the information given and to read between the lines. Especially as not everything is explicitly stated.

Architects exist as a collective—data points in a network—but people often forget that they do not only strive for efficiency. What they do is try to optimize themselves to perform tasks in the most efficient way possible. They strive to achieve and progress their society. This doesn’t mean that they lack culture. They are certainly more streamlined and orderly than humans, but they do have cultural aspects that impact the way they view things.

Some examples of Architect culture:

Architects produce art as seen by the statue in the Koppa mining site and the statue in the Deep Lilypad Caves Body Cache. Even the alien carving from the first game is an example of Precursors producing art with subjectivity.

Architects cultivate plants in greenhouses even though they do not need to eat. Also, of course, they have the Ancient Ornamental Plants that they cultivate for aesthetic purposes.

They hold pride in maintaining and improving a vessel for a long time. If a storage medium gets damaged, they wouldn’t opt to immediately make another vessel—even if it would be the most efficient.

They don’t all use the most popular format for their bodies; there are certain Architects that opt for different styles of storage medium.

Architects consider it rude to duplicate themselves.

All of their technology has similar aesthetic characteristics and design.

Precursors are cybernetic and composed of biotechnological components, yet they start out life as organic beings. They choose to incorporate biological tissues in their vessels suggesting they hold some sort of social ties to being organics. They actively make the choice to incorporate organic components.

Precursors potentially carry some nostalgia for their pre-civilized bodies, considering they model their vessels after them.

Architects have a concept of prestige. AL-AN is noted as the lead scientist for the Kharaa research project.

They have special training for certain young Architects and a Temple of Research that they are inducted into if they are distinct enough from other broodlings.

So, Precursors do not necessarily always do what is the most practical. They can and do practice certain things for subjective reasons. They have emotions that influence their actions. These emotions may not equate to human emotional behavior, but they certainly have them. AL-AN himself expresses shame many times.

While Precursors are a hive mind, they aren’t entirely unfamiliar with the concept of an individual. AL-AN merely says that they don’t see themselves as distinct. However, it is acknowledged at many points that a mind within the collective can have its own traits. Perspectives that either come with a body or ideas and needs that a mind has. They are able to act autonomously. The biggest example is AL-AN himself ignoring the network.

Though a mind having its own ideas doesn’t negate Architects being a collective. Especially when those minds work in conjunction with thousands of other minds to support the needs of the whole. AL-AN is just a very rare case where an Architect gets the opportunity to act as an individual. Even then, AL-AN expresses that being disconnected from the network is lonely and uncomfortable. Aiming to regain connection despite what he did in the past. AL-AN only uses the singular because he's present with Robin.

Precursors being so advanced makes things a little more complicated when trying to discern aspects of their species. We can't push human ideals onto a race so separate from us. Architects—being connected by the mind—do not have the same social structures as humans, so it's unfair to anthropomorphize them with our standards. We can only speculate on how they might work. Just because one mind can have differing traits doesn’t seem to make them distinct enough to classify as singular (within their species’ definition anyway). I'd love for there to eventually be more information given to us about their society.

Besides, all of this isn’t even considering the many unused voice lines that remain in the files that I’d love to go over…

can we PLEASE standardize the key to open your inventory??? i keep playing different games (crazy ik) and it goes from E to esc to I to tab to not even having an inventory im gonna stroke out pretty soon

so i send myself things on discord so i can have them on my phone and THIS is how i sent this one to myself

just. just felt like sharing

i fucking love bz

i just got the data entry for Hope and oh my god?????? i love Alan he's so so so so silly silly oh my god Maybe its the dynamic of one character is disgustingly human with their emotions and to the other human emotions and stuff like that are a foreign concept that just tickles me the right way i dunno but theyre just my favorite

the way that robin goes from kind of hating Alan for getting in her head to slowly as you discover more and more artifacts to thanking him for telling her about them and encouraging him that he can find the rest of his network is beautiful.

also the fact that he thinks hope must be a bird because of the way the Emily Dickinson poem describes it means he must have never known hope before. Robin literally taught him what hope is. She gave him hope for the first time in god knows how long and even in his analytical literal-mindedness he understands that hope is something he needs to take care of and keep safe

its just a beautiful dynamic because again Robin is driven by human emotion shes on 4546B to find out what happened to Sam, she does this reckless thing based solely on her feelings, and Alan is the exact opposite. He only knows logic and rules and emotion gets in the way

AND AND AND the parallels between Robin losing Sam and Alan losing his connection to his network is beautiful because that means they have something in common, a link that they can work through to explain to one another

its just beautiful writing and im probably reading into it way too much but thats my fucking job

Isle Unto Thyself from Hawaii Part II

ATTENTION

If you see this you are OBLIGATED to reblog w/ the song currently stuck in your head :)

"im bored i should play subnautica. why did I stop playing anyways?" Why I stopped playing:

for the uninitiated thats an ampeel and i FUCKING HATE THEM!!!! THIS IS AN AMPEEL UNAPPRECIATION POST THEY FUCKING SUCK!!!!

like i get that I built on the edge of the bulb zone but CMON MAN!!!! like they NEVER got this close before the base was built and now the only thing I can hear is their annoying ass buzzing. They're even guarding my moon pool so i cant leave without getting ready to fucking book it and theres no "oh just lure them away and let them kill you" because im in HARDCORE MODE!!

FUCK AMPEELS ALL MY HOMIES HATE AMPEELS

I'm still obsessed with the idea that Vellioth and Astarion look eerily similar and that's why Cazador is more obsessed with Astarion than the other spawn.

i just started up a new slime rancher save today so i can automate everything and i found the twinkle slime and i didn't get a picture of him but i did get a picture of the notes he left behind :D

he with. long hair

I dont have the patience to do a good drawing of it rn but. Ryley Robinson. with a mullet.

like he doesn't bother cutting his hair once he gets stuck on 4546B so it just grows out and he ends up with a mullet and the roots of the streaks he has dyed grow out and start to look weird and he starts wearing his hair up in like a manbun or just a high ponytail.

Edit: this is mostly to placate myself but i do actually have a shitty little doodle from today

gonna try drawing him FOR REAL with his hair up

imagine a vampire refusing to drink blood straight from the people faucet as it were because its the same thing as drinking milk straight from cow tiddies to them