Oh man, this is kind of making me a bit giddy. I'm wondering how much of my speculation is off, and by how much. I'm hoping some of this ends up getting put into play, in say another DROD game.
That name reveal is actually quite interesting. I'm just going to preface this with saying that there's gonna be some good ending spoilers tucked in here. This particular bit will delve into some more specific details that can't quite be inferred from elsewhere. Spoilers abound, and I'm not sure how to properly separate it, since some of it might get spoiled simply
there's a split.
I apologize for the length, it's much longer than any of my other speculation posts. I guess I got a bit carried away. But that reveal really sparked something in my brain.
×Alright, assuming that 'booth' is the intended translation, and it's meant as the word and not as some sly reference to anyone with Booth as their last name.
I'll just use Merriam Webster's definitions, since the gist of the definitions seem to be the same. Though I'll pull in some other sources since one of them caught my eye.
a partially enclosed area or a small and usually temporary building where things are sold or displayed or services are provided
This can technically fit. Beethro is selling his own smitemastery services. Though I don't think this is quite what was intended. Though Gunthro is/was a smitemaster. Halph certainly isn't. I think this is more of a 'happy coincidence' kind of thing.
a small area that is enclosed in order to provide privacy for one person
This one doesn't really fit at all. Unless you stretch it at least.
an enclosed area for some kinds of workers that provides shelter and keeps them separated from the public / a temporary shelter for livestock or field workers
I'm combining these since I think they are intended to be the same definition, just different wording. This is what I think fits best, out of Merriam Webster's definitions. If we consider Budkins to be intended as 'shelters'. And what is a shelter, but a more stationary 'vessel' for things other than liquids (Or truth. Though it does seem to be truth, at least in the Eighth, is a constantly shifting thing, much like a fluid.)?
And here's where things get interesting. Taking into account that origin of Budkin got brought up as being 'interesting' in the context of my speculation, it brings clues as to what a Budkin is intended to be a vessel
for. I speculated that the Pit Thing was involved in the creation of Beethro, as a vat born. So a Budkin shelters something that the Pit Thing wants protected. Most likely a portion of himself. Or an aspect of chaos. Though those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
The Pit Thing doesn't like things predictable. The Pit Thing did say that Beethro saved him, and there might be more to it than 'saved him from being unable to speak clearly'. It could also refer to some sort of being saved from that area where Beethro met him in the past. And it also puts “I'm closer than you think” into perspective. It also could imply that the 'imaginary friend' speech was more referring to the fact that Beethro could really talk to him at any point. Not just when he's around deep pits. Or that's simply when Beethro was 'willing' to listen. I'm not sure which is more accurate, though. The Pit Thing certainly isn't entirely imaginary, or at least doesn't depend on Beethro's imagination to exist. Perhaps Ironk's imagination, but then it seems everything on the Eighth does.
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I'm uncertain as to how the Mothingness applies to this, but it clearly is a big part of it. But I've got some ideas.
The phrase that the Pit Thing repeats, way, way back in JTRH. He repeated it quite a few times, and as the Pit Thing has stated in TSS “If I repeat something, you would do well to remember it” or something along those lines. Now, I'm going to assume that it's in the true tongue, so Beethro wouldn't understand the words until he would be able to actually understand the meaning or at least be open to it. I don't think we ever got a full translation of the true tongue, or any sort of guidelines, but the various times Beethro translates is probably a helpful tool. I don't recall where all the examples of it are. For now, I'll try to recall those examples as best I can. The key principle I'm going to be using is that the words are essentially English messed around a bit.
I'm going to assume that certain concessions were made since the original true tongue was written, and the true tongue in TSS. For instance, the instances of them saying Budkin could be because Budkin specified that's what he wanted to be called.
Searching the forums got the quote from the Pit Thing, however: “B'hakgra Du S'tra Mothness Ti!”
Click here to view the secret text
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Mothness is pretty obviously Mothingness.
B'hakgra is something I'm not entirely sure about. Context-wise, I'm going to assume it means Beethro in some capacity. Maybe it means Beethro. Or Budkin. Though I think it might outright be the name of the 'Budkin' recipe, the true tongue name of it, at least. It could be the apostrophes mean something, but I can't remember if there were any examples in TSS of it. It could just mean there's a contraction, as it does in English. Which means it's possible it's “Budkin (something)”, though I can only guess what that would be. Assuming it's a name like 'truth vessel' then 'hakgra' could be true tongue for the Pit Thing's real name. Something along those lines at least.
The rest I'm not sure about either, as I didn't really take a close look as to how each word roughly translated from the examples. It could also be some words simply changed.
I'm going to assume that 'Du' is just taken from German and means 'you', this does make some sense, since 'du' is one of the informal 'yous'. It's also close enough to 'you' to fit.
S'tra I have absolutely no clue. Same with Ti. I can only sort of 'work backwards' from what I think is being said, so I could be way off here.
Ti is the one I'm more certain about. I'm guessing it's some sort of form of 'it' or 'too'. It depends on the grammar of True Tongue, and I have made no efforts to understand that. 'Too' is the closest match of the two if it's English grammar, which it probably is.
