Unbidden Lore questions/Shroud endgame Speculation

[stag_1]

Hello,
Been playing stellaris for a while now and have gotten all the endgame crises and for the most part I understand all of them. What I mean when I say that is that I can understand Robot rebellion and Swarm invasion. For example the Robot Rebellion occurs after AI has reached sentient but is still being oppressed leading them to rebel against organics. Or the swarm in the fact that they come from another galaxy to devour all life and infect worlds to spread their species. But the unbidden crisis is one I still do not understand, for example I know that they want to "devour" all life in this dimension but how? They do not look like they could devour them in the tradition sense, so are they for example capturing the pops then some how turning them into some kind of energy that they "eat". Also how did they occur or come into existence? Were they the result of say a technologically superior civilization creating them or did they turn themselves into those forms as some kind of "enlightenment" then proceed to destroy everything in their dimension? These are just some general questions I have on the unbidden and their lore. If any one has anymore information/lore/speculation feel free enlighten us.

As for the shroud endgame speculation, I recently saw martins twitter post about the "end of the cycle" force (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/829340045043724289), so I was thinking that if one empire were to sign the covenant with this force that the empire themselves become the endgame crisis. So what if after a period of time the covenant demands your species to destroy and purge every other species in the galaxy, and if not they kill all of your species that have the psionic trait for failing to listen to their demands.That is just an idea I have about it since I am dying of hype from the utopia expansion. Also sorry if this is illegible I just took 2 exams.

Edit:
Just saw this on martins twitter and ties into both blurbs above. (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/829284934577688577)
So maybe the unbidden came along as a by product of some kind of bad deal with the shroud?

 

[zukodark]

Hello,
Been playing stellaris for a while now and have gotten all the endgame crises and for the most part I understand all of them. What I mean when I say that is that I can understand Robot rebellion and Swarm invasion. For example the Robot Rebellion occurs after AI has reached sentient but is still being oppressed leading them to rebel against organics. Or the swarm in the fact that they come from another galaxy to devour all life and infect worlds to spread their species. But the unbidden crisis is one I still do not understand, for example I know that they want to "devour" all life in this dimension but how? They do not look like they could devour them in the tradition sense, so are they for example capturing the pops then some how turning them into some kind of energy that they "eat". Also how did they occur or come into existence? Were they the result of say a technologically superior civilization creating them or did they turn themselves into those forms as some kind of "enlightenment" then proceed to destroy everything in their dimension? These are just some general questions I have on the unbidden and their lore. If any one has anymore information/lore/speculation feel free enlighten us.

As for the shroud endgame speculation, I recently saw martins twitter post about the "end of the cycle" force (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/829340045043724289), so I was thinking that if one empire were to sign the covenant with this force that the empire themselves become the endgame crisis. So what if after a period of time the covenant demands your species to destroy and purge every other species in the galaxy, and if not they kill all of your species that have the psionic trait for failing to listen to their demands.That is just an idea I have about it since I am dying of hype from the utopia expansion. Also sorry if this is illegible I just took 2 exams.

Edit:
Just saw this on martins twitter and ties into both blurbs above. (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/829284934577688577)
So maybe the unbidden came along as a by product of some kind of bad deal with the shroud?

Pretty sure the Unbidden is not unrelated to the shroud. They are from another plane of existence, something more scientific I think than the psionic shroud. I'd rather they introduced something new instead of tying it to something that already exists (and thus effectively removing how they normally appear).

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I called this right from the start- the Shroud and the Psionics Ascension Path seem entirely unrelated to the Unbidden (who were never attracted by psionics, just the use of Jump Drives). People are just obsessed with imposing some sort of symmetry on the game- the Synthetics Path clearly relates to the AI Crisis in some way, so obviously the Psionics one must tie to the Unbidden and the Genetics one the Prethoryn (no matter how nonsensical that is).

