The Dark History of Orto's the Droid - Lost Skies

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Ortos Z87, Saboran
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Ortos Z87, Saboran, Bandinians
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Bandinians, Saboran
4. 9:00 – 12:00: Saboran, SIF

Notable quotes from "The Dark History of Orto's the Droid - Lost Skies"

• Exiled my head beneath the spire for refusing entry to the mutineers. Such a mess. Retrieve my head and I shall personally lead you to the goods.

  about Ortos Z87 · at 1:34

• And Bandinians are, well, fraught with conflict. Of course, they started killing each other. The Bandinians fled, and the Saborans ascended. Hurry.

  about Bandinians · at 7:01

• Having discovered the Saboran secret, it's easy to say that these revealed secrets implied the Saborans had involvement in the creation of the SIF.

  about Saboran · at 10:38

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Ortos Z87 — Person · In-world NPC / guide character (assistant droid) · 2 mentions · first at 1:05
  A named Saborian assistant droid encountered in the abandoned sky-station; he provides exposition about the mutiny/ascension and guides the narrator through unlocking areas and accessing cargo/engineering.

Concepts & topics

• Saboran — Concept · Core topic · 5 mentions · first at 0:58
  A fanatical society that once occupied the station, believed to have ascended to godhood, and involved in researching the SIF.
• SIF — Concept · Core topic · 1 mention · first at 10:41
  A terrifying and nearly uncontrollable bioweapon that the Saborans were researching on the station.
  Having discovered the Saboran secret, it's easy to say that these revealed secrets implied the Saborans had involvement in the creation of the SIF.
• Bandinians — Concept · Key argument · 3 mentions · first at 4:40
  A tribe that was let into the station by the Saborans for supplies, leading to conflict and eventual mutiny.
• Gaul — Concept · Framework · 4 mentions
  A technologically advanced culture whose technology was likely salvaged by the Saborans for the station.
  Was the nature of the station to begin with. We've seen in past videos that the Saborans, while somewhat advanced, couldn't ever become nearly as technologically advanced as…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 As of August 26th, nearly 10 years after the Great Awakening, the first known explorer and survivor of the Great Cat Cataclysm has ventured past the ancient Storm Wall, segmenting our known world, and has brought back conclusive evidence of a terrifying truth of our forgotten past. While roaming through the skies, traveling aloft among the clouds, you come across a seemingly abandoned station. One both crumbling due to seemingly accelerated ruin, yet ever encaptivating. A towering yet strangelooking station extruding deep into the clouds below. A top it sits crumbling rusted frames of eight powerful rail guns protecting entrenched meter thick steel bunkered walls slowly being overtaken by the colorful orange hues of autumn leaves and foliage. As you enter the ruins bunkered chamber, you come across the remnants of a crumbling headless humanoid shaped robot. Talking with him, he explains

0:54 that his purpose in being there next to the sealed entrance is that he was functioning as a saboran assistant droid, a part of the Lumen class, whatever that may be. The droid explains that his name is Ortos Z87, where you tell him you were looking for salvageable goods. Oh. Oh, heavens, who goes there? Yes, you. Don't leave me. Gracious, it's a miracle. After centuries of abandonment, beheaded and humiliated, now you. Wait, have they all ascended? Oh, forgive me my manners. I'm Ortos Z87, Saborian assistant droid, Lumenclass. How may I serve? Looking for salable goods, eh? Oh, there are plenty of goods inside the cargo bay. They exiled my head beneath the spire for refusing entry to the mutineers. Such a mess. Retrieve my head and I shall personally lead you to the goods.

1:43 Interestingly, it seems Ortos knows about the Saborian ritual of suicidal ascension. almost as if he were aware of the previous Saboreans leaving to go on an ascent themselves. Grappling down, we pass by four major automatic anti-airship cannons, seemingly there to prevent us from getting close to Ordo's head. We find it completely surrounded by four powerful energy walls. The first of which we are able to disengage by locating four switches on the outside of the station's crumbling catwalk, which allows us to get to the intersection to communicate with Ortos. Oh, heavens, down here. Yes. Yes. I'm Ortos Z8. Have you spoken with my body? Poor thing.

