#worldbuilding things

More worldbuilding info can be found HERE

Please keep in mind that the only things to regard as true in relation to this are what I say about Waster and Streetcleaner society in general. The OCs from other Users featured in the post do not officially subscribe to any of my headcannons about them but do illustrate different ways to interpret my headcannons in application.

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XAL units

Extra Armor Loadbearer [XAL] units primarily carry extra fuel either for their own use or to distribute as needed. They also are capable of carrying / moving heavier weights than typical Streetcleaners. They typically are of the Defender Batch Types as they often were assigned to be placed at Scouter Checkpoints.

Scouter Checkpoints were established as basic supply stations for Streetcleaner Scouts as they progressed through early Hell Exploration Assignments. Defender Streetcleaners, remaining at these points often, helped assist with building up and reinforcing them to become more formidable structures. It is worth noting that Defender Batch Types were not exclusively assigned to Scouter Checkpoints and functions can vary.

XAL units role as a supplier makes them often targets. The extra thick armor helps keep them going and withstand more or heavier attacks. This applies to Post Humanity times as well. Fuel is a valuable resource and so it is quite dangerous for those who have more than others.

It is more common to find them in Limbo due to the relatively peaceful nature of the Layer. The primary residents being Streetcleaners helps to protect them due to Streetcleaner's having a high priority on maintaining Scout Teams.

That said... Waster is a known risk. The waste of fuel, over destructive tendencies as result, and risk of being in association with Swordsmachine gives pause to extending any team up invitations. XALSOO and Learos talking in the group chat about Waster being spotted out and about and confirming if they are alone alerts others of their team (and thus all Streetcleaners on the Layer) to these facts. Waster is aware of this broadcasting and they do not acknowledge it.

The Isle of the Guiding Lights/Savior's Cove

A isle often glowing alone on the waves, a last hope for many ships who find themselves lost on the Eastern Zee. No matter which direction you approach, it always seems like there's a large chapel dominating the small fishing town where the zailors are conveniently able to dock. No, no, their ships aren't missing, they're simply in for repairs. Now, aren't you all hungry? We insist you stay a few days, surely you could use the rest. We'll gather supplies for you all in the meantime. No, no, don't worry about it. We're glad to prove.

There is spare room in the chapel for the zailors. Of course there is! We would hate for the guests to be left out in the cold and danger of the turning time of the isle. Simply head down the stairs, there are plenty of spare beds. Don't ask where any of the tenders have gone. It will not go well for you.

Tomorrow, there will be a feast. Enough food for everyone, and aren't you simply starving? Certainly sating yourself matters more then questioning where the locals have gotten the lovely portions of crab and pork from. The bread is still warm from the oven. The fruits are a delight, juicy and sweet. The juices of the meal drip down onto your plate. The locals insist not to waste it, they even have a couple of extra buns with each meal to lap everything up. You ignore how some of their tips clearly apply to thicker liquids then the meal produces. After all, it's food. It's good.

Later, you learn the ship has been damaged. Bad luck, they say, that the beasts got to it. There's questions of a explanation. The locals avoid answering for a while, but it's at the banquet of lunch that they decide to share that dangerous beasts surround the isle. Odd things that you've never heard of. The locals suspect they nest deeper in the isle-there's a underground river leading to a lake that's otherwise landlocked-but it's too dangerous to them to go to it. They don't know how to kill the things, so they do their best to simply keep away. They don't often attack larger ships, you see, so they had assumed yours would be safe. Quite unfortunate that they were wrong.

It's later that you realize how...odd the hosts look. Their accents is what ticks it, first. It's nothing you recognize. It sounds like they learned the language second hand, at the very least. Certain words fail to carry. Their clothes, perhaps, are the next most obvious. They have clothes from this time, make no mistake, but they don't quite wear them correctly. Their coats are crooked, their cravats are tied in zailor knots rather then anything more proper. It covers their necks quite well. What it doesn't cover are the glints that shine off their cheeks in the light at dinner that night. Nor does it hide the hunger you can see in their eyes. A few have gone missing. The hosts do not comment on this.

