Minecraft - Game Theory: The Forgotten War Of ( 1. 19 Update)
The sponsored portion of this article is sponsored by Squarespace, the second boss of Minecraft, a haunting floating nightmare that's eluded all explanations since its introduction back in 2017. The ancient builders, a civilization lost to history, their works brought to ruin and their names eroded by time.
The Warden, the newest threat to this world, is a creature of blind rage engulfed in shadow, an unstoppable force fueled by souls and empowered by darkness. Three groups, three distinct mysteries waiting to be solved, and all of them united by this. Are we okay? So, sorry about that. I kind of forgot the warden was a thing, but can you blame me?
The warden was due to come out in the summer of 2021. But then the deep dark ended up getting removed from the update, which itself got split into two parts. Speaking of two parts, don't worry, this episode isn't a two-parter, but we do have ourselves a second Minecraft article happening today over on food theory.
That's right, we've got ourselves a Minecraft weekend. Y'all, well here we're busy dissecting the latest editions of the wild update. For food theory, we're talking all about the dream smp, which honestly doesn't sound very foodie, but then the dream decided to go and kill Tommy in it using a potato, and you know what, where there is murder to be had, we'll probably find a way to make a theory out of it, so head on over there for all your potato murder needs after you're done with this article, because first we got to finish talking about the warden.
As of this week, it has finally launched as part of the wild update, according to Mojang. Not only have the mechanics of the warden been refined, but they've added new blocks to the deep dark new items, and yeah, we're also getting one of the coolest, most complex, and most interesting structures ever created in Minecraft, the ancient city.
Based on the name alone, this seems like the thing that we've been theorizing about for years. Victory has never felt so good, but you know what feels even better than being right? Having a new tale To chew on. Mojang understands that you don't just drop an entire underground city complete with giant burning portal frame into your game without considering what it's doing there from a story perspective, and similarly, you don't just introduce the single strongest mob to guard it without factoring in the rationale for placing it there, so our question is, what does all of this mean for the secret story of Minecraft?
How do these disparate parts wind up working together? Something innocuous, something unsuspecting, a simple music disc. So what is the story of the Deep Dark and how does it tie into the narrative that we've been building over the last three years? Strap in, friends, because today we're diving in deep to tap into the darkest lore of Minecraft.
First, let's talk about the skulk. When the skulk family of blocks was originally announced in 2020, we understood the basics: A skull sensor reacts to noise, and when it does, it alerts a fearsome monster known as the warden to your exact location. Two hits later, and you're dead, son. But now we have more details, and what we've learned is disturbing.
To say the least, a new block called the skulk catalyst basically takes in energy to transform the blocks around it into other skulk blocks. That's how this creature is able to spread, but it begs the question, what energy is it using to convert these regular blocks? Well, this ain't your grandma's moss blocks that you can just bone meal around my friends.
These things take something a bit more potent than that. See, the living. You see, if a mob dies within eight blocks of the catalyst, the mob won't drop xp orbs. Instead, souls appear above the catalyst. At which point the skulk spreads to new blocks. Remind me where we have seen souls in relation to this update before.
Yeah, the warden, in the middle of its chest, we have what appears to be the faces of three trapped souls. In our last theory, we speculated that wardens were created using a combination of skulk and souls in order to protect the underground cities. However, I'm not so sure anymore. Back in 2020, we got this tweet from 1.19, developer Brandon Pierce, which says, quote, you could definitely argue that the skulk in general is sentient.
Now we just talk about how when a mob dies near the skull catalyst it creates new skulk blocks, but it can also create a new block called the skulk shrieker. This block is the key because not only does it have souls swirling around inside of it, thereby confirming that it's being created from the souls of the dead, but it also makes these sounds.
That's fine i didn't need to sleep tonight. Minecraft is totally a kid's game anyway. That shriek isn't just signaling that I have to do an adult diaper change. When it goes off, you'll hear another noise, the sound of something burrowing up to the surface. That something is the warden. So what am I saying here?
Well, I'm suggesting that the warden wasn't created by the ancient builders to protect themselves. Instead, I think it was made by the skulk to protect itself. When it senses danger, it summons a creature made of skull, an unstoppable force that acts as the final line of defense trying to ensure the survival of this species, and this is actually supported by the warden item drop.
You see, if you manage to take one down, it drops a single skulk catalyst, which honestly feels like a crummy reward for something so difficult. However, from a lore standpoint, it makes perfect sense. If the skulk's primary objective is indeed the survival of the species, then in defeat it would want to release a last-ditch attempt to keep the species alive.
Hence a single catalyst, but that still doesn't answer the major question of where the skulk came from in the first place. For that, we actually have to take a closer look at the new biome, the deep dark, and, more importantly, those ancient cities. Once you enter the deep dark biome, you start to find these patches of skulk blocks.
If you follow these patches further down into the cave, eventually, you'll find an ancient city ruin covered in even more skulls. But since the concentration of skulk is higher in the cities, this must be where it originated. And this seems to be correct in ancient cities. The hallways are covered in wool and carpets.
That's an important detail since the skulk and wardens are sound-based entities. They respond to your steps, and wouldn't you know, wool and carpets are the only blocks that don't activate the skulk when they're walked on. This tells us that the inhabitants of the ancient city were clearly aware of the warden and were trying to live alongside him.