2:25 It's memory stopped the moment they ripped me off. Typical. I assume it did not mention the four circuits that you must sever in order to activate this lever. They're just above the section outside, visible if your optics are any good. near the AI candidates. Now go cut them cleanly and once I'm free, do try to follow. That is, I assume my body tempted you with a fair deal for helping me us. Good heavens, I'll be whole again. Going out, we managed to find and sever the energy wall connection that holds Ortos's head inside, where we slowly begin to climb the spire back to the cargo bay entrance near his original body. Upon bringing back Ortos's head to its rightful place, we take down some security turrets as he opens the cargo bay. Entering, we take note of large sums of cargo surrounded by three perfect condition weaponized ships still hovering with their Atlas cores engaged, almost appearing as though they were

3:19 abandoned right before their use. After entering, we find another message from Ortos from a communication terminal.

3:26 Hello. Ah, there you are. It is I, OZ87. An unfortunate situation has occurred where me entering the gate has locked the system. One might say that that was a backfire. My circuits got fried and now I'm trapped in the main light relay framework. At least it was worth the end being united again. Oh, the cargo right computing. Um. Ah, splendid. Well, not entirely. There will be obstacles in our way. However, try to locate the droid docking station. There will be assistance units there. And with your help, I will uplink myself to one of them. And then we go to engineering.

3:59 Move on. Moving forward, we encounter another interconnecting chamber between the large cargo base as well as a terrible scene surrounding the central chamber where we find another message from MTOS.

4:10 Wait, already? No, hold on. This is not the docking station. Get on with it. Oh, I I see the mutiny. It is rather somber story, yet quite fascinating, if I might say so. Well, it began with the Red Scrimbo. The very name of this fortress was, how shall one say, forced to rescue a ship with the Mandinian milit heading north. Forced in the sense that we had suffered great losses. And in order to operate the fortress properly, we were in desperate need of replenishment. In this case, somewhat unwillingly. Yet, we let them in. Oil and water don't mix that well. Now, go on. Go. Moving inside one of the many central locations of the station, we find a Saboran corpse hanging over the edge of a sealed elevator shaft, as well as multiple connecting chambers. Moving down to the right, we see hallways as well as a sealed datab bank that seems to be connected to a power system.

5:04 Moving down, we find interconnected switches that were used to deactivate some of the station's self-locking systems. Moving back to the central area, we find the energy wall protecting the droid docking station has now been deactivated. Where inside we find multiple other damaged and deactivated droids alongside another message from Ortos there. Good. Finally, pardon, but did you get lost on your way? Okay. In order to access the engineering, we must navigate through the core section. Now, look to your right. This unit is the only one still linked to the framework.

5:34 The others are malfunctioning. Unfortunately, the unit is stuck to its al cove, which the mutineers seem to have sabotaged. However, I might still be able to uplink myself to it, detach the head unit, and guide you down the elevator shaft, where I will dive into the droid service shaft and hopefully open the entrance to the core ventilation system. Now, engage the transfer. Hearing this, as we move closer to the core, I started to feel as though Ortos was hiding something much deeper. While there was a single body in the central shaft, the sealed off nature of the station seemed to imply that a mutiny was only part of the story. The very fact that Ortos mentions this, yet as we first meet him, he explains his surprise that we had not already ascended. Almost as though the previous Savorans running the station had long since left. But why? Why fight over something so hard to the point of

6:23 mutiny just to leave it anyway? Regardless, we make it down the central shaft and Ortos unlocks the sealed door where we find another communication point. Hello. Ah, alas. Can you imagine the entrance was sealed behind me as I open the ventilation shaft? And as for now, you are pretty much left by yourself. Sorry, bypassing the various systems is not my specialty. I carry things. Well, according to the framework, I have free passage all the way down to the core. Let's meet there. What? Oil and water. Uh, certainly you're referring to my idiom. But now really, uh, bonds between the Saborians and Bandinians are, well, fraught with conflict. Of course, they started killing each other. The Bandinians fled, and the Saborans ascended. Hurry.

