Wild speculation

[Rianaru]

First of all, sorry if this belongs in off-topic. The below is speculation on things in BTW and what will happen as the game(to me, BTW is a full game of it's own. It's just that amazing:D) gets updated. I tried to find speculation threads in off-topic and couldn't, so I'm assuming it belongs here.

Second of all- HI! I've been lurking on the forums for something around the gestation period of the annoying mess that comes out with a placenta, so I think I have at least some grasp of the rules(all hail the spiky star-devouring overlord!) and feel of the mod. I've been playing the mod for about that long as well, after I got bored with all the other mods and vanilla minecraft.

EDIT: I'm on a smartphone right now, so please excuse any grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes. They'll be fixed when I get home from work and away from this blocked Internet access -.-

Speculation time!
With all the teasing that FC has done recently, and of course his releases, I've come up with quite a few potential ideas that I think fit at least most of what he's said. Some of these ideas also interact in very interesting ways, which I've been obsession over for the past few days.

1. Netherrack holds souls. We grind netherrack and filter it through soul sand to get souls and hellfire dust. This could mean that hellfire dust by itself is a medium that can hold souls(unless a new by-product of the filtration is added. I know some people have been speculating on that too).
2. We can smelt concentrated hellfire and gold in a crucible to get redstone. Since the reaction is soul medium+conductivity ----heat-----> redstone, does this mean that a redstone current is essentially a current of souls?
3. Dragon orbs have roughly the same color as netherrack, which holds souls. So dragon orbs could potentially be souls(they also use the same filtration system as netherrack does for souls, which would be soul sand).
4. FC has mentioned a way to hold XP, which is a product of dragon orbs. Combine this and the theory of redstone as a soul wire, would allow us to channel souls wherever we please. This also has interesting implications if you are a BTB2 player as to the nature of energy produced by engines.
5. FC added candles in 3.80. They are applied in nefarious ways in the infernal enchanter. This could suggests other applications. Pentagrams anyone? This has been suggested before though.
6. If there will be pentagrams, could they be related to the 4 points were supposed to find? It would make sense with FC possibly confirming(I wasn't completely sure, but I thought he did) strongholds as three of them? If so, energy from the reams in space-time(in the form of souls?) could be channeled to whatever the fourth point is to activate 'The Device'?
I claim no credit for any of these ideas. Most of them have probably been mentioned before, although as much as I would like to know for sure, I havnt been able to find them, so here they are.

I have more ideas(rediculous amounts) as to the potential applications of this but I wasn't sure if they would fall into the category of that-which-must-not-be-named as far as getting too far ahead of the mod. *cough*steampower*cough*(actually just reread all the forum and subforum rules, it looks like that one was just repetitive)

And in case anyone is confused, this is speculation, not suggestion. I'm sure that there's a good good idea to be suggested, Flowerchild has already thought of it ;)
/endflattery

Any responses and feedback would be encouraging :)
...although just in case *tinfoil hat at the ready*

[Itamarcu]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! congratulations on your first post!

1. Netherrack holds souls. We grind netherrack and filter it through soul sand to get souls and hellfire dust. This could mean that hellfire dust by itself is a medium that can hold souls(unless a new by-product of the filtration is added. I know some people have been speculating on that too).
According to FlowerChild, the process of passing ground netherrack over a soulsand hopper basically filters the souls out: Souls enter the urn (or get out to the air), and Hellfire Dust is the pure Netherrack dust without the souls, which used for its chemical properties (such as burning forever).
2. We can smelt concentrated hellfire and gold in a crucible to get redstone. Since the reaction is soul medium+conductivity ----heat-----> redstone, does this mean that a redstone current is essentially a current of souls?
Well, it's basically a chemical reaction. The redstone itself doesn't contain souls in my opinion though.
3. Dragon orbs have roughly the same color as netherrack, which holds souls. So dragon orbs could potentially be souls(they also use the same filtration system as netherrack does for souls, which would be soul sand).
Well, Dragon Orbs are EXP, which is souls, so yeah :)

[Rianaru]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! congratulations on your first post!

