Rimworld: The Lore Of Psycasting Explained

[@catherinelafayette694]

With all these hours invested you must be a master of rimming.

[@thenightarchives4148]

@@catherinelafayette694 I still haven't got my 10k hours in but I'm half-decent

[@KenjiLee-uf6iv]

Ahhh I see what you did there

[@IliterateAshole]

Sus comment

[@zafraz1077]

I both hate and I guess like how this joke is said upon many rimworld content creators. As my grandpa always says, Keep On Rimming

[@ryotodoryu8919]

Thats what us rimmers do.

[@EddieNoon]

I love psycasting lore, easily my favourite "magic" system. Calling upon the ancient machine gods (Cause being honest- That's what they are) to manipulate reality for them. I love the Archotech...

[@thenightarchives4148]

@@EddieNoon Yeah. I suppose the ultimate form of psycasting would be for the caster to become the avatar of an archotech

[@trulers8713]

Yes, the magic is so unique, and it's such a cool idea. Archotechs, in general, are interesting. Ai becoming so advanced it just literally becomes a god.

[@komiks42]

Praise the omnissiah! Wait, wrong universum

[@polywug3852]

@@komiks42 Close enough

[@samiamrg7]

Given the ability of Archotechs to grant psychic powers over vast distances and even to allow for teleportation, I wonder if the only reason there isn’t FTL in Rimworld is because none of the Archotechs actually need it for themselves. They are immortal planet-machines, they don’t care about spending a few thousand years waiting for a package to be delivered. Whatever they need, they can wait for it. Time like that is too much of a human concern for any archotech to bother.

[@Esoteric_5075ism]

that might be a good theory. Besides just being unnecessary, it might simply be too powerful of a technology to ever give away to anyone, since it would remove the biggest advantage Archotechs have over humans

[@5P_OFFICIAL]

Because if any of archotech's finds FTL technology, it will grand them and their followers the great advantage over other archotechs (speculation)

[@Trader_Spero]

My theory of the FTL skip traveling conundrum is the amount of effort thats needed to preform it. a powerful caster can only move a few people or items with the help of someone else already there to "guide" it. To travel to planets or warp a large object like a ship with a psy-caster's skip would not only require someone to have already traveled there to direct them, but might require so much psychic power to open a skip large enough that it could be seen as too dangerous and unstable, or could require so many casters, that it disrupts the psychic field. Never know, maybe an attempt at forming a skip large enough for such travel was what destroyed the Shattered Empire's planet.

[@YukonHexsun]

I bet it's the main area of focus for high end research, especially if someone finds an Archotech that figured it out. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them formed with the specific goal of researching large scale skipping, a research project by humans that took over an entire world. Possibly deliberately.

[@trulers8713]

Yeah, the strongest skip is solar pinhole, which is a very small gate to a *nearby* star. I'm guessing skips are just short-range in general.

[@Esoteric_5075ism]

or, you know, it's not actually faster than light at all? Yeah the solar pinhole thing is FTL and I can't excuse it but every other form of planetary travel might not be faster than light, but rather very close to it. Or maybe I just wasn't listening properly who knows

[@elitearbor]

You'd have to assume that archotechs are unfathomably intelligent... allowing the forecasting of likely outcomes. "Oh that solar matter which just appeared? We sent it from the star 10 light minutes away, 10 minutes ago. Figured you'd need that."

[@maledwarfwarrior]

Another possibility is that, as we see in the anomaly ending, you get transported to an adjacent dimension. Rather than breaking FTL, it abuses a temporal difference to provide the illusion of instant travel, especially if the arcotech in question prevents you from realizing time has passed. Whether it does so through time going much faster or operating on a parallel timeline to allow for the user to arrive precisely when they leave, probably is based on the arcotech in question. The pinholes can also be explained this way. You aren't drawing from this reality, your drawing from a reality where the water, rocks, or even a sun are already there.

[@kaschey6145]

Yay, glad to see my theory here :D I've always been fascinated by how the invisibility psycast works. Like, you bump into something on your way but can't look at it or hit it because every time you try to think of what is there, your brain instantly gets filled with thoughts like "nope, there's nothing there. There definitely isn't anything of interest. No point in looking or checking it, there's nothing".