 

[smjjames]

Most of the AI Crisis discussion on the Synthetic Ascension was over how it would interact with a Synthetic Ascended empire. But yeah, there's no proof that the AI rebellion and the Synthetic Ascension are connected in any way.

Same with the Prethoryn, which seem to be more like a 'Grey Goo' type thing rather than any sort of hyperevolved Biological Ascension.

About the only proof that is connecting The Shroud to the Unbidden are simply that they are energy based entities and their manner of speaking, and the fact that it's another dimension.

Also, I'm not sure, but Wiz may have implied that there are good and bad endings for The Shroud chain, depending on what you do.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Most of the AI Crisis discussion on the Synthetic Ascension was over how it would interact with a Synthetic Ascended empire. But yeah, there's no proof that the AI rebellion and the Synthetic Ascension are connected in any way.

The fact that there's going to have to be special interactions between a Synthetic Path empire and an AI Crisis event is connection enough, IMO.

Also, I'm not sure, but Wiz may have implied that there are good and bad endings for The Shroud chain, depending on what you do.

You can make a variety of Covenants with different entities within the Shroud, and from what we know those often have consequences, some more potent than others.

 

[LordMagus]

They're invaders from another dimension. I bet the FEs are sitting there saying 'We knew this day would come.' as they were probably around the last cycle that a bunch of civs popped up, reached jump drives and the Unbidden invaded.

 

[smjjames]

The fact that there's going to have to be special interactions between a Synthetic Path empire and an AI Crisis event is connection enough, IMO.

Yeah, they're going to have to figure out how they want to handle interactions with the AI rebellion due to the simple fact of how it works.

You can make a variety of Covenants with different entities within the Shroud, and from what we know those often have consequences, some more potent than others.

Mostly I was wondering if the "End of the Cycle" is the only ending of the event chain we can reach or if there are other endings.

They're invaders from another dimension. I bet the FEs are sitting there saying 'We knew this day would come.' as they were probably around the last cycle that a bunch of civs popped up, reached jump drives and the Unbidden invaded.

The wierd thing is that the FEs don't even treat Jump Drives as a forbidden technology (like the way Materialist FEs treat AI tech) and use Jump Drives themselves. That discrepancy has yet to be explained away in lore.

 

[LordMagus]

The wierd thing is that the FEs don't even treat Jump Drives as a forbidden technology (like the way Materialist FEs treat AI tech) and use Jump Drives themselves. That discrepancy has yet to be explained away in lore.

Funny thing is, isn't the AI uprising the biggest threat that easily snowballs out of control? Sure the prethoryn scourge and unbidden jump in with lots of 'fleet power' but their ships are horribly designed and easily defeated. Each 57k unbidden fleet can be destroyed using 30 battleships, and only losing 1 per enemy fleet destroyed. The Scourge is even more of a pushover, you can take on the whole swarm at once and as long as you have flak, you'll be alright.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Mostly I was wondering if the "End of the Cycle" is the only ending of the event chain we can reach or if there are other endings.

It isn't the only ending. It is one of several Covenants you can make- the most obviously "too good to be true" one, in fact. You can expect severe repercussions for taking that option.

Think of it like choosing a patron- you'll have multiple options, but they all have their own varied agendas and prices they'll expect from you.

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

Actually....

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/64iqrt/unbidden_psionic_ascension/

 

[Teonod]

Actually....

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/64iqrt/unbidden_psionic_ascension/

Was going to post this too.

The shroud and the home of the unbidden are "very close", it's never stated where the Aberrant and Vehement come from but we could likely assume two other psi/energy-based universes.

We already knew that the Unbidden were somehow related to the Shroud, seeing as how the Psi jump-drive, which is fueled by Shroud-based powers also can accidentally summon the Unbidden.

 

[Seon]

I've encountered the Unbidden as a psionically transcended empire. They were... aware of me. When I entered a diplomacy screen with them, they instantly knew that I had reached into the shroud.

When I asked them about the shroud, they denied having originated from the Shroud, merely somewhere *very close to it.*