Trainchaser wrote:

What are Cravers doing on Auriga(don't tell me they are uplifted Necrophages) and Why do they refer to the explosion of Gray Owl as "abandoned by our masters"? 

That isn't Auriga, methinks the Grey Owl explosion simply is big enough to be seen all across the universe to the planet where the Cravers are, hence the Vision trailers as well where as aftermath of the explosion, Dust is seen reaching even Sophon and Vodyani homeworlds. I don't remember very vividly, but Necrophages were supposedly either native Aurigans or mutated Concrete experiments and unrelated to Cravers despite their similarities, who in turn were Virtual Endless' biological weapons created to be used against the Concretes in the Dust Wars. The "abandoned by our masters" line is just "our masters genocided themselves" and you actually rediscover some surviving Virtual Endless in the Craver faction quest.

As for the Lost, yeah I've also heard the theory about Auriga also being another Lost survivor (Eyeless Ones hinted to be worshipping the Lost, Shards of the Lost trinket for Guardians, Allayi being very religious about protecting Auriga and see the creations of the Endless "killing her", the whole thing with Auriga having a personality in the game's trailers). The Unfallen Heart is confirmed to be a Lost as well in their faction quest and it's what uplifted the Unfallen, but it's portrayed as mostly benevolent though we don't find out its eventual plan. Assuming Auriga is a Lost I think the narrator in the trailers may be a different Lost from her, so at most we're probably dealing with three different Lost survivors and they may even have different agendas.

That would be the Endless making a half-hearted attempt at disposing of their monstrous mega-soldier legions without much concern for thoroughness. The Cravers would eventually be kind of a liability, so they were slated to be offed; hence why Husk is covered in craters, it's the same planet.

Hint: it is shown exploding in a number of videos we released. ;)

IceGremlin wrote:

That would be the Endless making a half-hearted attempt at disposing of their monstrous mega-soldier legions without much concern for thoroughness. The Cravers would eventually be kind of a liability, so they were slated to be offed; hence why Husk is covered in craters, it's the same planet.

oh that's Husk? not that same explosion above snowy planet from the reveal trailer? I didn't consider Husk because they were fighting something there as well and there were ruins and possibly snow(could be snowing ash). It didn't look like a random planet like it says in the Husk description. Also, why would they waste their ship if they are gonna nuke them from orbit anyway? They could just deploy all the legions then bomb them. My first impression was that single explosion is tied to the destruction of Virtual Endless somehow maybe through the crystal. And it was like a restart for the universe, like a 'to be continued' ending for the Endless. Maybe I'm overthinking over a simple dust nuke :) 

Frogsquadron wrote:

Hint: it is shown exploding in a number of videos we released. ;)

Ok Dev hinting just makes me more curious about this whole thing. Are there actually hints and clues left for us to figure out about the story of Endless Space that is written but not yet fully revealed?  If it's true that just gives me goosebumps, it's super exciting! :)

Its the Gray Owl I'm pretty sure.

Hypnoncatrice wrote:

Its the Gray Owl I'm pretty sure.

That's another confusing thing. They are both Hissho Cruiser but then what is the planet in the video? Auriga? Does someone repair the Gray Owl and then it blows up in the orbit? Because in the story, the Gray Owl doesn't blow up in the orbit while escaping from Sykagoja instead, the story ends when they are en route to Auriga and the storyteller finds the ship's wreck on Auriga. How can the ship end up mostly intact on Auriga if it blows up in a massive dust supernova above the Sykagoja?

Maybe the explosion is not because the Grey Owl was destroyed but because the ship used a very strong propulsion system to access hyperspace or something similar. I think this is implied by the start of Endless Space battle cinematics: the ships don´t arrive by "flying" to the place, but by warping there. Granted, it is a simple warp without explosions, but maybe the Grey Owl uses a messy technology?

First of all thanks a lot for compiling all this into chronological order. I've been looking for a post like this digging old threads. I missed some of these like that amplified reality trailer. It certainly shows the crystal is the reason behind that dust cloud. And from what I get Auriga is responsible for the explosion as it targets the escaping ship. 

hera35 wrote:

As for the identity of the mystery person responsible for Grey Owl's destruction, it's probably hinted in the above Dungeon of the Endless trailer. 1:18 shows four people onboard the escape pod, but when the video gets to 1:39 it shows only three people. The missing person is likely inside the Dust Crystal itself. Previously I thought it was probably a Virtual Endless, but due to ES2 revelations it's more likely a Lost survivor, assuming the mysterious narrator in Vision trailers is the same person (line: ...and its thirst for Dust, will nourish our return).

You mean this guy ?

