I finished the new Arknights story, Lone Trail, and lol lmao what the hell was that. They really decide "hey, you know what would be cool for this event about breaking the frontiers of knowledge? a shitload of lore drops" and.... yeah. Yeah honestly, fair.
I wanna try wrapping my head around them so I'm gonna try to list what I can remember here. I can't even say these are "spoilers" because whether you learn them from reading in-game, from a wiki, hearing it from a friend, or right here, it makes no difference. It's just... a lore drop. Most of them aren't really twists that have anything to do with the story.
Man. I have so many mixed opinion about this story because on one hand, it's still got Arknights's excellent writing and well-thought-out critique at *gestures at the whole world*. I like how it looks at exceptionalism, "is it only a specific few who can bring change to the world? then what do the rest of us matter?". Also how science and the military makes uneasy bedfellows. The politics of it. NASA-punk. The character drama is also really good as usual.
But also I think it doesn't earn its wordcount (about 78k words! longer than some novels!), what with how fluffy the writing is. It was hard for me to be interested in the characters; the way it presents their motivations is a muddled mess. Maybe that's just skill issue on my part; I haven't finished reading the Rhide Lab comic (which I didn't much care for), I didn't get attached to them in Dorothy's Vision (which was good, I was just not super into it), and Mansfield Break is the one Arknights side story that I skipped (because it was a chore to read!).
Anyway. Lore drops under the break!
A new age is upon us.
Terra's atmosphere is encased in a barrier
Or a "fake sky". This is apparently common knowledge, at least among the scientists who study the sky. For nations outside of Columbia, it's sometimes just a theory that their scientists don't look at anymore, but it's a known theory.
The barrier lies about 7000 meters above the surface, which is basically baby height compared to our atmosphere. (You can check out this fun site to have an idea of how tall our atmosphere is!) I'm not clear on whether the stars and twin moons in these fake sky mirrors the real stars and moons above, but they're different enough that seeing the real stars feels like a big thing. There's also something about how the trajectory of the "fake stars" don't really line up.
Kristen Wright's parents (the Wright Couple, heheh. Compare with the real life Wright Brothers) were among the earliest people who could fly with planes (I think they're implied to be the first aviators). When Kristen was young, they flew too close to the barrier and their plane burst into flames. Their hubris were ridiculed, and scientists never bothered with the sky again.
The event in Lone Trail was the first aerial combat on Terra, at least as far the Columbian military is aware of).
There's a hole in the barrier over Columbia now
Not really a lore drop, just something that happened and might be relevant later. Kristen shot a hole in the sky over Trimounts, Columbia and the laser she shot was visible as far as Victoria, Iberia, and Leithanien. Even the seaborns saw it. The barrier will fix itself, but it might take anywhere from weeks to years, so until then the real sky is clearly visible.
The Doctor and Kal'tsit are part of a precursor race that went "extinct" about twelve thousand years ago
Honestly fuck this random-ass big fucking reveal but whatever, I'll take it.
You gotta understand how big of a deal ten thousand wholeass years is. Change happens a lot in Terra; I'd say even faster than on our IRL Earth thanks to its Catastrophes and Originium. Almost everything in Arknights, every conflict, is within the living memory of its people. The Profound Silence of Iberia, and the Golden Age of Iberia before that, was only about 70 years ago. Columbia wasn't even 100 years old, if I remember correctly. Ten thousand years! Enough for Kal'tsit to see civilization rise and fall and rise again and fall again.
And yet, despite realising that human nature goes in cycles, she feels like she's "running out of time". Time for what? What could be so bad that ten thousand years of the rise and fall of civilizations is nothing in the face of whatever is gonna happen next?
I put "extinct" because the people didn't really die; they were put into "Sarcophagus". The same Sarcophagus that the Doctor was taken out of in the main story. These sarcophagus was overseen by an AI filled with the consciousness of one of these people, the "Preserver".
When/where/how/why the Doctor was taken out of their original Sarcophagus was not mentioned, but the Preserver recognized them as a "colleague". They also recognized Kal'tsit as "AMa-10", as the Doctor's "attendant"; whether that means Kal'tsit is an artificial being or just lower caste or whatever isn't really clear.
There's also some shit about Priestess, who was apparently the one who the Doctor into but neither the Preserver nor Kal'tsit can talk about it so like?? Whatever???
If you have an elaborate backstory for your docsona and can't fit all these new nonsense in, my condolences.
Anyhow. The guy who got put into the AI was called "Trevor Friston" before he was the Preserver. At the end he asked Kal'tsit to basically kill him ("erase these twisted data spanning... 4,765,403 days"). And then, unexpectedly, Ho'olheyak put him inside her staff, and used it as a bargaining chip to have Rhodes Island take her in instead of handing her to be prosecuted by Columbia. I'm not clear on whether the suicide didn't complete or not, but Rhodes Island will be trying to do something with that staff. Might be related to the upcoming robot operator, Friston?
Oh, I forgot to mention that the Preserver basically killed off all the people in the Sarcophagi because he realised there's no way for them to survive anyway. Instead, he gave the energy contained in them to help Kristen break the barrier.
Yeah those are the big ones
Here's the others in rapid-fire version as I remember them:
- Rosmontis's childhood name was Narcissa. was experimented on as a child by a Rhine Lab-affiliated scientist, Loken Williams. Loken was apparently nice enough to Rosmontis; she often gives her flowers (which might be how she got the name, Narcissa), but did fuck her up with the experiments. She had brothers who died in the process. She destroyed the lab and Loken was arrested soon after.
- Parvis died; his body become a Transmitter that helped the weapon that Kristen used. Loken died; natural death, not killed by Rosmontis. Kristen is in deep sleep in space; dead for all intents and purposes. Ferdinand Clooney survives and in jail; he's probably given a death sentence, but it's likely Rhine will bust him out. Muelsyse and Saria survives (barely) (of course).
- Jara Wilson, HR Director of Rhine Lab and surrogate mother to Kristen, is now retired
- Nasti Lunorey, director of Rhine Lab's engineering, is searching for the "Sarkaz promised land" and thinking that it might be built as a flying nomadic city; she's going to work towards it.
- There's a settlement of elves in Sami. Muelsyse went there once, but she felt like she didn't belong there.
- Revenant is a kind of Sarkaz that are can live as a consciousness. They're immortal, and can "live" in a machine body. One of them is known as the "Tin Man" and works for Columbia's Maylander Foundation
- Banshees is a kind of Sarkaz that can command others to do their will by saying certain words in their ancient tongue. One Banshee, Nasti, immigrated from Kazdel during the war and work for Rhine Lab, but she's still concerned about a "Sarkaz promised land".
- Columbia's president is called Mark Max, but the one who's usually seen in Vice President Johnson. Johnson is always seen with what looks like a pet robot (?) who looks like an owl. I think it's mentioned that election is only for the vice president position, not the president?
- This is so silly: THE OWL IS THE PRESIDENT.
- The President calls PRTS as "coming from the same roots" but I don't know wtf that means.
- Yeah there's probably like a shit load I'm not remembering right now. Lone Trail is A Lot.
- Oh yeah, Rosmontis and Ifrit are besties. The Doctor REALLY cares about Rosmontis. Canon daughter.
