Lore Theories - Blog Posts

Let's speculate about Architect Society!

I think there are some misinterpretations about how Precursor society works. It makes sense considering how vague a lot of the canon information is, but let me provide some of my perspective and interpretations on what we get in canon.

Architect society definitely deserves more speculation beyond just characterizing them as a race only focused on progress. The current information we have about how Architects operate is underrated in terms of how interesting it is. They definitely aren't a stereotypical hive mind. How Precursors perceive themselves is different from how they actually appear to function. AL-AN's answers don't lack bias. He is an unreliable narrator and often withholds information, so it's crucial to look deeper into the information given and to read between the lines. Especially as not everything is explicitly stated.

Architects exist as a collective—data points in a network—but people often forget that they do not only strive for efficiency. What they do is try to optimize themselves to perform tasks in the most efficient way possible. They strive to achieve and progress their society. This doesn’t mean that they lack culture. They are certainly more streamlined and orderly than humans, but they do have cultural aspects that impact the way they view things.

Some examples of Architect culture:

Architects produce art as seen by the statue in the Koppa mining site and the statue in the Deep Lilypad Caves Body Cache. Even the alien carving from the first game is an example of Precursors producing art with subjectivity.

Architects cultivate plants in greenhouses even though they do not need to eat. Also, of course, they have the Ancient Ornamental Plants that they cultivate for aesthetic purposes.

They hold pride in maintaining and improving a vessel for a long time. If a storage medium gets damaged, they wouldn’t opt to immediately make another vessel—even if it would be the most efficient.

They don’t all use the most popular format for their bodies; there are certain Architects that opt for different styles of storage medium.

Architects consider it rude to duplicate themselves.

All of their technology has similar aesthetic characteristics and design.

Precursors are cybernetic and composed of biotechnological components, yet they start out life as organic beings. They choose to incorporate biological tissues in their vessels suggesting they hold some sort of social ties to being organics. They actively make the choice to incorporate organic components.

Precursors potentially carry some nostalgia for their pre-civilized bodies, considering they model their vessels after them.

Architects have a concept of prestige. AL-AN is noted as the lead scientist for the Kharaa research project.

They have special training for certain young Architects and a Temple of Research that they are inducted into if they are distinct enough from other broodlings.

So, Precursors do not necessarily always do what is the most practical. They can and do practice certain things for subjective reasons. They have emotions that influence their actions. These emotions may not equate to human emotional behavior, but they certainly have them. AL-AN himself expresses shame many times.

While Precursors are a hive mind, they aren’t entirely unfamiliar with the concept of an individual. AL-AN merely says that they don’t see themselves as distinct. However, it is acknowledged at many points that a mind within the collective can have its own traits. Perspectives that either come with a body or ideas and needs that a mind has. They are able to act autonomously. The biggest example is AL-AN himself ignoring the network.

Though a mind having its own ideas doesn’t negate Architects being a collective. Especially when those minds work in conjunction with thousands of other minds to support the needs of the whole. AL-AN is just a very rare case where an Architect gets the opportunity to act as an individual. Even then, AL-AN expresses that being disconnected from the network is lonely and uncomfortable. Aiming to regain connection despite what he did in the past. AL-AN only uses the singular because he's present with Robin.

Precursors being so advanced makes things a little more complicated when trying to discern aspects of their species. We can't push human ideals onto a race so separate from us. Architects—being connected by the mind—do not have the same social structures as humans, so it's unfair to anthropomorphize them with our standards. We can only speculate on how they might work. Just because one mind can have differing traits doesn’t seem to make them distinct enough to classify as singular (within their species’ definition anyway). I'd love for there to eventually be more information given to us about their society.

Besides, all of this isn’t even considering the many unused voice lines that remain in the files that I’d love to go over…

Let’s talk about Architect math!

Considering that Precursors don’t have hands like we do, how do they format their math? Our current 10-decimal system is based on our ten fingers, so I wonder what the math of the Architects looks like, considering they don't have hands like we do. (Though AL-AN does note the usefulness of the opposable thumb.)

Architects have mechanical arms—two of which have hands with three fingers—but we know that they were originally a fully biological species before inventing their synthetic vessels. As stated in the databank entry AL-AN provides on the Architect storage media, their vessels resemble their pre-civilized forms. They had to have had a math system before inventing their synthetic vessels.

So… what would their math look like?

Precursors may use a base four system in which they only use 0, 1, 2, and 3 based on the digits of their claws on their organic arms. (Assuming they had similar claws on their pre-civilized bodies.)

I mean, humans have used base 4 selectively. It’s not entirely unheard of or out of the realm of possibility. Quaternary numeral systems are found in select languages throughout history and even have some modern code applications.

I’m leaning towards pre-civilization Precursors having a base four system, whereas current Precursors opt to use a binary system instead.

Obviously, as their species exists in its current form a binary system would be much more efficient. Existing as data means that a binary system would compute a lot smoother; especially as a network.

They could even use something else entirely different to what we commonly think of as math. We know Architect senses do not work in the same way humans do.

…or maybe I’m just a nerd overthinking alien math systems