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Humans and Protocols
I formulated this post originally for the lore channel of the official Palia Discord server. It got a pretty positive response, so I decided to post a backup copy to Dreamwidth.
I know there's been a lot of chatter about the connection between ancient humans, Flow, and the emergence of Majiri people. I haven't read all the threads (so many!), so I probably missed a bunch of important stuff, but it's made me think. Especially in the context of Subira's temple quests, the consoles, and the "protocols" that they mention.
IIRC, two protocols are mentioned: the "Cosmos" protocol (here) and the "Mirror" protocol (which apparently predated it). Mudan personally enacted the Mirror Protocol, as per his letter to his wife (here). We have reason to believe that both protocols were attempts to fight whatever mysterious "shadow(s)" brought about the downfall of Mudan's golden age.
So the timeline is:
My conclusions:
The two protocols represent two distinct ways that Mudan tried to protect humans from the mysterious shadow menace. IMO, he was trying to evacuate the population, or as many of them as he could, while anyone who remained locked themselves in the vaultlike "temples" to ride out whatever apocalyptic event was going on outside. Thus, Palia is a post-post-apocalypse setting, a reconstruction, of sorts.
Given the explicit presence of aliens and space travel, it's not beyond the pale to imagine that escaping to space was considered a viable option. It's a common plot in science fiction, especially post-apocalyptic. And the name "Cosmos Protocol" is quite evocative in this context. Perhaps they tried to inhabit orbiting satellites (or one of the moons), or maybe they built a generation ship in an attempt to reach a habitable alien planet. This would hint at the possibility that "disengaging" the protocol is meant to signal to extra-Palian humans that the planet is safe for habitation again.
(Side note: supposedly, a dev confirmed that ||Grimalkin are descended from human pets, possibly palcats||, which lends credibility to my "space Australians" theory, but more on that later.)
What the Mirror Protocol is supposed to be is less obvious. Right now (April 2025), we have relatively little solid info on it, unless I missed something major. I feel moderately comfortable making a Doylist inference: lots of players style their PCs as "self-insert" characters, or otherwise construct elaborate backstories for them. It feels like the devs would be conscious of this. The name might be a hint that some of Palia's humans escaped to another world (implicitly ours) through some kind of super-advanced Flow portal.
Then, what would have happened to the humans who didn't go to 1) space, or 2) another dimension? Well, the Flow and/or the Shadow would have either killed or mutated them, and thus, the survivors would be our Majiri. As many have speculated before me. This is another, slightly less classic sci-fi plot, where an apocalyptic-level event creates what amounts to a human sub-species.
Given that the entire main quest so far has been labeled by the devs as the prologue, there could be any number of consequences to tampering with the protocols. For example, the arrival of a spaceship full of humans (or post-humans) from the Grimalkin homeworld. Or, more invisibly, a massive increase in the number of humans mysteriously teleporting in out of nowhere. Of course, that would raise the question of what caused the PC to mysteriously teleport in to begin with, since, as far as we know, the Mirror Protocol is still firmly engaged.
Alternatively, I could be full of it. That's always a distinct possibility.
I know there's been a lot of chatter about the connection between ancient humans, Flow, and the emergence of Majiri people. I haven't read all the threads (so many!), so I probably missed a bunch of important stuff, but it's made me think. Especially in the context of Subira's temple quests, the consoles, and the "protocols" that they mention.
IIRC, two protocols are mentioned: the "Cosmos" protocol (here) and the "Mirror" protocol (which apparently predated it). Mudan personally enacted the Mirror Protocol, as per his letter to his wife (here). We have reason to believe that both protocols were attempts to fight whatever mysterious "shadow(s)" brought about the downfall of Mudan's golden age.
So the timeline is:
- Mudan builds a massive, Flow-powered human kingdom.
- Circa 10K years ago, the kingdom falls prey to "shadows".
- Mudan enacts the "Mirror Protocol" against Sadeel's advice.
- Mudan further restricts Flow access to the university.
- The "Cosmos Protocol" engages lockdown mode.
- All humans vanish (?).
- Majiri appear in Palia and build their civilization.
- Grimalkin (aliens) land on the planet and build their unique culture, which may be totally distinct from their home planet, as Zeki's casual dialogue hints.
- Humans reemerge in Palia.
- The player character disengages lockdown on the Cosmos Protocol ("Keeper" quests).
- Someone (likely Tamala) tries to hack the "Flowwall" (= firewall) to disable the Mirror Protocol.
- Profit???
My conclusions:
The two protocols represent two distinct ways that Mudan tried to protect humans from the mysterious shadow menace. IMO, he was trying to evacuate the population, or as many of them as he could, while anyone who remained locked themselves in the vaultlike "temples" to ride out whatever apocalyptic event was going on outside. Thus, Palia is a post-post-apocalypse setting, a reconstruction, of sorts.
Given the explicit presence of aliens and space travel, it's not beyond the pale to imagine that escaping to space was considered a viable option. It's a common plot in science fiction, especially post-apocalyptic. And the name "Cosmos Protocol" is quite evocative in this context. Perhaps they tried to inhabit orbiting satellites (or one of the moons), or maybe they built a generation ship in an attempt to reach a habitable alien planet. This would hint at the possibility that "disengaging" the protocol is meant to signal to extra-Palian humans that the planet is safe for habitation again.
(Side note: supposedly, a dev confirmed that ||Grimalkin are descended from human pets, possibly palcats||, which lends credibility to my "space Australians" theory, but more on that later.)
What the Mirror Protocol is supposed to be is less obvious. Right now (April 2025), we have relatively little solid info on it, unless I missed something major. I feel moderately comfortable making a Doylist inference: lots of players style their PCs as "self-insert" characters, or otherwise construct elaborate backstories for them. It feels like the devs would be conscious of this. The name might be a hint that some of Palia's humans escaped to another world (implicitly ours) through some kind of super-advanced Flow portal.
Then, what would have happened to the humans who didn't go to 1) space, or 2) another dimension? Well, the Flow and/or the Shadow would have either killed or mutated them, and thus, the survivors would be our Majiri. As many have speculated before me. This is another, slightly less classic sci-fi plot, where an apocalyptic-level event creates what amounts to a human sub-species.
Given that the entire main quest so far has been labeled by the devs as the prologue, there could be any number of consequences to tampering with the protocols. For example, the arrival of a spaceship full of humans (or post-humans) from the Grimalkin homeworld. Or, more invisibly, a massive increase in the number of humans mysteriously teleporting in out of nowhere. Of course, that would raise the question of what caused the PC to mysteriously teleport in to begin with, since, as far as we know, the Mirror Protocol is still firmly engaged.
Alternatively, I could be full of it. That's always a distinct possibility.
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(I admit that it would also be convenient for me, w/r/t the fic that I already started writing.)