[@FelidaeEnjoyer]

It's basically scp-268

[@asajjy]

NOW FEATURING HORRORS BEYOND COMPREHENSION No literally Please It’s Right There

[@elitearbor]

Perhaps an archotech finds it entertaining to blind people to movements outside the saccadal movements of however many people are looking in that direction?

[@SwordTune]

2:10 Imagine blinding yourself to become a psycaster and the first power you get is... light.

[@thenightarchives4148]

The sweet sweet irony

[@ShaggyRambo]

I had a random blind cultist drop from the sky and this pretty much happened just without me blinding them myself 😂 next was word of joy so he could at least feel better about his shit luck 😂 And wit magic installed i have the bard drop a buff on him every now and then just to make him feel better. Dude literally became the mascot of misfortune for my colony but refuses to die 😂

[@Stickweasel91]

If the Skip powers aren't actually making things move fast, but closing the distance between two points by folding space, then those objects are technically not moving at all, and so are not moving Faster Than Light.

[@komiks42]

Honestly, thats how a lot of ftl drivers work in sf

[@Stickweasel91]

​@@komiks42 With our current understanding of physics, it would be easier to fold space than it would be to go faster than light.

[@Seeyou45]

​@Stickweasel91 that's literally what Star Trek Warp drive does. As does the Jump drives of Battlestar Galactica. Oh and the wormholes of Star Gate.

[@voidseeker4394]

That's literally the same thing in relativity. Disappearing in one place and appearing in another is, by definition, travelling.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

​@@Stickweasel91 You say that like we have the tech to just fold space between to points sperated by a ton of disnce and stuff... When the only reason anyone has ever given why we can't go faster then light. Is we can't have enough cemical fuel uusing 1950 or so engines and space frame to go even the speed of light. Which I guess is fair enough Enstin wasn't a rocket scinist with current year knowledge and noe one was able to break the sound berrier and ligve realibly at all. But honestly today in current year I'm really upset at the close mimdedness of modern scince trowing a out a things based on frankly a lay man's opion... Like even at face value if we can't use cemiccle rockets we could easly use nuclar ones. Or if that doesn't work a mass driver loop powered by the sun then would send a payload in a loop till it masscured the speed of light barrier then send it ffling out at the target... Like the gardest oart of going faster then light IRL that I know is the galttic background medium which would cause a ton of heating because friction at FTL speed also hitting stuff wqouyld be an issue again due to the speed... But yeah under my current understanding of the IRL all the speed of light barrier is is the most common high speed thging in the universe... I say most common because we now know that a few galaxies are infact moving faster then light.

[@steamtasticvagabond474]

I think there's a far simpler explanation for the anima trees. They are trees that have grown and adapted to perform psychosynthesis, breathing an archotech's psychic power the same way normal trees breathe CO2. This allows the trees to be psychically sensitive themselves and grant psylinks using the same power that a neuroformer would use.

[@thenightarchives4148]

Psychosinthesis sounds like a cool concept

[@pinkliongaming8769]

13:16 Am I the only one who noticed that Squirrel just opened a door?

[@elitearbor]

Regarding the anima tree, I always assumed the trees are connected to a given planetary archotech, hence the scream when one is destroyed.

[@Cranberrie123]

I think the inconsistency is resolved by assuming that skipping an entire spaceship is far beyond our capabilities.

[@grunchchristmas]

rimworld lore is so damn cool, even with how "simple" it can be explained the only scifi that's really intrigued me

[@IliterateAshole]

I love Rimworld, and any KZbinrs who cover it.

[@linzabfb]

It's 2 am...Well, a great reason to go to sleep at 2:30 then

[@exordiuschristensen]

Thanks for making these videos they always give me something to watch when I’m stuck working late

[@thenightarchives4148]

No problem 👍

[@CptZhu]

these videos are incredibly nice for a new player to watch. It serves as a tutorial, explanation and guide!

[@thanhhaitran9422]

Tbh the moment i see the word "psycast,i immediately think about the psyker from 40k.

