What is Dave Exactly? (Thunder Warden)

[ifoz]

We all know and love our good giraffe friend Dave the Thunder Warden, but just exactly what is he and how does he fit into the lore?

Looking at Dave, he looks mechanical to me. Rivets dot his limbs and his back is coated with spines that look like those of the resonators and the Chamber in the Archives, presumably used for wirelessly sending and receiving sound waves or other such pulses of data.

Did Jonas build him too? Is Dave a giant, mobile sound and communication device? Do the temporal storms follow him around, and they hit us when he graces us with his presence, or does he follow them around instead? Perhaps he is like a gigantic lightning rod, channelling temporal storms around him. Or is it that he merely becomes visible when in a temporally low state?

Is he friendly or hostile to Seraphs? We never get close enough to him to find out.
Reportedly a Seraph once got close enough to touch him, but all that they found of the poor soul was a pile of charred, flickering ashes.
Granted, I heard that one from Crazy Pete down at the Dancing Drifter Tavern during happy hour, so I don't know how reliable it is.

Another story I heard was of the rumoured emergence of a cult-like group, the Thunder Apostles, based in the Chapel of Dave, though I don't yet know much about it.
Apparently they go around and hunt for rifts before standing in them to greet their master, though it sounds so ridiculous that I almost doubt it's existence.

------

Does anyone have any theories on what exactly Dave is?


Note the resonator-esq spines and jagged build. If you can see him up close, you can notice his rivets. He definitely looks mechanical to me.

Edited May 27 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

19 hours ago, ifoz said:

Looking at Dave, he looks mechanical to me. Rivets dot his limbs and his back is coated with spines that look like those of the resonators and the Chamber in the Archives, presumably used for wirelessly sending and receiving sound waves or other such pulses of data.

Did Jonas build him too? Is Dave a giant, mobile sound and communication device?

I'd say if Jonas didn't build him, someone familiar with Jonas tech did. None of it looks organic like the drifters, so I don't think it's a mutation of anything, exactly. More likely it's either a "friendly" machine with an unknown/forgotten purpose, or it's a machine gone rogue. If Dave is a communication device, my guess is he might be the "microphone" end of the Resonator in the Resonance Archive.

19 hours ago, ifoz said:

Is he friendly or hostile to Seraphs? We never get close enough to him to find out.
Reportedly a Seraph once got close enough to touch him, but all that they found of the poor soul was a pile of charred, flickering ashes.
Granted, I heard that one from Crazy Pete down at the Dancing Drifter Tavern during happy hour, so I don't know how reliable it is.

I heard someone threw a spear at Dave once and managed to hit him, resulting in a horrific scream that the entire server heard...right before it crashed. Granted, I heard this tale in the strange lands of YouTube comment section, so I'd say Crazy Pete's stories are more likely to be true.

19 hours ago, ifoz said:

Does anyone have any theories on what exactly Dave is?

I've been wondering if Dave isn't the Salvation Engine gone rogue. Some of the shapes are similar, though that could just be a result of sharing a designer with other tech. That being said, if you folded him up just right...I think the silhouettes could match. Not to mention that if the Salvation Engine could turn humans into seraphs, it could just as easily turn the infected into monsters and continue to do so, especially if it went rogue shortly after activation. If this is the case, perhaps it got sealed away in a different reality, which in turn destabilized the flow of time. That would certainly explain why Dave only shows up during a temporal storm or others periods of low temporal stability.

[ifoz]

18 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I heard someone threw a spear at Dave once and managed to hit him, resulting in a horrific scream that the entire server heard...right before it crashed. Granted, I heard this tale in the strange lands of YouTube comment section, so I'd say Crazy Pete's stories are more likely to be true.

Aye, I have heard this tall tale too. My associates at the Limwich Guild of Temporology and Other Such Sciences and I aspire to test this myth soon, and we shall report back here with any notable results.

