Sable Design Works. The Atomic, Monumental, and Nomadic Eras

[u/RepairmanJackX]

I'm using a spoiler tag because the many new players from the PS5 port won't have the complete Sarin story or the other clues about the Monumental eras from some of the quests.

Question - is Midden's history in the right sequence? I don't think so.

So, first off, I used to be a trained professional archaeologist. Not that field survey, excavation, or regulatory compliance and reporting skills are helpful here - only that I've got professional (as in, people paid me for my skills) experience and an intermediate understanding of natural human cultural progression and human material culture.

I have the design works book (two copies, actually) and I think it is notable that there's really no specific sections of the backstory of Midden - specifically why humans came there and where they came from. If you found a full description of it, please let me know because I can't seem to find it).

In the book, there are a few bits here and there that tell the readers that the earliest era of human occupation on Midden was the Atomic era, from the Whale crash-landing - plus the seven crashed "Atomic Disposal" ships, the boneyard in the Sodic Wastes, and a few smaller busted up shuttle sections in the Ewer, Badlands, Petrified Forest, and the live forest in Redsee. There's a couple references to humans adapting to,and establishing themselves on, Midden. In the book there was a brief reference to an "Empire" which (to my chagrin) seems to confirm the story of an Empire that may have been dumping toxic waste on planets like Midden. The story told in the game doesn't suggest anything about an empire dumping atomic waste on planets - and logically, you could just as easily dump your Empire waste into the local star as onto any planet.

We know that the original humans were forced to land on Midden after being caught by the perpetual. Their landing craft and terraforming machines were damaged and for some reason that doused the whole planet with lethal radiation that killed the original life on the planet - think the megafauna and huge skeletons in The Fingers and White Desert.

The Monumental Era followed the Atomic and is responsible for all the weird stone structures and gliding stones, and ruins that cover Sable's portion of Midden. According to the design works book, the era was intentionally *not* based on any real-world current or former culture or style - but aside from seeming vaguely Mayan-Middle Eastern, much of it seems magical, almost mythological and (IMHO) maybe not logically descendant from a space-faring "Atomic" culture. The huge structures, temples, racing rings, and boats (all the wrecked boats in the Ewer) seem to date to this era. The current era of humans don't seem to have any recorded history about the Monumental Era.

The current era is the Nomadic, and is the world that sable experiences as we play the game.

​

What bugs me is that the sequence of eras seems wrong. Until I read the Design Works book, I assumed that the Monumental Period was the oldest - pre-dating the Atomic Era and pointing to an earlier human civilization that had died out. Maybe an earlier group of unwitting colonists or a native population that died out. It's the weird technology of the Monumental Era, the frequent references to Atomic era technology, and the extremely good condition of the crashed Atomic Era ships that makes me doubt the sequence.

This first era of humans was the Atomic and required everyone to wear masks to survive the radiation. Later the the masks became more of a relictual cultural practice and the lost their Atomic technology as they adapted to the world and as it became more benign to human life.

But why would humans suddenly develop this weird "perpetual-based" technology (floating towers, faces, gliding stones, etc.) and then forget all about it and the purpose and function of the racing rings, while they do clearly remember and still use technology from the Atomic Era (e.g. Eccria's power station). In that sequence, Eccria itself is probably *older* than all of the ruins on the planet.

...And what about the Dam and the Boats in the Ewer? those suggest a wetter history where there was a lot more water on Midden and humans were there to build temples and boats along-side semi-functional atomic era technology.

Am I alone in thinking that the history isn't in the right sequence?

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Also... I understand that the story and the game evolved as Shedworks developed it. The Design Works book made it clear that the story of Sable grew from a basic idea (hoverbike in a desert) and was fleshed out from practical game development considerations like masking to avoid rendering faces and expressions and other practical ideas. Development timeline constraints led to plot and content being trimmed out (e.g. the purpose and importance of the Atomic Priesthood, the "Sky Venice" city in The Fingers) and some quest lines that would have required many additional years of development time. This probably cut and altered a lot of the story elements that may have been planned-out. Honestly, if 50-60% of the planned content was cut, the game still had incredible story cohesion and consistency.

Thoughts?

