COREBOUND LORE PT 3
NOTE: I’m not going to add the images this time, go to corebound lore part 2 if u want to see them.
Corebound lore
So I’m starting with the infection. No idea where it came from, but I have a few theories. Before I do that I want to talk about what the infection is. Because it’s able to spread between bots I think it’s bio based, but that raises the question, why are the ROBOTS able to be infected by a VIRUS. Well it’s simple, it has something to do with their cores. There is an item called the core filter which changes the color of your core. It’s also dropped by spectrums which were “built to test the color of light tinting”. Meaning that there’s a source of light inside all bots. And when you add a core filter it tints the light to change the color of your core. We can also see that all the infected bots have a red core. Also, the bots themselves are just hulls. The weapons aren’t infected because they do not have cores. We can see this because certain bots drop their corresponding weapons. The only difference is they work slightly differently when attached to us. Why? Because when we attach the weapons we are attaching them to our core, and what is our core? A sentient light based life form. Now this may seem like a stretch but is it really? From what we know corebound takes place in the future (more on that later) so it’s not impossible that some civilization was able to create life out of light. The theory behind it is interesting as well. Light is made up of photons which generate energy and eventually dim out, giving life a “lifespan” that technically gives it the properties of life. But not just that, theoretically if we were to take these photons and smash subatomic particles (specifically neutrons) into them at extreme speeds (using something like a particle accelerator) we could technically restart the atoms “lifespan” with a new dna strand that is similar to that found in certain bacteria in the ocean floor. The substance would now be a light gooey texture, and it would give you stage four brain cancer with just a single touch. Now while this is all theoretical, if these steps were taken then yes, we could create living light. And the amazing thing about this is that this living light could bond with any type of electric based device. And not only bond it could use it as an extension of itself like another limb. Now we are starting to get somewhere. The core in our hull is actually a containment chamber for this liquid light, and it allows us to bond with any type of weapon or device. But how does this lead us to the infection? It’s simple. War. Whatever country or government found out how to create this most CERTAINLY did not want to share it with foreign countries, considering it was basically an infinite energy source, and if everyone had it then it would lead to an extinction level war or overuse of technology. So other countries went to war over it, while the country that created the original substance (for future reference I will be referring to the substance as HK-3 which basically stands for HeartKilled 3 but it sounds cool so idk) so the country that created HK3 would be using its power and energy to create machines to help with everyday life, using futuristic tech to make a utopia for them. But the other countries were bound to try and replicate it. And without the proper safety measures they could mess it up bad. Considering they were at war I doubt they would’ve taken the time to make sure everything was safe. And since the dna found in HK3 is similar to bacteria, it is prone to do what bacteria does best when met with an endless source of energy. Mutate. And mutate it does as some tragic lab experiment created the virus. Which I am going to be calling: The Voidbound.
Now for the actual robots
As we know, the original robots from the first few levels were simply meant to be used for construction and other everyday things. But the further you go if you read the enemy descriptions you can see that they slowly became nothing but weapons to combat the virus. Naturally all of them became infected, and are now in the state that they currently are in. Now another thing that ties to them being alive is that the spectrum, which is immune to voidbound, hides in the corner releasing cries of terror. How can something feel terror if it isn’t alive? It can’t. They are all sentient. The spectrum is immune because voidbound works by tracking, learning, adapting, and eventually controlling the light inside HK3. But since the spectrum constantly changes its core color, it becomes impossible for the voidbound to track and adapt to it, sort of like an ultimate immune system. As further proof of HK3’s existence, look here
You can clearly see that when a bot dies, they spill a LIQUID. It does look similar to blood, but that is just the HK3 spilling out. The reason it is red is because, as I said before, all infected bots cores are infected. As further proof look when I die (I am using the white core filter because it’s easiest to see, but the color of the fluid corresponds with the color of the core filter
This is undeniable proof that there is some kind of liquid at the core of all bots. And the one thing all infected bots have in common is that their fluid is ALWAYS red.