7:10 In hearing this, we begin to travel down the pipelines to locate the unlocking mechanism to explore further down the air shaft while still being unsure of what exactly Ortos was choosing to leave out. While he mentioned that the Bandinians fled and that the Saborans ascended, it did not explain why the Saborans left or even why the Saborans had chosen to let another tribe of people into their fortress. As Saborans were top-own fanatics, societally believing that all other races were nothing more than dirt on the floor, that they alone should achieve a glorious death in order to ascend to their own godhood. It's possible that given the mutiny that Saborans turned on each other in fear of what they would do if they starve within the station, but even that seems unlikely given their belief system, especially in knowing that much of the architecture comprising of the station is almost entirely Gaul

8:02 in nature. It feels like this station has a greater purpose, one that would make even the most fanatic and intolerant people willing to set aside their differences for the survival of the station. After dragging and unlocking the device to further explore the shaft downward, we take down some more defense turrets and find our way into a surrounding chamber. Some kind of massive energy cord that clearly seems to have the main bulk of its connections to other parts of the ship deactivated. It seems as though the activation mechanism switches are somehow turned off or severed. Following Ortis, he flies into a small pocket to try and open some kind of maintenance door.

8:38 However, it seems he's unable to open it and instead we have to climb through another air vent. Once in the room, we find what seems to be a series of connected power grids where one of the connecting cables seems to have been clearly severed by force. Utilizing our electrified grappling cable, we reconnect the grid to fill in the missing powered sections, which instantly jumpst starts the system. Walls of panels begin to open up, showing the light system powering on. Once we reach the middle chamber, we begin switching on power systems to connect directly to the core, finally deactivating the surrounding chambers and turning on the station fully. We make our way to the previously sealed staircase leading upward, which eventually leads to a small dark hallway filled with pipes, which at the end leads to a hint at what the Saborans were truly doing here. In a darkened hallway, we find sealed chambers of

9:31 experiments, in particular, ones involving the serif. small globs of levitating samples and the serif bioweapon with two empty chambers at the far end. Here we find a broken elevator shaft where we utilize our grappling hook in order to make it to the top. Here we find Orto who opens a series of massive overlapping bunker doors guarded by a weaponized defense turret. Here we are led by the drone to a large chamber to unlock. Circling back to where we began, we unlock the one-way switch at the top, which allows us into the massive chamber we seek to explore.

10:07 Upon entering, we find a true monstrosity, an amalgamation whose incealment was the purpose in diverting all of the station's power reserves to prevent its escape and likely was the reason for all previous connections to the station being completely severed. Here, we deactivate the three overlapping mechanisms for fighting this creature. And in doing so, we escape into the ventilation shaft full of interlacing pipes which we promptly deactivate in order to escape. Here we gain access to the rest of the ship as well as the massive cargo and tow. After having discovered the Saboran secret, it's easy to say that these revealed secrets implied the Saborans had involvement in the creation of the SIF.

10:45 However, I don't think this was the case, but rather I believe they are researching it. I think the true reason for why the Saborans let the Bandinis into the station in order to get supplies was that they desperately feared the escape and lost control of a station such as this. What threw me off was the nature of the station to begin with. We've seen in past videos that the Saborans, while somewhat advanced, couldn't ever become nearly as technologically advanced as other cultures like the Gaul. Much in the same way the Saboran devices seem to clasp or in some way parts use salvage versions of old Gaul tech. It would imply to me that in some ways the Saborans likely captured this station or in some other form took it over many years before and since then have been using it for the very same experiments the Gaul may have once done. As we've come to explore more of what the fortress was, I think it was

11:33 slowly becoming more and more clear that this station wasn't designed to just keep things out, but rather more importantly, it was designed to keep what lurked beneath in. It's possible that the Saborans wanted to try and research and understand the nature of the serif and that in some ways from a humanitarian standpoint, it seems they were doing the world a good in the purposeful use of the station. And while it's unclear if Ortos ever truly knew the nature of what happened, while he had been around in the time of the mutiny, one thing is for certain. The Saraphone are a terrifying and nearly uncontrollable boweapon. One that in spite of everything has shown us the lengths humanity in its past has gone to forgo its existence.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "The Dark History of Orto's the Droid - Lost Skies"?

In order: 0:00 Ortos Z87, Saboran; 3:00 Ortos Z87, Saboran, Bandinians; 6:00 Bandinians, Saboran; 9:00 Saboran, SIF.

What is mentioned in this Adrift episode?

5 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Saboran, Ortos Z87, SIF, Bandinians, Gaul. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Dark History of Orto's the Droid - Lost Skies"?

The episode runs 12 min; the transcript is about 2,213 words in 18 timestamped sections.

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