The repairs and supplies continue to get delayed over the next few days, with various excuses from your hosts. Meanwhile, your numbers continue to shrink, due to 'the beasts' supposedly at the island's center. You have other ideas. You've heard your bunkmate screaming at night from nightmares. They call the hosts monsters. They had been one of the first to vanish, and when they first returned you simply thought them mad. The hosts said that they just needed to recover, have some rest. They've refused to be alone since. You're beginning to believe that perhaps they really did see something. And with your hosts continuing to keep their secrets, you make a plan.

That night, after dinner-fish filets so thin as to see through, yet with enough juices to taste as good as any steak-you grab your gun and go upstairs. You don't know where your hosts stay, nor what they do at night. You do know what you plan to do. You go to your ship. It has holes in the sides, torn open by whatever is in the waters. You do not see any of your oh-so-benevolent hosts here, so you decide to go inside. The ship's cargo has been entirely taken, and the place appears gutted. If you weren't angry about your situation before, you're furious now. You march back up and off the ship-at least, before you are stopped on the dock by a local. They wear the same, placid smile as they ask what you're doing. You respond by trying to shove your way past.

The key word is, try.

The local fixes you with a stare as they easily stop you. Even as you pull out your gun, they stay entirely still. You're stopped from firing by a noise from the zee behind you. Before you can process what it could be, you find yourself falling off the dock, straight into the water.

You aren't attacked, not immediately. Not before seeing the creature, at least. A deceptively humaniod face meets your own. The skin is tinted with green and peligin, and the eyes aren't dissimilar to a Drownie's. What isn't, however, are the set of razor sharp teeth that try to bite into your shoulder. You hardly swim out of the way in time. The spikes erupting from the creature's spine cause you a nasty cut on the cheek as you try to go over and catch it's neck. And that isn't the only thing that catches you by surprise, as you fail to see legs on it, instead getting a tail coiled around you, holding on. The pain is only added to by the feeling of zee water flooding into your lungs, your breath having long since left you.

The last thing you see, as it begins to swim away, is one of your hosts diving into a water. They transform before your eyes into a larger one of your current captor. There's a light, bright and enticing, on the end of a lure coming from it's forehead. Your world goes black as your captor shifts you to into it's arms, and starts to swim towards that light. Like a moth to the flame.

Actual lore time;

• The Isle of the Guiding Light is always found in the Eastern Zee, even if the exact position changes with the currents. It is always far away from any other land.

• The isle hosts a custom zee beast I've made, called the Fisher-Fisher!

• There is only one way for a Fisher-Fisher to be made; infection of a human. All current Fisher-Fisher folk are former zailors from most of the former cities, and some other places in the Neath.

• The Fisher-Fishers have two (possibly more, if I make more) varients; smaller, less flexible hunters and larger lures. The hunters are often 10-11 feet in length, and stay in the water almost consistently after transformation. They are able to shift to a more humaniod appearance, to a extent. But it's never enough to look human enough to approach, or even walk on land. So most don't bother to waste the energy on trying. The lures, on the other hand, can get much larger, roughly 23-24 feet long. They also have a lure of light on their foreheads, similar to a anglerfish's. They also have the ability to infect humans. They maintain fake fishing towns on the isle, often with light towers or chapels to lure in lost ships.

• The Fisher-Fishers often eat the food they serve to people. As of now I'm undecided on how they get the stuff. Working idea is that they loot the ships in the hopes of supplies. Also, likely hunting other beasts for most day-to-day food. They also eat people when they can. It's sacred to them.

• The chapels are real. They do function. They're to Salt.

Swordsmachine is an interesting case of machine. It shows that it has the most deviation from programed commands and thus developed of personality because it can be creative in its' problem solving. Swordsmachine combines pieces regardless of source for utility and form and this pattern of machine has inspired other machines to follow a now (and new to them) pre-established concept of behavior.

Swordsmachine also retained a sound card and external speaker capabilities as we can hear it make sounds in game and produces a death beep much the same as street cleaners (who would have had practically and necessary purposes to be able to produce speech comprehensible to humans in the process of doing their job safely).