And who do we play as? Why are we there? Are we somehow immune to the infection? Answering these questions is possibly the hardest question. Specifically as to why we are immune to the infection. I’m going to start with who we play as. Our core is different from other bots, as we are able to change our hull as well as our weapons. What we are is actually a different failed attempt at replication of HK3. But the main thing where that theory goes sideways is if we aren’t a perfect replication- why can we use core filters? Well that’s the thing. We were the closest replication to HK3 that existed. Possibly slightly malfunctioning in a totally unused field, but to the scientists trying to replicate it, any imperfection meant that it was just trash. This theory is further expanded on considering our starting zone- in a huge pile of scrap. But how do we know that we were the closest replication of HK3? Because we can use the core filters. The foreign scientists that were trying to replicate it finally figured out the main compound of HK3. Light. All they needed was a few slight modifications. They were so close to the finish line. But then- it all went wrong. The reason that no bots are red wasn’t just because it messed with the tech of the bots- the color red itself was a catalyst for mutation. When the photons of red went into the DNA of HK3, it rejected it. It was too far on the high end of the spectrum, being a primary color, and there were already two primary colors that the DNA of HK3 had to adapt to. One more was simply too much. At first it messed with the actual circuitry of the bots- which is why US scientists scrapped it and decided to not use the color red. But the foreign scientists were under pressure. They had already made hundreds of failed attempts and the government behind the research was getting impatient. At worst it was a few glitches here and there that the scientists could ignore for now. When they showed the government they knew how to replicate it almost perfectly they could have more time to figure out why some of the bots were glitching. But before they were able to figure out the cause of the glitching the unstable atoms in the red HK3 clone mutated. The unstable atomic level of the photons mixed with the DNA caused the core of the DNA to replicate itself millions of times- forcing the DNA to mutate to keep up with the rapidly expanding cell count. As the cells condensed and the DNA continued mutating, the red HK3 clone became more and more dense. Before finally it shattered, releasing the unstable clone into a warehouse where thousands of bots were scheduled to be delivered. All of the other red HK3 clones did the same, all of them with different mutations and genetic code. They all saw each other as threats- and probably immediately turned hostile towards each other. Since they had the density of slime at this point they were able to attack each other, targeting atoms in their body that were high in electrons straight towards the weaker DNA strands of their targets. Eventually, only one remained. Due to the massive amount of attacks it received and threw, billions of stray DNA from the other mutated bots went into its system. Completely corrupting and overriding it- nearly killing it. But all the DNA somehow survived and did the primary instinct of a cell- create structure and survive. Something close to a brain was formed inside the mutated slime- but the high density and the amount of atoms rapidly changing in certain areas made the slime begin to liquify. The now mutated “Voidbound”found a hull with a dormant HK3 inside, then as it liquified some of it slipped through the chunks in the hull, straight into the containment area. It repaired the broken parts by heating up and melting the glass back together- and through pure instinct it duplicated its cells and attacked the dormant HK3. After taking it over it left multiple cells inside of it, cells that had one purpose. Duplicate. The cells obliterated the fragile immune system of the already weak HK3, and took it over, turning the surviving cells into more of the Voidbound. It then did the same, using the self destruct mechanism of one bot to infect hundreds at a time. Then, it waited. Once the contents of the warehouse were being moved to a shipping unit, the Voidbound overwhelmed the workers there and escaped.
Where does this take place. In the future? The past? A different galaxy?
How are robots able to be infected. If it’s a computer virus that’s one thing but those don’t normally spread which leads me to believe that it’s a bio based virus. It spreads by infiltrating cracks and chinks in bots armor and infects their HK3. Voidbound is able to duplicate infected HK3 and spread it to other bots using an infected host. All it takes is close proximity, and the virus activates the bots self destruction (I’m basing this on the fact that we can self destruct by pressing the “end run” button) which spills the fluid everywhere, infecting entire crowds of bots. That’s why bots even as strong as the lurkstrider were still infected- because the way bots get infected is by killing infected ones. Once all the bots in an area are infected, the virus waits dormant, waiting to either kill or infect some unlucky bot that comes its way. Except it can’t infect us. Its first instinct is just to kill us, there’s no point in exploding to just infect a single bot, that is usually saved for crowds or armies of bots. Killing us is a much more efficient way to do the job. But here is my question. Why IS it trying to kill us? If an infected bot dies who cares? We can clearly see the virus is moving. Fast. It has a destination and it’s infection bots to get there. Once it infects an area it moves on- seemingly inside the original host, leaving infected bots behind to rot and wait to die. The infected bots are trying to kill us because there IS a way to permanently destroy the virus. There has to be or the virus wouldn’t bother putting in all the work to make sure nobody reaches it. The virus is a hive mind. A toggleable hive mind. At any time, the virus can tap into every infected bot at once or it can stay inside its main (presumably original) host. This host is undoubtedly the strongest and most powerful, because the source of the hive mind is also the source of the virus. Killing the hiveminds CORE will kill the virus.