#batwards-running

I'm not sure. @iteratorsex wrote up a pretty good analysis of karma gates here, which is worth checking out.

Gameplay wise, karma gates serve as separations between regions, and the animation gives the game time to allow the new region to load. The karma requirements also add a challenge to the player.

However, in-universe, they do seem to serve as a form of security, like you mentioned. The best example of this is probably the gate from Underhang to Five Pebbles, which requires Karma 5.

Given the fact that the inside of Five Pebbles seems to be a "sterile" environment comprised of only iterator-related fauna, this gate is most likely here to prevent foreign organisms from getting in. (Though, it doesn't prevent Slugcat.)

Looks to the Moon has a similar gate in the Vents subregion, however it is broken, allowing creatures like lantern mice into her structure.

In contrast, the gate at the top of Five Pebbles leading to his access shaft only requires Karma 1.

This is most likely just the case for gameplay reasons, to prevent the player from being unable to proceed after climbing The Wall, or getting stuck inside Five Pebbles.

Though, given the lack of any creatures on the top of Five Pebbles, it's likely that a lower level of "security" is necessary. (I've seen Scavengers on the roof, but this is likely a Downpour addition.)

This "security" idea is furthered by the fact that the gates to Metropolis and Bitter Aerie are completely locked, with the gate to Metropolis requiring a citizen ID drone to unlock.

They also both require Karma 5 on the "exit" side, which lead to Five Pebbles and Looks to the Moon's respective structures.

In the case of Metropolis, I imagine the Karma 5 requirement is there to prevent citizens from leaving the city, at least not without the proper karmic attunement. Given the religious significance of iterators, maybe only properly "enlightened" citizens were allowed to enter Five Pebbles' structure proper.

The hall leading to Five Pebbles' access shaft (UW_C07) and the hall leading to the entrance of Metropolis (LC_B04) also contain many karma gate-like structures, reinforcing that "added security" idea. I imagine the gates could be closed to put Five Pebbles or Metropolis into lockdown (though I'm not sure what kind of threat would require so many barriers...)

The same goes for the bridge leading up to the House of Braids in Metropolis:

This implies that the House of Braids is another "high security" area, likely due to its religious significance. Several rooms in the House of Braids are referred to as "temple", and the "lab" rooms resemble the environment inside Five Pebbles, suggesting that they might be connected to Five Pebbles' interior in some way.

Tarigon (@iteratorsex) also mentions here that karma gates might serve to "decontaminate" the player as well. The structure of karma gates and the way they isolate the player brings to mind air locks or entrances to clean rooms, which prevent the contamination of sterile spaces. This makes sense in terms of iterator structures, as I mentioned earlier that their interiors seem to be sterile with the exception of iterator fauna. Perhaps iterator fauna (neuron flies, inspectors, the interior microbiome, etc) is particularly fragile and susceptible to contamination from the outside. The karma gates are probably there not only to provide security, but also to prevent disease. (I also brought this up here in a thread with Tarigon.)

However, this explanation makes less sense for all of the other regions, which are arguably the opposite of sterile environments. Why would they need to be separated in such ways?

The easy explanation is for simple gameplay reasons and provide a challenge for the player. However lore-wise, maybe the different sections of FP/LttM's facility had different levels of "security clearance" while they were still inhabited.

Shaded Citadel, for example, is an area with great religious significance. The entrances to the region from Industrial Complex and Garbage Wastes require Karma 5 and 4, respectively.

Lore-wise, this high karma requirement was possibly implemented to prevent only but the most "enlightened" from entering the True Anointed Citadel.

The eastern karma gates have lower karma requirements, possibly because they are connected to the exteriors of Looks to the Moon and Five Pebbles. I assume anyone entering from that direction would likely be coming directly from Moon or Pebbles' cities, and likely had a good reason to be there. (Though this is just me speculating.)

I don't want to spend all evening going over the karma gates of every single region, but you might be able to make similar lore-based arguments for their different karma requirements. More likely, however, the requirements are only there for gameplay reasons.

As for why you need to be "showered" in between regions... perhaps the different regions have specialized microbiomes that the Ancients wanted to keep isolated from each other. Garbage Wastes in particular is said (in Downpour) to contain volatile waste-digestion microbes, and I imagine you wouldn't want to spread them to other regions. The gates might also be in place to prevent larger purposed organisms from leaving their designated areas, so they could continue to perform their required functions.

TL;DR, I personally think the karma gates serve mainly as a security system, preventing people and creatures from leaving their designated "zones", and also preventing cross-contamination between different highly specialized areas.

I don't want to talk too much about the Watcher campaign (mainly because I still haven't finished it yet), but I will add some tangentially-related lore tidbits from the DLC below the cut. Don't read if you don't want mid to late-game region spoilers.

However, he couldn't quite fit astalos into the equation. But, after a decent bit of research, I believe I have definitively figured out the group of birds astalos best represents!

It's Kites! Specifically those like the Swallow tailed and White tailed kite.

Similarly to Astalos, these birds' preferred environments are wetlands and open tropical forests. Also, like Astalos, a large portion of their diet is made up of insects surprisingly enough, which they snatch from the air or skim from foliage as they fly low. Swallow tailed kites have even been documented flying away with big chunks of wasp nests in their talons, which they eat the larvae from. In MH, we don’t really have any proper dedicated predators of vespoids. Perhaps that's what Astalos could be, in a similar way to birds like the Swallow Tailed and honey buzzards? Either way, it's cool to think about. Outside of insects, these kites are generally hunters of small prey like lizards, snakes, and frogs that they can either swallow whole or easily tear apart.