Which leaves “S'tra'”. The best I can do is 'fill in the blanks' that the sentence has left.
So what I think is being said is “Beethro, you store the Mothingness too.” Or it might be 'contain'. If there's an actual translation in one of the SS, I wouldn't know. The only one that I think it might be in is the Truthlock Method, and I haven't beaten that yet.
Now there's a reason why I think that's the translation. The Pit Thing would have had to make a recipe, and adding certain materials can change the recipes outputs drastically. Mechanical bits end up creating the constructs, for instance.
And I think the Pit Thing put a little of himself of the Mothingness into the recipe. Perhaps the Mothingness is something akin to 'hair' or 'fingernails', something that grows. Or the Mothingness might even be a state in between Truth Vessels and the Pit Thing. That would make since if 'Ti' is indeed 'too', meaning that both he and Beethro contain it. And since each cycle would dump more Truth Vessels, who's to say all of it became a part of the Pit Thing?
Now, why would the Pit Thing need to create a recipe like the Budkin one? I think it might be because to truly talk to someone, outside of maybe the true tongue might be impossible for him. From what I can recall the Pit Thing only speaks to two people in the game, and both of them just so happen to be Budkins. I'm not counting Ironk, since they share the same sort of roots. And Ironk might be able to talk to whomever she wants. I suppose everyone else just hears growling, or maybe it is just true tongue. Or I could be off on this point, one instance of the Pit Thing talking to anyone besides a Budkin would throw things off.
The Pit Thing can probably change things subtly, but I doubt he could do it to the scale Beethro did. A container for the Pit Thing's will, more or less. This would be a different reason for needed the Budkin recipe.
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The Dialog in EotS actually seems to fit well with the dialog in the Epilogue, rather than the rest of his dialog. He seems more 'free', so I'm thinking that in addition to making him more clever, it's strengthening whatever it is that forces him to speak in simile and metaphor. A negative side effect. The line also made me think, at the time, that the Pit Thing thought the 'time travel' bit was what was clever. But now I'm thinking that Beethro's line just before is the key here. “Stop speaking nonsense.” The Pit Thing would be able to smell the Mothingness on Beethro, something that 'ties' them together. A part that can escape the chains that bind him. So that he could choose what to do, rather than being forced.
Now, for a while I was thinking that the long line of Budkins didn't quite fit with this theory. But this revelation explains it. All (or most) Budkins are vat born. The Pit Thing finally figures out how to create his own recipe and have it be made, with the Mothingness as a part of him. It could have taken many cycles to get to that point. It could very well have been Beethro himself who ended up being the key. After all, he did introduce his job as a smitemaster right before the Turning that created his world, on the cycle he came to be. It is a bit funny that, if this is the case, without Beethro existing, he would not have existed. The Pit Thing could probably finagle things somehow. Though if the Pit Thing only got the idea to create the Budkin recipe because of Beethro, that's a second place where Beethro created his own existence. Don't you just love stable time loops, the ones that can only exist because they exist?
Now, the Pit Thing probably didn't get things right with the first Budkin. In fact, he probably knew he wouldn't. Depending on how 'from the future' Beethro smelled, the Pit Thing could know when his deadline was. It could also be that he knew it was going to be near the Turning, since Beethro said his world was gone.
The problem is, how would the Pit Thing know if he got it right? He wouldn't really; his knowledge seems to only apply to things that are underground, the Empires territory. So while he would get knowledge of the surface, it wouldn't be in time. It wouldn't be enough. He would have to speak personally to them. And the only way to do that would be to make sure that the Budkin would be in front of a deep pit. Someplace where a Smitemaster would go.
That is the reason Beethro comes from a long line of Smitemasters. Each one the Pit Thing talked to. To see if it worked. And if not, have them personally make the next in the line of the Budkins, using a tweaked recipe. To make sure they became a Smitemaster, but not tell the next in line about the Pit Thing. Though that last part might not be the case.
But each time, despite improvements there was a flaw. None of them had made much of a difference, none of them were 'right'. Until Gunthro.
Spoilers for GatEB, big ones at that. And speculation that specifically relates to it.
Click here to view the secret text
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Gunthro managed to surprise the Pit Thing. He made a big difference, a change. I have no idea of knowing what the difference between the 'original' version of the cycles. It could be the entire game, from when Gunthro sees and reports it, it could be when he is able to rally everyone to war.
But the key difference, the one the Pit Thing was looking for? The one that splits off the two endings. To kill or to spare. It doesn't matter which Gunthro chose. It was the fact that he chose in the first place. A vatborn that was able to think outside their role.
So that is why Gunthro was declared by the Pit Thing to be the 'perfected' recipe. Now I'm not sure what Gunthro would be told to do. It's pretty certain he was told not to tell anyone about the vat born process, much like his ancestors were presumably told.
There are a few possibilities as to what Gunthro was told to vat create.