 

18 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I've been wondering if Dave isn't the Salvation Engine gone rogue. Some of the shapes are similar, though that could just be a result of sharing a designer with other tech. That being said, if you folded him up just right...I think the silhouettes could match. Not to mention that if the Salvation Engine could turn humans into seraphs, it could just as easily turn the infected into monsters and continue to do so, especially if it went rogue shortly after activation. If this is the case, perhaps it got sealed away in a different reality, which in turn destabilized the flow of time. That would certainly explain why Dave only shows up during a temporal storm or others periods of low temporal stability.

This is actually a really cool theory, and is something that I was thinking of too considering we haven't seen the Salvation Engine yet in the game. I mean, it could be part of a future story location, but the reveal of it being Dave could be really interesting. In regards to your theory of him being a big "microphone", I think this fits too. A large device sent out to collect and record data from the world, or potentially sent into the Rust World intentionally for the same purpose. I suppose that would make him a... 'macrophone'. Badum-tss.
Considering his height, if this is indeed his purpose, perhaps he also records meteorological data as well as sound and terrain, if his limbs map the world he walks on. A gigantic Google Maps car in a way, except using his limbs' sense of touch instead of a camera.  

Edited May 28 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

16 minutes ago, ifoz said:

A gigantic Google Maps car in a way, except using his limbs' sense of touch instead of a camera.  

So what you're saying is...we seraphs need to go do some goofy poses nearby to mess with Dave!

Dave's "body" module also reminds me of the Apollo space capsules used back in the day. I doubt that's what's going on with Dave, of course, but you never know!

[ifoz]

57 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Dave's "body" module also reminds me of the Apollo space capsules used back in the day. I doubt that's what's going on with Dave, of course, but you never know!

Now that you say it, there is a definite similarity!
Imagine living inside of Dave's body module. What a cozy and definitely not cramped way to set up a mobile base. 
"Who needs an elk or a ship when you can own your very own Dave! Comes with free constant temporal storms!"

[LadyWYT]

21 hours ago, ifoz said:

Another story I heard was of the rumoured emergence of a cult-like group, the Thunder Apostles, based in the Chapel of Dave, though I don't yet know much about it.
Apparently they go around and hunt for rifts before standing in them to greet their master, though it sounds so ridiculous that I almost doubt it's existence.

I also forgot to mention this earlier, but I do hope we see some sort of antagonist faction later. A cult that wants to bring more of the Rust into our current reality would definitely make for a cool one to battle against! I think the one thing scarier than the mindless drifters out to eat your face off, is perhaps a corrupt human/seraph determined to control which faces the monsters munch on.

[ifoz]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I also forgot to mention this earlier, but I do hope we see some sort of antagonist faction later. A cult that wants to bring more of the Rust into our current reality would definitely make for a cool one to battle against! I think the one thing scarier than the mindless drifters out to eat your face off, is perhaps a corrupt human/seraph determined to control which faces the monsters munch on.

While I do really like this idea, I think only having one antagonistic faction may be a bad idea. In a game as endlessly open as VS, I think that any factions or groups added to the story need to allow the player to join them. (You should only be able to choose one to join though, or else we would end up like Skyrim guilds).

The 'antagonistic' faction should be the one that does not align with your views as a player.
Perhaps you are playing a character who wants the Rust to spread, so your antagonistic faction could be Falx himself.

Instead of being a linear story with a set antagonistic group, I think it would be a good design decision to let the player play their own part in the larger story by choosing who they ally themselves with.
That being said, a Rust cult would be a really cool idea for a potential future faction!

[LadyWYT]

10 hours ago, ifoz said:

While I do really like this idea, I think only having one antagonistic faction may be a bad idea. In a game as endlessly open as VS, I think that any factions or groups added to the story need to allow the player to join them. (You should only be able to choose one to join though, or else we would end up like Skyrim guilds).

The 'antagonistic' faction should be the one that does not align with your views as a player.
Perhaps you are playing a character who wants the Rust to spread, so your antagonistic faction could be Falx himself.

Instead of being a linear story with a set antagonistic group, I think it would be a good design decision to let the player play their own part in the larger story by choosing who they ally themselves with.
That being said, a Rust cult would be a really cool idea for a potential future faction!