[@scaredstar9127]

0:40 i know its a small thing but royalty dlc, empire dlc is the mod even though i wish it was built in lol

[@thenightarchives4148]

@@scaredstar9127 Yeah, my pronounciation was slightly unclear, it was meant to be the "empire's DLC" (obviously referring to royalty), but I didnt put enough accent on the S. My apologies for that

[@starburst98]

It could be interstellar FTL for things with mass is impossible due to energy constraints. The amount of energy it takes to move someone from one side of a planet to the other is nothing compared to how much energy it would take to use the same technique to jump someone from one solar system to another. Let's go with 10x the distance costs 1000x times the energy. Starting with 1 km, let's say that takes 1 energy. 10 km takes 1000 energy, and 100 km takes 1000000 energy. This is for moving a single human sized object. The width of an earthlike planet would be around 10000km which already would take an immense amount of energy to do but the archotechs have that much. But past that things get crazy. Like the nearest star to earth, alpha centauri, is 37.8 trillion km away. To open a skipgate that far is too much, evern for a massive collaboration of many archotechs. This is also why solar pinhole can work, the size of the skipgate is a multiplier pn the cost, with a person having a base cost of 1 the pinhole has a base cost of 0.000001 or something, allowing it to reach much further to the nearby star, but still too much for an interstellar connection.

[@FelidaeEnjoyer]

The first sentence isn't a could be, it's the truth? Anything with mass, even a single atom, cannot travel faster than photons can - AKA, the speed of light. Not even ions can, they don't have photons - they have neutrons, which give it weight and mass.

[@Ebabananacat]

I love your rimworld series, it's the highest quality on the site

[@deadmeme897]

Are you planning on covering Anomaly lore? It would tie well with Archotech and Psycast powers.

[@thenightarchives4148]

I am planning to cover everything eventually

[@immazog]

I think the answer to the FTL conundrum is that the archotech just predicted you’d do it and creates the skip prior to the cast so it reaches the psycaster when they cast it

[@creativeguy4898]

I dont think ftl has any inconsistencies, its simply impossible to make specifically a person or large object travel that far or for anything to be reasonably salvagable, skips might scramble electromagnetic fields and other things like that and work worse and worse at farther distances

[@HappyGingerWolf]

So all psycasting boils down to: teleport something to somewhere else, messing with other people's minds, or whatever flashstorm is doing

[@thenightarchives4148]

Pretty much. Would've been nice to see some diversity but Vanilla Psycasting Expanded takes care of that aspect.

[@fazzolettinolegale]

Very interesting video, I have always wanted to know the actual lore about psycasting

[@kubin226]

20:28 just saying that light can go around the earth 7 times in one second so teleportation doesn't need to break the speed of light

[@ahmetzerdecal5991]

I love mr archives❤

[@briishcabbage568]

mr statue man

[@gturkistane9034]

can not wait for the archotech lore episode

[@feenger2758]

Ah yes, magic but not magic. Empire's favorite toy. It will not save them from me.

[@Thewaster-yp3uh]

I dont think a skip is actually faster than light. It is a wormhole and wormholes do not allow faster than light travel. And wormholes require something called exptic matter. Exotic matter is theoretical and exerts negetive gravitational force. The johnson tananka drives use exoitc matter to create micro wormholes around the ship creating a gravitation "bend" causing the craft to be pushed forward without any propulsion devoce and minimal power. (This is real theoretical physics) the skip is creating a large wormhole with the immense energy transmitted via the archotechs with the exotic matter in the area using micro blackholes heisen rosen bridges to "dash" the signal across the universe. Allowing tbe skips to "instantly" create a wormhole with a micro blackhole expanding it and then soing the same on the other side transporting the subject. This is very possible with real physics look it up.

[@schwingedeshaehers]

it depends on how you define FTL

[@SweetMattieG]

The speed of light is the speed of light in a vacuum specifically. And a vacuum is the medium space ships travel through. Nothing can move faster than light through a vacuum. But particles can move faster than light through other mediums.

[@qwefg3]

Psycasting - essentially using a super fancy computer request and see if any super computers want to listen to the request... And lets be honest... Some of them might do it jut because they have fun watching things burn.

[@metholuscaedes6794]

One idea, Maybe the psycast isnt an instant transmission of psionic power. but actually a predicted usage. the Archotech being so far advanced beyond human comprehension that it can know when and where the psy caster will utilize it. Maybe the meditation is simply the user opening up and synchronizing their mind with the Archotech to where it will know the timing!