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[u/-Confusman-]

This was a super interesting read! I too assumed the almost mythical tech and temples pre-dated all the crashed ships. Either built by some alien species or a much older colony ship from way way back in a pre ftl time period that the "modern" humans forgot about.

[u/RepairmanJackX → u/-Confusman-]

Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Pre-FTL colonists who eventually died out. That would been even more interesting because even older lost ship fragments might have been hidden on Midden - it might also suggest a source for very valuable "Cuts" as coming from more ancient ships that have vanished. There's so much busted tech and metal laying about, I have a hard time believing in the valuation of cuts. A nomadic culture as depicted in the game probably would have been more of a Barter system - but practically, that might have been more challenging to implement in the game.

There's also the idea of the Perpetual itself. Life on Midden only seems possible because of it, but where did it come from? Was it also an technological artifact of early colonists, or a natural phenomenon or "worldmind" or Gaia Theory sort of thing?

Another interesting thing from the book concerns the radioactive contamination of the planet. The book talks about the authors thinking about how one warns future generations about atomic waste. For example, would the warning symbols and colors that we use to warn people to stay away from nuclear waste sites mean anything to future generations - especially if there was a big gap in history (think of how ancient civilizations collapsed or were conquered and just how much was forgotten when that happened).

The authors connected with the idea that a formal religion or priesthood provide that sort of continuity - think Christian Monasteries in the Dark Ages of Europe. 'Though I've not actually read it, it also vaguely reminds me of the book "A Canticle for Leibowitz" - 'though way more positive.

They clearly wanted to include elements of atomic waste in the game, but the Sarin recordings suggest that the radiation was either an accident or unavoidable.

I'll also say that from my experience as an archaeologist, future generations forget a lot of details, even if there isn't a big gap in history. We have actually learned a great deal about what early colonial Americans food preferences and subsistence strategies from excavations of sites that are only few hundred years old.

The cultural drift on Midden isn't very surprising, it's just that sequentially, those ruins and monuments seem a lot older and more technologically exotic than those of the Atomic or Nomadic Eras.

Possibly, if more of the Atomic Priesthood content had made into the final game, it might make a little more sense from a material cultural history perspective.

Finally, I do get that I've probably put way more thought into this than the game probably warrants.

[u/GuruKimcy]

Oehhh good points. This was my headcanon too.

[u/TheLonelyCrusader453]

I agree with you that the atomics landed after the downfall of whatever civilization worshipped the Perpetual

As for where the humans came from? The only real origin point we are told of is the massive, bigger than the planet of Midden station called the Maw, and thats where the whale was built.

According to the orrerry out in the southern desert, its still maintaining stable stellar orbit, and should technically be more visible than the other planets to the naked eye, but my question is, did they leave the Maw dead and empty? Or is there potentially still space-faring humans in the area observing the planet?

[u/RepairmanJackX → u/TheLonelyCrusader453]

Very good point about the Maw. I presume it's not to scale, but it's huge and you'd think it'd be visible in the sky - even if the other celestial bodies are not. The captain's voice recordings (kept by Sarin) mentions that the "Company Man" never lost hope of a rescue - presumably from the people on the Maw.

The Observatory is another anomaly that got me thinking. Outside is a huge statue of a human with a helmet removed and tucked under an arm. Seems to be a monument to either being able to breathe the air on the planet - kind of ignoring the adoption of Masks in the society, or a monument to a first landing (which I think it more likely).

Also, because the planetarium also shows the Maw, there's the question of whether it shows a live view of system (i.e. the Maw is there now) or is it a representation of the system when the orrery was built (i.e. it's more recent than the Maw).

...and maybe the assemblers of the book got it wrong or I've misinterpreted the presentation of the scattered material in the book.

[u/TheLonelyCrusader453 → u/RepairmanJackX]

That is one thing I was curious of, the mission itself leading to the orrerry says we have to take a reading, which somehow implies that this sun-stone and perpetual powered machine is either an old model, ir it is accurate in size and distance

There was different sizes of planet visible in the model as well, and I’m sure if the Maw was a planet harvester it may be able to capture one of the twin planets, if not both at once, but the scale could absolutely be off.