Isn't that the guy from Horatio comic? (Best comic by the way :D) He is, I think, the Horatio Prime who betrays the other three. Besides a very long time passes between DotE and Gray Owl explosion right? if it's gonna be someone from that DotE group I would bet on Opbot, only he can live that long. I wouldn't be able to hold my tears if it's really him dying in a tragic sacrifice after all he had been through. But back to the Craver prologue, there are still a couple things I don't get. What are Cravers doing on Auriga(don't tell me they are uplifted Necrophages) and Why do they refer to the explosion of Gray Owl as "abandoned by our masters"? That makes me think there is a Virtual Endless involved in all this whether the Endless is in shipmind or crystal. Or maybe there is an Endless inside Opbot's circuitry. Maybe that's why he suffers from memory loss and duality.

hera35 wrote:

An unknown narrator talks about his "plan" of spreading Dust all over the universe, speeding up natural evolution and creating the major factions dependent on Dust, likely for the purpose of reviving the Lost ("gods" predating the Endless themselves). The Dust Crystal and Grey Owl exploding was very likely his doing.

Maybe It's Kurt Russell the planetary intelligence. :) Seriously though about Lost I think you are right. Sounds like it's the same guy based on the intentions of spreading dust. So I'm convinced that Auriga is a Lost. But still, the narrator from vision trailers sounds more malevolent contrary to reveal trailer where the narrator is more peaceful, maybe because he is dying. Also in the DotE short movie, he refers to races of Auriga and the Endless as his children, whereas in vision trailers he refers to Sophons and Vodyani as his creations. He sees himself as their God although he only uplifted them. He sounds very egoistic to me. Vanity; it's Alpacino's favorite sin. That's why I don't trust the Lost and disagree with Vodyani leader on portraying Endless as demons and the Lost as Gods. The Lost seem to have another hidden agenda besides reviving themselves and Endless wanted to destroy them once they learned it. So much so that they sent their remaining Craver troops to Auriga to prevent the Lost survivor gathering all the dust. I don't know maybe there are good Lost too but after seeing how they uplift races and turn the galaxy into a battleground to amass dust but ending up amassing ash, I can say that they are the demons.

hera35 wrote:

As for the Lost, yeah I've also heard the theory about Auriga also being another Lost survivor (Eyeless Ones hinted to be worshipping the Lost, Shards of the Lost trinket for Guardians, Allayi being very religious about protecting Auriga and see the creations of the Endless "killing her", the whole thing with Auriga having a personality in the game's trailers). The Unfallen Heart is confirmed to be a Lost as well in their faction quest and it's what uplifted the Unfallen, but it's portrayed as mostly benevolent though we don't find out its eventual plan. Assuming Auriga is a Lost I think the narrator in the trailers may be a different Lost from her, so at most we're probably dealing with three different Lost survivors and they may even have different agendas.

I don't know the third one although I saw a thread saying something about Bhagaba and Koyasil somewhere. But I am certain at least one of them is evil.

hera35 wrote:

That isn't Auriga, methinks the Grey Owl explosion simply is big enough to be seen all across the universe to the planet where the Cravers are, hence the Vision trailers as well where as aftermath of the explosion, Dust is seen reaching even Sophon and Vodyani homeworlds.

Well, you caught me off guard I'm not really sure how would a supernova-sized dust explosion within the same galaxy look like in the sky. I assumed it would only look like that up close, within the same solar system at least.Would it really look like that in the sky from light years away? I searched some visual representation but all I could find was footage of Betelgeuse going supernova on a UFO channel :D. I also found this simulation of Sirius B exploding. It does get big like the Craver video but it takes years to reach that size:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D15pTKWnCyg

But again something as small as that crystal tearing a hole in the universe... should be dense enough to swallow the mass of its surroundings. The scales of this explosion is beyond me. 

I am curious to see what the writers come up with.

By the way, is it known in the canon lore that the crystal was on Gray Owl from the beginning or does it come from Prisoner ship in the escape pod as a prisoner? :) or was it already on Auriga?

 Also is there a significance to number 9 that I should know about? I just noticed that there are 9 bright stars in a circle when eyes of the Lost show up in the vision trailer and there are 9 protrusions coming out of Academy. 

As noone knows exactly what happened, it implies we don't know how explosion will be seen. It made a rift where riftborn came from, so I suspect there's not the trouble in how big the explosion was, but it having something special, and maybe this made the explosion visible with similar characteristics regardless the distance to it.

The other option is that all videos have been done at same distance of explosion.

I guess the question here is; "Is dust faster than light?"

Regarding Horatio and his part on Dungeon of The Endless... 

The comic books shows that he wasn´t part of The Success ship or one of the escape pods. He was already doing his research in Auriga, looking for Endless technology but without good results.

He sees the accident and joins the crew that is the same crew from the image below:

Except for the "forth" survivor that we may theorise to be the crystal itself.

Max, Sara and Gork find Horatio during their quest to exit the underground labs. They even think he might be one of the survivors from the Success even though they don´t remember him on the ship. He plays along, abandon them when he finds the Endless tech and goes away to start an empire. 

He would later create perfect clones and one of these clones would manage to take his throne. 

==================================

I think this comic book implies that there was not only one escape pod but many. That´s because it would be hard to start a new society with just Sara and Gork as sole survivors, like Adam and Eve, and they barely like each other. Also, Opbot wasn´t tagging along with them, and he is needed for the Endless Legend lore. So all the crew and prisoners heroes that can be hired after passing through the first level of the game came from other escape pods. But only Sara´s team stayed with the crystal.