1. Netherrack holds souls. We grind netherrack and filter it through soul sand to get souls and hellfire dust. This could mean that hellfire dust by itself is a medium that can hold souls(unless a new by-product of the filtration is added. I know some people have been speculating on that too).
According to FlowerChild, the process of passing ground netherrack over a soulsand hopper basically filters the souls out: Souls enter the urn (or get out to the air), and Hellfire Dust is the pure Netherrack dust without the souls, which used for its chemical properties (such as burning forever).
2. We can smelt concentrated hellfire and gold in a crucible to get redstone. Since the reaction is soul medium+conductivity ----heat-----> redstone, does this mean that a redstone current is essentially a current of souls?
Well, it's basically a chemical reaction. The redstone itself doesn't contain souls in my opinion though.
3. Dragon orbs have roughly the same color as netherrack, which holds souls. So dragon orbs could potentially be souls(they also use the same filtration system as netherrack does for souls, which would be soul sand).
Well, Dragon Orbs are EXP, which is souls, so yeah :)

Would an ability to hold souls, even temporarily, be a chemical property? Similar to how a gearbox or axle transfers mechanical energy but has none to start with?

Well, it's basically a chemical reaction

I was implying that while the souls had been removed, perhaps the ability to hold souls had not. And (at least to me) retaining a property made sense since gold puts it's property of conductivity into the redstone but not its metallic properties, so the hellfire could input an ability to hold souls, but not it's flammability(redstone doesn't catch fire as far as I know)

Well, Dragon Orbs are EXP, which is souls, so yeah :)

I wasn't quite sure if that was the case, so thanks for the info :) Does that mean a reasonable jump would be a way to refine souls? O.o

Oh, and would it be safe to post other bits of speculation on the discussion forum? I feel like there's alot of places the information we have could go, and I want to get some input on all my ideas.
Also, thanks for the quick response :)

[Itamarcu]

Sure, as much as I know FlowerChild doesn't mind people speculating. Go ahead.

[morvelaira]

I would also say congratulations on coming out from the shadows and joining us in the light of the soul fires. :)

I have to admit this thread has made me smile. There's no real way to really confirm or deny what you're saying here, as most of it is delving into the very unofficial and incomplete lore of BTW. But! It's certainly interesting and thought provoking. The two problems I see with your theory so far are:

1. As Itamarcu said, the process of turning ground netherrack into hellfire dust does remove the souls. Therefore your theory about redstone power being soul conductivity is a little shakey, though possibly upheld by the thought that naturally occurring redstone came into this world by stray souls leaking in and interacting with natural resources.

2. I don't believe stronghold locations are fixed points between seeds. If you go to different maps, I think they will be in different locations and configurations - this makes drawing something with them that's identifiable between worlds a problem.

[Elevatator]

5. FC added candles in 3.80. They are applied in nefarious ways in the infernal enchanter. This could suggests other applications. Pentagrams anyone? This has been suggested before though.
6. If there will be pentagrams, could they be related to the 4 points were supposed to find? It would make sense with FC possibly confirming(I wasn't completely sure, but I thought he did) strongholds as three of them? If so, energy from the reams in space-time(in the form of souls?) could be channeled to whatever the fourth point is to activate 'The Device'?

AFAIK, The infernal enchanter is the "phase 5" block. So it is pretty useless without the other phases.

[Pentagram]

5. FC added candles in 3.80. They are applied in nefarious ways in the infernal enchanter. This could suggests other applications. Pentagrams anyone? This has been suggested before though.
6. If there will be pentagrams, could they be related to the 4 points were supposed to find? It would make sense with FC possibly confirming(I wasn't completely sure, but I thought he did) strongholds as three of them? If so, energy from the reams in space-time(in the form of souls?) could be channeled to whatever the fourth point is to activate 'The Device'?

You called? :D
A pentagram has 5 points, so we'd still be missing one.
Speculation as to the 4 points that I have seen tend to be the 3 strongholds, and spawn..