The retention of language as noted by the Terminal data is due to a hoarding tendency, but that tendency is one that sees value and opportunity in all that it hoards. Despite the irrelevancy among so many machines, this hardware being hoarded and retained shows a presence of mind that puts value on communication abilities and being able to interact with the widest range of entities. There is a self to speak to an other-not-the-self entity and an awareness of the definition of the edges of where one stops and one begins. There is an awareness to the opportunity that arises from this arrangement by enabling interaction capabilities.

However, Swordsmachine is not one to use pronouns as its concept of self and consciousness of self are a bit of a gray area for its ability to actually comprehend. Swordsmachine was designed as a work machine and repurposed war machine so there was less need to provide soft skills into the programming and too high of level logical reasoning and computational problem solving on abstract concepts. Swordsmachine operates very much in the tangible.

Swordsmachine knows it is. Swordsmachine knows it is not not it. Swordsmachine lacks the ability to acknowledge any importance on gender (everyone and everything Swordsmachine fights dies and bleeds and that's all that matters). So Swordsmachine tends to go by the "It/Its" and use self reflective language such as "this one" in place of "I/myself/me" type of referential vocabulary.

I think most Swordsmachines operator on this same concept (and yes I know the original is only in the prelude levels and the rest are copycats, but I still call them Swordsmachines as a template name because that is what they have built themselves by) though perhaps to varying degrees of successfully acheiving an understanding or comprehension of the "self" they find themselves conscious of. Copying Swordsmachine gives them a template to structure the self and find a way forwards as Swordsmachine is able to "inspire" the "enthusiasts".

(Which can we take a hot second to look at that? Because what do you MEAN it is potentially machines capable of "enthusiasm" ?! or is this in relation to Hell Energy or Husks/Demons possessing scrap and building themselves into a machine as some have been shown to modify themselves with robot parts already. But the ability to have, acknowledge, and act on the ability to be "enthusiastic" about something is another point to machine self awareness/consciousness alongside the Gutterman poem. Which god that's a whole other post)

Final thoughts with Swordsmachines is the naming convention… I think Swordsmachine accepts the names others bestow on it. They are its call signs. It probably responds to many equally as all are it and it is all of these because the external other can perceive it by that call sign and so that call sign is something that it intrinsically has just as it has many parts from many other machines and is still itself.

On a meta Level, the copycats (Specifically: Agony and Tundra) are apparently references to Devil May Cry weapons. Them given names by the perception of an other projecting a set of traits on them to define them from an external perspective sums up the same concept as I just described for Swordsmachine call signs.

I also don't have one settled for the Swordsmachine that is around Waster lmao I'll get to that eventually

Each Scout Point is named according to obvious landmarks as a naming convention. These Scout Points were originally used as tracking markers for the Hell explorations. There are some, however, that do not follow this naming structure. These were either created in later expeditions or for a particular event or phenomenon that occur(s) in the area.

A Scout Points' size varies, but generally the rule of thumb is the higher up you are, the larger it can be. Upper levels tend to be more developed for additional functions such as testing and documentation back up archives. Deeper levels tend to be smaller and more heavily fortified; based more on function and practicality. Their information centers and relays are the most secure areas of the Scout Point as that is the primary function for their expeditions.

The number of Scout Points can vary on each layer as further explorations occurred. Sometimes there may be a primary Scout Point with satellite bases scattered about. Other times there may be multiple larger or more heavily fortified ones depending on circumstances and so on and so forth.

The Scout Points would be vital resources as the Hell Explorations and Mining endeavors were underway. They've served as a point of safety for machines and formerly Humans. In more recent times, the Streetcleaners have started to completely overtake many of them due to their cooperative nature giving them a numbers advantage. Thus they remove other machines that had formerly cooperated and taken shelter there. However, there are points that exist with mixed machine types and or entirely taken over by other particular types of machine.

For Streetcleaners in particular, as time has progressed, requests for parts or resources or etc often requires a trade of information recently observed so as to keep updated logs of developments throughout the layers. If new or uncommon information is reported, there tends to be more allocated to the request. If there is more common knowledge or little to nothing to report, the request will be fulfilled in a smaller quantity if at all depending on the Scout Point's resource status.

Knowledge is power and a Scout Point can be a vital hub of activity and trade... sometimes...

Also: Me looking at the collection of OCs I've been gathering and scooping up