Very true! By "antagonist" I generally mean factions that would be considered the "bad guys", as the goal in most cases is to save the world and not destroy it. I do agree though that having multiple options and outcomes for the player regarding the story's path would be really cool and extend the game's longevity.

[ifoz]

10 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Very true! By "antagonist" I generally mean factions that would be considered the "bad guys", as the goal in most cases is to save the world and not destroy it. I do agree though that having multiple options and outcomes for the player regarding the story's path would be really cool and extend the game's longevity.

All I can hope for is that if factions are added and form an overarching plot between groups, that the player never becomes some kind of leader or sole hero. I really don't want another generic 'prophesised hero' plot here! This game has so much roleplay potential and unique and interesting lore that it would be such a waste to just say "oh ok you are now the leader of the Falx faction, you are also the legendary hero who will save the world from the Rust and nobody but you can do it."

Certainly there could be an ending where you help Falx and his allies destroy the Rust, but I really don't think the player should be the legendary hero of the charge against the Rust unless they have to do some crazy optional stuff to earn such a title.

[LadyWYT]

20 hours ago, ifoz said:

Certainly there could be an ending where you help Falx and his allies destroy the Rust, but I really don't think the player should be the legendary hero of the charge against the Rust unless they have to do some crazy optional stuff to earn such a title.

I agree, for sure. Although it would be rather funny for the player to become the "ultimate hero of legend!" only to promptly die to something exceptionally silly(like getting struck by lightning or murdered by a rooster).

One thing that keeps poking at the back of my mind though...given the visual distortion of temporal storms and Dave only appearing during temporal storms/extremely low stability(currently), we don't actually know that he's as big as he looks. Given that he seems to tower over distant trees I think it's safe to say he's at least a few hundred feet tall, but for all we know he could be really tiny and just look like he's huge. Perhaps that's why we never see him without temporal distortion--he's always there, just way too small to see!

[ifoz]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Given that he seems to tower over distant trees I think it's safe to say he's at least a few hundred feet tall, but for all we know he could be really tiny and just look like he's huge. Perhaps that's why we never see him without temporal distortion--he's always there, just way too small to see!

Who knows, he does shrink into the distance once the temporal storms end! 

[LadyWYT]

I had a thought the other day--if Dave is always there on the other side of the rifts, do you suppose he's responsible for the rift activity? Perhaps there's no activity when he's far away, but lots of it when he's nearby.

[LadyWYT]

Doggone it, I was just fixing to go to bed when another Dave theory struck me after looking stuff up while writing a different thread.

"I've begun to see things, even when I'm not gazing through the Lens. Walking down the halls, looking at the prints, suddenly my vision shifts and I'm in a world I cannot comprehend. I am in the other world, and it is leaking into this one."--Jonax Falx, "Breakdown"

Now I'm not entirely sure what the Lens is, aside from a device that Falx invented and likely used to look around this other dimension to help find inspiration(and possibly materials) for his projects. Nor does Dave exactly look like a mobile telescope, assuming that the Lens is even capable of moving around. But now I'm wondering if Dave is perhaps some sort of sensory device associated with the Lens, monitoring whatever goes on in the Rust world. It would explain why we only see him through rifts and temporal storms, and why he doesn't really seem to do anything other than walk around. The only problem is that given Dave seems to be a rather large construction, it's a little strange that he's not really mentioned elsewhere. Granted, that lore could be getting added later, or Dave could have been a secret project, but it seems like it'd be rather difficult to keep a project that big a complete secret.

[ifoz]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Now I'm not entirely sure what the Lens is, aside from a device that Falx invented and likely used to look around this other dimension to help find inspiration(and possibly materials) for his projects.

I'm pretty sure the 'Lens' refers to the "Ruined Lenses" clutter items that you can find. It looks like a machine with a series of, well, lenses. Like something you may see at an optometrist's, except much larger.
Though, these "Lenses" and THE "Lens" may be completely separate things, so this theory isn't disproven!