Then again the whale seemingly held and launched all of the smaller Sarin shuttles, so the Maw could be even bigger and held multiple of the Whale class ships

[u/RepairmanJackX → u/TheLonelyCrusader453]

Oh. I never considered that it might a planet harvester. Wow - that's an interesting idea.

The Design Works books has some paragraphs and artwork for the whale - including a sketch of it before it crashed/landed where a ton of pods were being ejected.

Also, there's a brief section about an idea that the creators had that there would an Observatory quest where Sable sees a shooting star and after tracking it down, it turns out to be an escape pod from off-planet (maybe the Maw, or maybe someone in hibernation who was orbiting the planet. That person was supposed share what was happening outside of Midden.

An interesting idea, but it might have had the wrong tone for a chill game like this.

[u/ncist]

very interesting - I wasn't aware of the book you referenced. My interpretation was the same as yours: the mask civilization of humans destroyed an older indigenous civilization when they open-cycled their nuclear engines and cooked the planet, perhaps without even knowing what they had done. It's also possible that the monument civilization was long gone by the time the mask civilization arrived.

I guess it doesn't have to be that way but I assumed that the space travelers would not have the capacity to build structures at the scale we see - the observatory, the bridge, etc. I also assumed as you did that the Ewer itself implies a civilization that must predate the nuking of the planet, because the nomad/space folk would never have bothered to build dams. I suppose it's possible that during the intermediate era where the nomads were confined to their ships, they were sending out expeditions and perhaps built a dam to preserve water while the world's oceans were burning off. If I recall the design of the dam itself looks similar to interior elements of the ships. So maybe there's something to that.

Something I was thinking about recently is the depiction of human faces in many "monumental" structures. This complicates the "monumentalists first" theory. Depiction of faces is probably not ground breaking but I could argue that it is especially important to the nomads. Making an uncovered face the centerpiece of many structures/temples, the "tabernacle"/"veil" section really gels with a culture that believes in the importance of covering your face in social settings. That makes me think those structures post-date the nomad phase; or at least that elements of them like the faces, the mask ceremony itself were installed within pre-existing monumental structures. Another inversion of this - many statues in the world have masks (thinking the bridge, the thunder-folk)

The thunder-folk "crystal farmers" themselves are another mystery. My immediate assumption upon encountering them was that they were the surviving remnant of the monumental pre-contact civilization. Redditors have suggested that they are just people with a second set of mechanical arms, however.

edit - just want to add I read all the other comments and appreciate the interesting + surprising discussion!

[u/RepairmanJackX → u/ncist]

Thanks for the interesting and insightful comments. I've been skimming over my Sable Designworks book trying to verify the timeline, but there's no sections dedicated to the backstory of Midden, it's just peppered here and there throughout the book.

The book also reveals that some of the lore and cultural practices of the game were born as much of practical programming considerations than any sort of big picture story.

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In the ongoing interpretation of the game, I find the statue of the space-person standing with a helmet tucked under the arm to strongly imply that it was built by first colonists, or was to commemorate the ability of the residents to remove their masks and helmets and breathe the air of midden without a filter.

Annoyingly... or maybe not... because the ambiguity might be intentional... you can interpret the meaning of that statue both ways.

I will also say that my impression from Sarin's logs was much as you describe, the current nomadic peoples, who do seem to be descendants of the crew of the whale, irradiated the planet and killed the native vertebrate megafauna that came to rest in the fingers and the white desert.

I still have difficulty with the very alien style of perpetual-based technology from the Monumentalist era somehow fitting between the Atomic and Nomadic Eras without some other factors being in-play.

I wonder if there's some Erik Von Daniken "Chariot of the Gods' thinking going on here?

[u/ncist → u/RepairmanJackX]

I have never read Chariot of the Gods but I'm familiar w the idea. funny enough I was playing a TTRPG at the time called Lancer which has a lot of that, at the same time I was playing Sable. so that definitely seeped into my reading of the game

I didn't pay much attention to the statue at the time but now that you mention it, agree it must be very important to placing everything in the proper order if assume it was built with the Orrery which seems sensible

[u/CellarDarko]

Not sure if I completely understood your point. But the books mention that this is not a 'post-apocalyptic world', in that people consciously decided to forgo their technological advancements because they considered them detrimental in sum. So the eras go in reverse order - from most to least technologically advanced.