[Rianaru]

I would also say congratulations on coming out from the shadows and joining us in the light of the soul fires. :)

I have to admit this thread has made me smile. There's no real way to really confirm or deny what you're saying here, as most of it is delving into the very unofficial and incomplete lore of BTW. But! It's certainly interesting and thought provoking. The two problems I see with your theory so far are:

1. As Itamarcu said, the process of turning ground netherrack into hellfire dust does remove the souls. Therefore your theory about redstone power being soul conductivity is a little shakey, though possibly upheld by the thought that naturally occurring redstone came into this world by stray souls leaking in and interacting with natural resources.

2. I don't believe stronghold locations are fixed points between seeds. If you go to different maps, I think they will be in different locations and configurations - this makes drawing something with them that's identifiable between worlds a problem.

1. I'm not sure if there's a hole in my theory that I'm not seeing, but I meant it only as a way to transport souls from place to place. The souls themselves would have to come from elsewhere. Maybe I'm just miscommunicating my point xD

2. I didn't realize that they were always in the same place on every map. I can find the quote later when I'm not at work, but flower posted something about it being strongholds, although I may have been taking it out of context, hence the reason why I said in the OP that I may have misinterpreted it. If they do need to be the same in every seed, then maybe there will be 4 points around spawn that we need to link to a large pentagram(think fullmetal alchemist) and maybe teleport everything within it to 'home'? It could be done by having the game regenerate the chunks outside of the pentagram according to new parameters. Which would make the new dimension theory plausible. And FC said he was going to make the game irrevocably harder right? So if we were to teleport our entire base to this new dimension with 'The Device' at the center of the pentagram, it would fit everything that FC has said, unless I'm forgetting something, which I almost definitely am. But maybe well just have to start from scratch again. Although if FC is designing it I definitely wouldn't care if we get to keep our base or not :)

Anyways that's the end of my speculation for the moment. I've got something along the lines of 12 pages of handwritten notes sitting on my desk that I'm converting to digital so that I can post them when I have access to the forums on something other than my phone. I'll be back tonight with much of that :)

P.S. Morv, my girlfriend saw your squee on YouTube and literally died of laughter. And is now playing better than wolves. Thought you should know :)

[morvelaira]

P.S. Morv, my girlfriend saw your squee on YouTube and literally died of laughter. And is now playing better than wolves. Thought you should know :)

Morvy's BTW LP. Bringing your girlfriend into the cult since 2012. ;)

[Rianaru]

Pentagram,

Perhaps pentagram isn't the right terminology, but some sort of arcane/unholy symbol drawn with a material that once imprisoned souls feels right in the mod. Good point though

[Poppycocks]

Pentagram,

Perhaps pentagram isn't the right terminology, but some sort of arcane/unholy symbol drawn with a material that once imprisoned souls feels right in the mod. Good point though

You mean the triangle.

-snip-

-snip-

BTW, Flower laughed at that something fierce ;).

[Pentagram]

Pentagram,

Perhaps pentagram isn't the right terminology, but some sort of arcane/unholy symbol drawn with a material that once imprisoned souls feels right in the mod. Good point though

What you said there reminds me of this mod, which was mentioned in Off Topic, I think it was, not too long ago..

Spoiler

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[Rianaru]

Pentagram,

Perhaps pentagram isn't the right terminology, but some sort of arcane/unholy symbol drawn with a material that once imprisoned souls feels right in the mod. Good point though

You mean the triangle.

-snip-

-snip-

BTW, Flower laughed at that something fierce ;).

This. It would take so much rediculous amounts of resources that achieving it definitely wouldn't be easy. And would require automation of at least redstone *if* it ends up being some sort soul/energy transfer system or something made from redstone. Also, it would be a multichunk machine, as opposed to a multiblock machine such as a crucible or kiln. The larger the better, right? :D
I made Flower laugh? Is it my birthday? :)

Oh, and thanks pentagram for the link. I'll have to take a look at it later. My boss has nothing for us interns to do today, but we still have to stay quiet. No YouTube till I get out :(

[Urian]

P.S. Morv, my girlfriend saw your squee on YouTube and literally died of laughter. And is now playing better than wolves. Thought you should know :)

If she "literally died of laughter", how can she be playing anything?