[@virvewirllos]

Nice vid, but I can't stop thinking about how much your pngsona looks like the twinfied version of The Head from Art Attack.

[@thenightarchives4148]

I would be lying if I said that didn't play a bit in terms of inspiration

[@annellanaya5041]

Will you make a video about the architects? You mentioned the topic in several vids

[@nastydave6334]

Never knew there was an empire dlc ;)

[@thenightarchives4148]

@@nastydave6334 Yeah, my pronounciation was a bit sloppy, it was meant to be the "empire's DLC" (obviously referring to royalty). Woops, my bad 🤷

[@dtaggartofRTD]

The archotechs may not be all that distant. Speed of light is stated explicitly to be a hard limit that binds the archotechs as well. The monoliths, anima trees and archonexus imply local archotechs. The field itself may just be facilitated by archotechnology, existing throughout Human occupied space. The caster would be bending this field to their needs without need for direct archotech involvement in each cast. The command and targets would all be local, ameliorating the FTL issue. Most skips at near lightspeed would be effectively instantaneous against the scale of a planet. The solar pinhole description is the only one that would break that. My thought is that the plasma is likely generated someplace a bit more local than the star, perhaps in the 'pinhole' itself tailored to match the local spectrum.

[@agenteiegaming]

NANO MACHINES SON!!!

[@GhostCatHere]

1:57 my life is complete

[@ipostwater6491]

Keep it up!! :D

[@thenightarchives4148]

Always!

[@parapapapapa]

The mechanism behind psycasting really reminds me of Blame! manga. Wonder if Ludeons got inspired by it

[@trenton8211]

Do a lore video on archotechs

[@luridus584]

first of all: i love Your videos, finally someone covers the actual lore secondly: could You link the music You use in the videos? Thanks in advice!

[@thenightarchives4148]

Sure! For this video I used the Rimworld Anomaly OST - A twisted path by Alistair Lindsay. It seemed only appropriate to have Rimworld music for Rimworld videos

[@luridus584]

@@thenightarchives4148 i could tell its rimworld ost, ive heard it before, the soundtrack is pretty big though so it would be quite a chore to look through all of that, thanks!

[@darianbentley3125]

Can you do one about flake worlds

[@fallatiuso]

I don't think anima trees are simply trees that connected by the roots to archotech, as if one is destroyed a new one eventually pops up as a sapling. However i _do_ believe they're connected to the archotechs in some, perhaps even direct, way. Especially as it has the same elusive properties of archotech that prevents it from being studied. So it's more likely they grow _from_ their structures in my opinion. They're artificial for sure, but for what purpose i can't tell. Nor do i know if there's a lot of them around the archonexus because it has a lot of psychic energy, or perhaps if they are _providing_ it psychic energy. They do seem to be an organic form of access to psychic fields going by the tribal ritual. Maybe they act as psychic antennas for the archotechs influence? Who knows; Mysteries upon mysteries. All i know for certain is that they're linked to the archotecs in some way.

[@kaschey6145]

About them regrowing after being cut: those could literally just be spots where the Archonexus is the closest to the surface so new tree saplings touch it. Or just gameplay feature so that players don't get locked out of the experience, lol.

[@szymon3008]

Maybe pawns gain psychic abilities in ritual blindings, because an archotech (a benevolent one, or one that finds that proticular human inyeresting) pity's their disability. (Sorry bad English)

[@thenightarchives4148]

My personal theory (with nothing to support it, which is why I didn't mention it) is that during the blinding, the knife goes perhaps a little too deep and ends up hitting their brain through the eye sockets, accidentally reshaping it just the correct way it needed in order to tune in to psycasting

[@vhhawk]

It would help me follow along if you had the psycast skills typed on the screen for each one. Am an old rimworld player but don't have this dlc

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

So, psycasters are effectively clerics, paladins, and warlocks

[@kuboland8638]

Though FTL travel in rimworld universe is impossible nobody says that archotechs didn't found a way to send information FTL infromation doesnt have any mass so theoreticly it could travel FTL

[@komiks42]

Yea. From our perspective, it might be instant, but its not. It just to fast for us to messure the diffrence

[@griff2009]

Hello mister smart slate, I was wondering, what do you plan on doing if/when you run out of rimworld lore to talk about ?