Click here to view the secret text
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1) He created Beethro's parents. I'm just going to assume that the vats create genetically diverse, but 'functionally' the same imprints. Of course, because of the Budkin recipe being created, the differences are much more vast, mentally. The recipe probably creates the closest to a surfacer as possible.
Though there is the difference of what I assume is the 'vat born' grey skin trait. I would say it's a side effect of being underground so much, but Halph notably seems to have it, and that was before he ended up underground. Though I don't recall anyone ever commenting on a Budkin's grey skin. It could be that it just is exaggerated in the portraits for the player. Or the Eighth's surfacers are really more progressive than we are in that way. The Empire probably wouldn't care either way.
Gunthro probably kept one of the to be parents to raise himself, and got someone else to raise the other. And set them up to match up together. Raising them together would be a little too creepy. Remember, the vats would presumably be genetically diverse enough so that despite sharing the same recipe, they are entirely unrelated. The vats, at least the recipes that the Empire uses, seem to be more focused on 'knowledge' learned before even leaving the vat. That would be the only similarity. I doubt the recipe, by Gunthro's time, had all the knowledge for Smitemastery in it, if only because Beethro's parents don't seem to have been Smitemasters. Or mentioned at all.
As I had implied earlier, the Budkin recipe could have been based off of some Smitemaster recipe, this would be an early recipe, created before the Empire had the surfacers split off. It could also be that it was instead based off of an early recipe for vatborn designed to fight. Honestly, I don't know if a vat born recipe ended up being the 'first' Smitemaster, in either the many cycles before. Or the cycle where Beethro kind of 'created' Smitemastery, but I'm not counting him in this instance because I presume there were indeed Smitemasters in previous cycles. Someone still had to clear dungeons. And I'm assuming that the Smitemastery profession isn't unique to Beethro's cycle.
It just seems like there would be too much difference for the Pit Thing to reliably predict everything, but it's possible. The key, I think, would be knowing which cycle the various roach posters are from. If they're from the previous Empire cycle, and none are from the cycle Beethro was created, then I'd say Smitemaster's are a new thing to the cycle. If, however, they're from Beethro's cycle, then I doubt the Smitemasters are a new thing. But it really depends on how long paper lasts underground, in the Eighth. I doubt it would be able to last the two turnings needed, however.
I'm also going to go out on a limb here and say that all vat born can reproduce without using the vats. It would make sense with the 'far' portions of the Empire end up resulting in 'strangeness', the text talking about the Empire saying “What a far thing to say”. (Unrelatedly, off hand there's probably only one Empire citizen that I can think of that could fall possibly be described by the Empire with that saying. And that would be a certain person with a prized possession.)
Gunthro, in this instance would have been told to make sure Beethro becomes a Smitemaster.
2) This one is similar to 1, except Gunthro only created one of Beethro's parents. This is probably what happened. I'm not sure to what extent the Pit Thing would go to be certain that uncertainty would occur, as paradoxical as it sounds.
Most of the stuff from 1 still applies here.
3) Honestly this is the one I don't think is very likely. It leaves things a little too unusual. Even though it was part of what I had thought could be the case. The more I think about it the less it seems 'right'.
Essentially, Gunthro would directly create Beethro (and his siblings, I suppose. I can't recall if he has more than the sister).
This leaves the missing parents, completely unexplained. I suppose Gunthro could have just said that he was their grandfather, but it just doesn't quite make sense. The Beethro the Delver III story directly states Beethro's parents do exist. Since it's canon, the only way this version occurred would be if Gunthro had kids of his own, not vatborn. And convinced one of them to play the parents of the adopted children, which he would help raise.
Somewhat related to these is that I think Halph (and the other, plot irrelevant siblings) had a surfacer father. It's probably not extremely important, but Halph would have to have some vat-Budkin blood in him, after all.
And, since this is probably too long already, I'll just end this here; I've spent far too long typing this particular post up, and I'll just leave some musings for later, while the stew around. But I will at least add the definition that intrigued me, one from 'the free dictionary'
(Historical Terms) (formerly) a temporary structure for shelter, dwelling, storage, etc
Like the other definition, it refers to a temporary thing, much like I assume the Budkin recipe is intended to be; a vat recipe that creates something that only lasts a surfacer's lifetime. The Pit Thing would like things to change, after all. The rest of the definition makes it essentially a more generic form, that does fit better to how I'm speculating it was used. Plus the Pit Thing probably would end up using an archaic definition in naming a recipe. At the time, it could have even been a current definition on the Eighth.
If anything doesn't make sense, point it out to me. I spent quite a bit of time on it, and I could very well have accidentally left something out that I thought I typed. The formatting is kind of a mess, but at this point I think I've been staring at it too long to improve it much more; I've been at it for several hours now, just fine tuning things, tweaking phrasing here and there, not counting how long it took to write up in the first place.
If you think I'm wrong on some point, just let me know. Some of this has very little, if any, support from the games/Smitemaster Selections. Especially anything that happened in the vast majority of time that isn't covered in any of the games.
I doubt I'd have gotten much closer to the 'hidden story' so to speak of the DRODverse, than I did in the first post, without the brilliant discussion that's been going on. So thank you everyone.