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[Rianaru]

P.S. Morv, my girlfriend saw your squee on YouTube and literally died of laughter. And is now playing better than wolves. Thought you should know :)

If she "literally died of laughter", how can she be playing anything?

big image

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How do you know that she isn't some eldritch being that can die and ressurect herself multiple times? Like a cat. That's why creepers are so scared of them. Maybe we should be too...

[FlowerChild]

What you said there reminds me of this mod, which was mentioned in Off Topic, I think it was, not too long ago..

Look, I carefully avoid such threads in off-topic because I don't want to see them.

DO NOT discuss other mods in the main BTW forum. I've said it many times before, so enjoy your vacation.

[Rianaru]

WARNING! huge block of text in the spoiler.

Spoiler

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Going off of my previous post, here are more of the ideas I've been
thinking of. Well, it's a chunk out of my notes(why is my handwriting
so terrible?), so if I can read my own handwriting and the thread
stays alive, perhaps there will be more ;)

First: If my line of thought is correct(the one in the OP), it would
probably make more sense to modify the redstone in some way to make it
a conduit for souls since it could drastically change the way redstone
is used in game and possibly break all machines(just realized that
this is getting too close to a suggestion for comfort, so ill attempt
to steer clear of anything that remotely resembles a suggestion)

If there is something like this(not a far jump I think, and my
reasoning is outlined in the OP) then it would make even more sense
for it to be used in the structure that FC has posted. Possibly
confirmed to be a teleporter? Especially since it interacts with SFS,
which we know contains soul urns and therefore souls. Maybe its used
to force all of the souls of the stack of SFS blocks that we're
supposed to need to interact and form a nexus of energy large enough
to tear through space-time and activate the teleporter.

Also, if (as previously speculated) at least some of the points that
we need to control are tears in space time, perhaps souls come through
those tears and we need to somehow channel them all into 'The Device'
and perform some sort of dark ritual involving the sacrificing of
dozens of wolves and villagers in order to activate it. :D

At this point im tearing through my horrendously scrawled notes that I
made while half-asleep, so some of it may be disconnected ;)

Oh, and here's an interesting point: FC said that there was more
technology/chemistry in the future of the mod, and it seems to have
been going in a more magical direction as of late. Could that mean
that we're going to see some sort of fusion of the two? In many
anime/manga/other nerdy things, this is called techmaturgy or hextech
or *insert something diabolical and suitable for better than wolves*.
It usually involves the use of magical materials at the heart of
machines or enchanted moving parts or an arcane energy source or
something(this is getting farther off-topic I know). One (maybe?)
example of this could be the hibachi, depending on whether or not you
consider the forever burning property of concentrated hellfire to be
magical or chemical in nature. This opens up huge possibilities as to
new machines and sources of power(which im going to stay away from to
keep this away from the realm of suggestions and to stay within the
bounds of the tantalizing hints the FC has treated us with)
Poppycock showed a picture above which describes a possible use of
strongholds as three of the four fixed points, although there are some
differing opinions. (see morvelairas comment above that they may need
to be fixed points on every seed, which would rule out strongholds
since they are in randomly generated positions.) One solution to them
not being in a perfect triangle would be that the existing
strongholds(seeing how they are in ruins) are the only remnants of a
large ring of strongholds that were originally built to keep beings
like steve out of the overworld, with spawn being the nexus of many
space-time tears through which souls flow(and which were originally
blocked by something in the strongholds) and the center of this ring
of strongholds. the tl;dr version of this would be that many more
strongholds existed at some point, but were completely obliterated by
time/the elements/some other unknown force, and only three survived.

This, of course suggests the possibility that steve is not trying to
return 'home' persay, but instead bring the realm of 'home' into the
overworld and perhaps take it over and enslave the souls of its
denizens. This could be made possible by
destroying/diverting/disrupting a flow of energy within the
strongholds, and using it to activate 'The Device'. This makes no
sense and im overcomplicating things and getting ahead of myself. In
the picture, the structure seems fairly complete, so there's probably
a minimum of items/blocks that Flower has not added yet.

