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I've always wondered if and how iterators ever partake in the Great Cycle. It's easy enough to figure how non-player entities partake in their own personal timeloops, but what of something as vast and long-lived as an iterator?

Presume an iterator is built on the side of a dormant volcano. This volcano is not dormant, and on a particular cycle, it ruptures, taking the iterator down with it. Would the iterator wake up again and experience that volcano that will erupt all over again? Will they hold out until they're lucky enough to only have fallen but not destroyed? Or will its seismic analyses alert them to an inevitable collapse, allowing their own soul to pass on with closure and be reborn as something else?

Is there perhaps a strand where Moon collapsed into the sea, but remained partially functional without the need for the Hunter's intervention? In the weaves we experience in the game, did the slag keys bring her soul back? Was it stuck there waiting for closure? Is the fragment of an iterator we're talking to something that isn't the Moon who fell long ago?

This is a pretty big tangle of questions, I know, but it's been on my mind for a long long while. I apologize if I've gotten something wrong in my framework of the cycle, it's difficult to wrap one's head around.

I don't think there's something like volcanoes in this world, tbh. Cause no magma, only Void down there. So that's one problem taken care of, I guess. Popocatépetl Banned. /lh

Assuming you mean in like. PhS AU specifically, since you used "Great Cycle" which is a term I've floundered about, I will attempt to explain my thought process there (this somewhat applies to my ideas about canon, too):

The Great Cycle thing, aka Ripple change, happens only upon true death. Definitive death is hard to pin down irl legally and such- in RW I imagine death is defined as the culmination of the being (the Void spawn/qualia-soul) physically leaving the flesh vessel (meaning that brain activity leaves with it, and in the case it stays the physical remains would be called a zombie).

The thing that makes Iterators harder nuts to crack (makes them hard to kill, as Moon says, which equals to Ripple change being harder to achieve) is not their longevity or vastness (well, this one kinda, actually.), it's the fact they don't have a qualia-soul like this.

An Iterator is made out of millions of little organisms (maybe or maybe not including the puppet) and technology. The little organisms that come together to form the Individuality of the Iterator have souls, but the Indivituality (aka what we actually recognize as Moon, Pebbles, Euros, Boreas) do not have their own souls that carry their defining traits.

The technological aspect functions most importantly (in this topic) as memory/qualia storage. The stuff that dictates people's identity (predominantly it's development, basis of it [equivalent to a newborns personality] is offered to the Individuality through the Hivemind's qualia-souls combined with pre-programmed desired traits [like for Euros is his hyperactivity and lesser patience], which are then digitally "locked" in the memory drives). Therefore even when pieces of the hivemind die and are replaced- qualia-souls change Ripples or reincarnate- the Iterator stays the same personality-wise locked within the one Ripple they were born in, granting them technology-based immunity while still possessing humanity (Anemonity??). They basically don't exist for the Cycle.

(Them showing up in other Ripples spawned by death of full organics doesn't matter, the experiencing of a Ripple change is what the Ancients aimed to bypass. Which was a success.)

To give a definitive death to an Iterator, one would have to not only kill all the organisms within the can (that are replenished by inner factories, I imagine), but would also have to destroy all hardware obtaining traces of an Iterator's identity. Which is difficult cuz of vastness.

Moon herself has never truly died (PhS or canon), she *did* remain partially functional. If she didn't, we wouldn't be able to do what we did as the Hunter. (This can be attributed to the mix of hivemind system/technology fusion and the sheer scale of an Iterator.)

The structure still takes labored breaths, weakly crunches through half formed thoughts and clings on to the saved memories that weren't destroyed in the crash- all blind, in a coma-like state, half dead half alive through technology solely (because I don't think any organic component could survive for long outside of its man-made habitat. technologically alive, not organically.). This is nicely visible in Downpour during Rivulet when swimming through her ramshackle innards (I applaud that fact, very canon compliant 👍).

I imagine the slag reset keys cleared some kind of pathway/the neuronflies in the chamber that allowed the puppet to be powered up and connected, giving Moon a certain chance at awareness that is still somewhat torn away from the rest of her. That is the case because of the severed umbilical cables.

So

I've been thinking lately about her and honestly we might as well have two Moons on hand, one of which we never get to know because of the severance. The puppet Moon isn't 100% Looks to the Moon (as we already know with the memory inaccessibility she mentions, it's just a bit more physical, too). She's got some out of body experience going on even though she's physically Inside her body.

So yes to ,,is the fragment of an iterator we're talking to something that isn't the Moon who fell long ago", just still within the same Ripple.

Canon-wise, I've no idea what it would take to properly kill an Iterator and what would happen with it next. And if they really don't have their own souls that could do a Ripple change or pull it into the reincarnation cycle. (beside the Rot, ofc. p sure that is a complete slow erasure. like yeah, Pebbles figured out what he wanted I believe.) AU-wise, it doesn't really happen that an Iterator manages to completely die, especially the models we are familiar with (the only one who did was the first Iterator and that one was Very different from what normally shows up).

What ends up needing to happen is Théta coming down as Saint. Saint's bang ability forcefully pulls Everything that an Iterator's identity consists of into one place, creating them a proper qualia-soul. Then he ferries them down to the Void, below Rubicon, where their enlightment level is judged and according to that they either Ascend or are put into the Cycle to achieve the needed enlightment there.

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I am happy because everyone loves me

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can you draw the rot leviathan in Five Pebbles’ can? Its from the watcher DLC!

Oh, I know this man well. I got stuck in UE for 15 goddam minutes. Reality door Stuck. Bonus sketches:

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Your art popping up on my feed is what got me into rainworld. I love your interpretation of the ancients and the way you draw iterators. You're art looks so good it makes me wanna take a bite of them.

Coolio 👍

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My cnidarian agenda (,,Ancients and Iterators are sapient cnidarians" stuff) is so strong, it's starting to spread to the Rot. Look at this natural nonsense-

-and tell me it doesn't smell of rl inspiration for the Rot.

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RW art month day 9: echoes

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or so says the sadist

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one of the best games ever

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Thorn in her finger

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How'd you think Moon is doing during the Watcher?

Horrible evil question considering the dimension and time jumping. She is Yes. Somewhere and somewhen, we can assume she exists.

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New animatic... snowing some graves. Having free time is dangerous

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you've said your peace on why you think survivor's alternate ending in downpour severely undermines the themes of the game, but what have you to say about monk? should it return to outer expanse and not find its sibling (counter to what the ending cutscene portrays), or should it join its sibling in the void?

I'm weak as hell on slug lore besides Surv and Hunter man don't do this to me... /hj

Seriously though, I'd say Monk's story would be betrayed if it didn't find Survivor. Monk exists as a campaign entirely (from its story perspective) because of its desire to save/be there for Surv, not really for the purpose of letting us directly peek into the spiritual aspect of the game like the other vanilla slugs.

If Surv has to have that OE ending, Monk should be there with it. When Surv chooses to pass on through the Void, Monk should follow. Because there is nothing else but Surv by this point for it.

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ggruh

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family is fighting again