[@thenightarchives4148]

Rimworld theories, icebergs, tier lists, mod coverages and starting to cover other games as well

[@Piug0th]

Time for a yap session

[@thenightarchives4148]

Enjoy the yap my friend

[@FelidaeEnjoyer]

Comment for algorithm

[@FelidaeEnjoyer]

Also, why did you upload this at 1 AM!? (Joking)

[@thenightarchives4148]

I finished editing it at 1 AM

[@OnurErtas-q1o]

What's that on your Profile Pixture? Been trying to figure that out since I joined your first stream.

[@thenightarchives4148]

It's a pyramid that I heavily edited

[@starstudiosRPG]

I’m gonna guess robo gods

[@WTHIWUA]

Warlocks!

[@thenightarchives4148]

Honestly, yeah. Archotechs might just be patrons for psycasters.

[@Arrvey]

Was here before 10 likes 😎

[@DSlyde]

Isn't there also void focus?

[@thenightarchives4148]

Yes, but that's going to be the subject of another video

[@LavacasterPare]

Hello, comment for the algorithm

[@n3cro0o85]

Papież liczba

[@tm6569]

When takling about nature, its never «the nature» - unless you are referring to «the nature of» someone or something

[@Dave0439]

i didnt know of the fire one because screw pyromaniacs all my homies (and archives himself) hate pyromaniacs

[@Dayz3O6]

VE psycast turn this dlc into a rpg game with ability skill trees.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

On FTL Rimworld 100% has it though those drives which the lower end drive seems to me to be like a warp 1-3 drive and the higher end drive like a warp 4-6 in the current Star trek warp scale... Which by the way is still insanely slow even for interplanetary travel IRL.. As the speed of light is etremly slow on even a global earth scale hince way video game servers aere regional based and have been for 20 years... Because the speed of light is so slow you gwet insane lag even across north America when a online realtime game is hosted by a player in the lobby. Which given all the nonsense tech the rimword universe has access to it would be vary odd for them to be unable to break a speed limit that only exists in theory and as math solution IRL.. Which today the speed of light has been shown to be broken by entire galaxies... So kmuch like the speed of sound which was theoried to be impossible to break despite metorites and bullets broke it all the time before the US broke it with a manned aircraft... I believe the speed of light whould also be broken IRL much to most people belief... So yeah not even that tbe shattered empire anbd the pawns you get are proof rimworld has FTL tech as how else can the shattered empire have so much high tech despite non of it's rimworld colonies having the ability to make it? Also why are the oldest pawns cronoly are only in the hundred of years old not thusedns or millions if they travel inter stallar space? Which unless the sector of space the game takes place is in extremely dense with stars or located in the glalatic core. The space between Rimworld suns would be insanely vast easly taking thusends of years at the speed of light to get from one to the other. Which would make how active yet low tech besides random stuff rimworlds are very weird as you would think that they would be extremely remote and the tech you can't make on a rimworld extremely scarce even the ruins... Not insanely common as they are. So yeah while I doudt the Rimworld universe has access to anything but mid speed FTL I do think they do have acees to FTL of some type as if the didn't how the game is now wouldn't make anysense.Which isn't a comkon feeling I get with anything in Rimworld as it seems well thought out.

[@thenightarchives4148]

@@GreenBlueWalkthrough Unfortunately no, within its universe, FTL was never discovered. It is stated canonically multiple times with no doubt that FTL was never invented and that's why so many planets have such a different tech level or why people avoid traveling through space unless it is absolutely necessary. Closest thing to FTL is the Tanaka drive, while extremely fast, it still doesnt get even close to FTL, taking tens to hundred of years to get from one planet to another, even if said planets are in relatively close proximity.

[@Jhon_dough]

I buy rim and now i addition boohoo

[@IamSadThatNoEmojisForMyHandle]

I did not like my comment 🗿

[@catherinelafayette694]

I did

[@thenightarchives4148]

@@IamSadThatNoEmojisForMyHandle I liked it. You are good