An additional thought: has Flower said whether or not the four points
are created with world generation? I havn't been able to find the
answer to this. If not, there is the possibility that the player would
need to/can create these four points. This opens up whole new string
of possibilities, including things like the following:

Can these points be built anywhere and function properly?
If not, are there nexus of magical energy where they can?
How would these points interact with each other?
Would colossal explosions ensue if the player makes a mistake?
How does Flowerchilds 'Device' interact with this? Is it supposed to
be built on these points? If so, is it supposed to be built on all of
them or on just one to harness the other three?

Anyways, back to the redstone as a potential basis for a soul conduit idea.
Nether pottery was mentioned a while back, and I think by FC. If I'm
completely misremembering this, then nether sludge by itself is a
decent indicator that this is on the way at some point, and I would be
extremely surprised if nothing within that system had anything to do
with souls. Perhaps one of the types of pottery will have something to
do with powering things that need soul energy?(A soul battery perhaps?
Its been mentioned as a possibility in another thread before) In a
similar fashion to handcranks. Handcrank>soul battery type thing as
windmill/waterwheel>constant source of souls? Just to make the thought
as clear as I can, a handcrank can power only power a millstone, but a
windmill/waterwheel can power anything that needs mechanical
power(saws, bellows, etc) and can connect to a power network(gearboxes
and axles), so perhaps a similar system will be involved in the return
to home.

Obviously, these thoughts cover speculative/multiple possibilities as
to the next steps of the mod, so it's not really supposed to make
sense when combined. It's more of thought experiments and a new train
of thought whenever I run out of ideas, small jumps of logic, or
source material from Flowerchild. (In the form of teasing hints, of
course)

This is a good chunk of stuff, so I think I'll post this and get back
to doing nothing for a bit before I try to read more of my own
half-formed and poorly written thoughts. Any critique, pointing out of
errors, or discussion is definitely welcome. This whole thread is
mostly just me trying to contain my excitement waiting for the next
release :D

/end ramble

[risingphoenix]

First off, from one lurker to another welcome to the party!
Secondly spoilered for size:

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While the idea of redstone being a "soul conduit" I think it makes a little more sense that it is the ability of the concentrated hellfire to channel energy that makes it able to interact with gold's conductivity to produce redstone. You can probably think of the gold as contaminating the pure eldritch capabilities of the concentrated hellfire in order to bend its power to our will and using it for our own purposes, thereby losing the power to hold souls. The screaming sound heard when powered redstone is placed on SFS blocks could be an interaction between the corrupted containment material and the captive soul in the SFS block forming a sort of magical feedback loop. Or something like that...

Next, FC stated that there were 4 fixed points created with each map that would play a role in the future of the mod, later to be more or less confirmed to be spawn and the positions of the three strongholds since these are determined by the seed. (please please please correct me if I'm wrong)
Since some people may have maps that already rendered over strongholds the energy located in that place would be the true need from the point, not just the stronghold.

Finally, it should be safe to assume that the journey home will be a transport to another dimension since FC is big on keeping away from content that messes with existing worlds. Especially since his main is an early beta map if I'm not mistaken.
Very interesting speculation though, and the idea of a soul powered conduit is very intriguing.

[Kazuya Mishima]

Slurping SFS blocks. Is the the future of pumping water vertically ?

[Rianaru]

First off, from one lurker to another welcome to the party!
Secondly spoilered for size:

Spoiler

Show

While the idea of redstone being a "soul conduit" I think it makes a little more sense that it is the ability of the concentrated hellfire to channel energy that makes it able to interact with gold's conductivity to produce redstone. You can probably think of the gold as contaminating the pure eldritch capabilities of the concentrated hellfire in order to bend its power to our will and using it for our own purposes, thereby losing the power to hold souls. The screaming sound heard when powered redstone is placed on SFS blocks could be an interaction between the corrupted containment material and the captive soul in the SFS block forming a sort of magical feedback loop. Or something like that...

Next, FC stated that there were 4 fixed points created with each map that would play a role in the future of the mod, later to be more or less confirmed to be spawn and the positions of the three strongholds since these are determined by the seed. (please please please correct me if I'm wrong)
Since some people may have maps that already rendered over strongholds the energy located in that place would be the true need from the point, not just the stronghold.