In short, very Astalos-like with its hunting of the small runner wyverns, although the pincer tail replaces the talons in this context.

Astalos isn't exactly the nightjar analog I previously thought it was, but overall, I'm satisfied with the conclusion it ultimately led me to, and even better, now I know more about these birds and real world Ecology!

Oh crap that’s actually a really good comparison.

I’m gonna run this by UHC and see what he thinks.

EDIT:

He said he’s more familiar with old world melvini kites, which are ecologically more like vultures, but that this is a very interesting thing to consider.

Another similarity is that the left ends of both of these regions end in a sudden drop-off. I believe this is important to understanding the way this superstructure is composed.

Now, Verdant Waterways and Desolate Tract. I believe these 2 regions are connected, as a few have pointed out they share very similar architecture, both being made from massive silos with similar grates covering them. Some have even thought of Desolate Tract as a huge dam that contains the Verdant Waterways behind it.

Now Badlands, this one is a bit more of a stretch because it relies on a bit of insinuation. On the edge of Torrid Deserts drop-off is a portal to Badlands. Far below that drop-off is where I believe Badlands is located. I think this because if TD and DT are connected, like is implied, Desolate Tract would be above Torrid and drop-off into it if DT is also connected to VW. So it's not too much of a stretch to think this trend would continue. Finally, I'll explain how I believe this whole hypothetical superstructure is composed and how all the regions connect. (Please excuse my bad drawings)

What if there was a sect of benefactors that desired, for whatever reason (probably religious dogma), to live on the surface world and not atop an iterator? But how could such a thing be possible with the threat of rain? Well, by creating an artificial rain shadow.

In this model, there is a massive circular barrier that extends above the clouds and encloses a section of land, blocking practically all atmospheric water vapor from entering it, this blocked atmospheric water then condenses on the outside of the barrier, trickling down into a reservoir on the outer perimeter of this facility where rain can still reach (I.E Verdant Waterways).

Within the enclosed section of land, various huge platforms are built or carved into the earth to maximize the amount of space available inside, smaller forms of infrastructure can then be built on it, almost like giant terraces. Some contain old religious sites which are partially incorporated to become industrial religious sites like Shaded Citadel (I.E Torrid Desert), others would be locations where agriculture is practiced, with water from the outside reservoir being pumped into channels inside the facility and stored away or even used to power machinery with the likes of water wheels (I.E Badlands). This water distribution system would be necessary for the sake of it's inhabitants too, without any sort of cloud cover to ever shield the land from the sun, the inside of the facility would begin to get very hot.

This might have been the purpose of the Desolate Tract, with it being connected to Verdant Waterways, perhaps it was some sort of monolithic air conditioning unit or climate control system. Pumping out cooled air and a slight amount of atmospheric moisture into the facility to keep it's residents comfortable. Now, with everything abandoned and turned off, the sun's heat is focused on the exposed centre of the facility, kicking up massive sandstorms and causing wind that perpetually blows away from it due to extreme atmospheric temperature differentials (explaining why the sandstorms only ever come from one direction). Like a tidal-locked planet in miniature form.

I have dubbed the name of this type of superstructure "The Bowl" ... because it looks like a giant bowl from far away.

But anyway, this is all just my utterly insane nattering and speculation. What do you think of this idea? Do you have any speculation regarding the Watcher's Desert regions?

I like this idea, it's pretty creative!

I definitely think that Verdant Waterways is some kind of reservoir, and when I first got to Desolate Tract I definitely got the impression that it was some kind of large dam or retaining wall. (Maybe not the retaining wall surrounding FP and LTTM's facilities, though.) It's possible that Verdant Waterways and Desolate Tract are different sides of the same massive wall.

As for Torrid Desert and Badlands... to be honest, I'm kind of at a loss. I agree that Torrid Desert was some sort of religious site due to all of the statues.

I think Badlands might have been an old farming site. The rectangular statues and pillars found there resemble those found in Farm Arrays:

I'm not sure what these rectangular statues are for, but I recall seeing some people say that they might be an equivalent to scarecrows? They might also be there to provide some sort of "protection" (karmic or otherwise).

Though, Badlands' soil definitely doesn't appear to be fertile anymore, even if it was in the past. Some sort of plague befell this place; I assume the massive swarms of locusts might have something to do with that.

And while I'm at it, the larger statues in the eastern portion of Farm Arrays also somewhat resemble the ones found in Torrid Desert:

I can't really comment on the physical location of any of Watcher's regions relative to one another... some of them, like the Aether Ridge regions (Aether Ridge, Cold Storage, Heat Ducts, Salination, The Surface, and technically Shattered Terrace) were originally all part of the same massive mod, and got chopped up when they were adapted for Watcher. Thus we can assume that they must be close to one another physically; though not temporally: in the original Aether Ridge mod, the different subregions represented different points in the Downpour timeline (for example, The Surface is a future version of Aether Ridge).

There are similar region "clusters"; Coral Caves in its original modded form was connected to Turbulent Pump. Torrential Railways was also originally connected to Stormy Coast, with Shrouded Coast and Sunlit Port representing Stormy Coast in different parts of the Downpour timeline (for Spearmaster and Artificer, respectively).

I don't know where or when any of the Watcher-exclusive regions are located relative to Vanilla (except for Ancient Urban, it's pretty clear that one is in the past). In a way I suppose it doesn't matter, but one of the things I liked about the pearls in Vanilla and Downpour were that they fleshed out the regions they were found in and explained the function of some of the weird architecture and machinery.