Finally, it should be safe to assume that the journey home will be a transport to another dimension since FC is big on keeping away from content that messes with existing worlds. Especially since his main is an early beta map if I'm not mistaken.
Very interesting speculation though, and the idea of a soul powered conduit is very intriguing.

Good points sir. I will give this some serious thought in the morning when I am slightly more conscious.

[Elevatator]

I enjoyed reading the apeculations. By the way: the handcrank can power a bellow too, if I'm right

[Rianaru]

First off, from one lurker to another welcome to the party!
Secondly spoilered for size:

Spoiler

Show

While the idea of redstone being a "soul conduit" I think it makes a little more sense that it is the ability of the concentrated hellfire to channel energy that makes it able to interact with gold's conductivity to produce redstone. You can probably think of the gold as contaminating the pure eldritch capabilities of the concentrated hellfire in order to bend its power to our will and using it for our own purposes, thereby losing the power to hold souls. The screaming sound heard when powered redstone is placed on SFS blocks could be an interaction between the corrupted containment material and the captive soul in the SFS block forming a sort of magical feedback loop. Or something like that...
Makes alot of sense. But that also begs the question of whether or not we would be able to purify the redstone to a more pure soul conduit or simply mix hellfire with a material other than gold(something from the new dimension?). I'm personally imagining a large network of soul powered contraptions, the only evidence of pose being the screams of tortured souls forced to do steves bidding. But that's just me :)
Another thing. Gold was used alot in alchemy(a historical form of primitive and misguided chemistry. Perhaps one of it's properties is that it contaminates magical/eldritch/extradimensional qualities less than other overworld materials. To temporarily replace other materials until they are available? Medieval alchemists seemed to think there was something special about it so perhaps there is.
And your idea about a magical feedback loop requires at least some capability of redstone to transfer souls, otherwise it would be the same as putting a block of cobble or any other material on the SFS


Next, FC stated that there were 4 fixed points created with each map that would play a role in the future of the mod, later to be more or less confirmed to be spawn and the positions of the three strongholds since these are determined by the seed. (please please please correct me if I'm wrong)
Since some people may have maps that already rendered over strongholds the energy located in that place would be the true need from the point, not just the stronghold.
This is what I was getting originally before I tried to come up with a possible explanation of why the strongholds would be there in the first place and why we need to control them. The theory of a tear or leak or whatever in space-time makes sense with or without strongholds, and it seems like this is what is flowing around the community recently.
Finally, it should be safe to assume that the journey home will be a transport to another dimension
since FC is big on keeping away from content that messes with existing worlds. Especially since his main is an early beta map if I'm not mistaken.
Moving the entire base/regenerated chunks of the world was speculation and this is exactly why I posted this thread ;). To rule out some possibilities based on the information we have. The main point of that idea was to have a way keep our machines and possessions when we went to home. This is of course assuming that it's a one way trip(going off of Flower saying that the game will get irrevocably harder when we do get into the next phase). A one-way trip would also make sense given that steves journey to the overworld was essentially one way until he builds the teleporter. There is the possibility of a permanent way to get to and from this new area/dimension but I don't think it's very likely
Very interesting speculation though, and the idea of a soul powered conduit is very intriguing.

[Rianaru]

Slurping SFS blocks. Is the the future of pumping water vertically ?

Hmmm. Perhaps if we make a large machine incorporating lots of SFS, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) hasn't FC said in the past that he likes the design constraints of forcing vertical processing? Or at least making it very difficult, since as of now it requires complicated pistons and redstone or a BD, minecart, rails, and redstone.
Also, SFS blocks thirst, but do they thirst only for water?

[Rianaru]

I enjoyed reading the apeculations. By the way: the handcrank can power a bellow too, if I'm right

Can it? My bad. I've never attempted, since every time I get to bellows I have mechanical power at the ready, and there's not really a point to using a handcrank when I'm smelting thousands of pieces of pottery and ores and cobble and such. Thanks for the correction though :)

[Elevatator]

There was a thread here about how awesome the handcrank is.
edit: http://sargunster.com/btwforum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4246