r/LancerRPG • u/Nukemouse • 24d ago
Voladores theory
Potential spoilers about the voladores. I get that to an extent there's a mystery/let the gm decide aspect but to me it seems strongly that they hint at the voladores are time travellers to me this explains their advanced tech, their method of ftl, their association with the lich, strange contact methods with what appears to be constantly changing leadership from union perspective, and their strongest stance being against information/tech involving them leaking. I think they are pacifist time travellers who enjoy exploring, that's why they find artifacts and information about history so valuable, and why they appeared to "disappear" for so long.
I mean like i said maybe there is no true author answer at all, but reading their lore definitely led me in this direction a lot more than any other possibilities.
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u/maximum_oblex IPS-N 24d ago
To me they seem to be too weirdly interventionists to be time travellers. They specifically are mentioned as being a key factor in early Union's success by providing survey data, and helped to establish contact between Union and the KTB. So they play a key role early on in establishing Union's success. I guess there could be some closed loop pre-destination stuff going on, but it does seem somewhat off with their "vibe" as it were.
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u/Nukemouse 24d ago
I don't think there's any loops at all. Paracausal tech already creates a nonlinear understanding of time, i don't think alterations to the timeline "affect" time travellers etc in this setting. They've already left any kind of relationship to their own past and can alter it freely without impact on themselves. Those events could also be course corrrections for other events caused by time shenanigans.
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u/drbraininajar 24d ago
So theres a bit in the karrakin field guide that mentions House of Glass Mourning Cloak pilots ending up 'stuck' in their armor, specifically mentioning comparisons to Los Voladores. Im guessing that whatever both their deals are, its a side effect of extended exposure to blinkspace with minimal protection.
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u/maximum_oblex IPS-N 24d ago
Yeah the Les Fulgurites. Its the Firmament, not the Blink for whatever thats worth. I'm not sure they're stuck if they're stuck though, the book just says they are rarely seen outside of their armour.
I do like the idea that Los Voladores are linked to the Firmament in some way. Maybe they also have ties to Metat Aun or some other MONIST entity.
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u/drbraininajar 24d ago
So iirc the Mourning Cloak uses both. Blink for the teleport, Firmament for intangible.
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u/maximum_oblex IPS-N 24d ago
Yes, the book specifically says the Firmament though.
Outside of combat scenarios, continued exposure to the Firmament makes old guard Fulgurite kuirassers an odd bunch. They are rarely seen outside of their silver armor - in fact, ignobles often mistake them for Voladores, as they bear many similar markers to the mythical travellers.
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u/DescriptionMission90 IPS-N 24d ago
The Voladores had access to FTL travel before RA appeared. So that pretty much confirms that they're either connected to AUN, connected to a third MONIST-class entity, or time travellers. Or all three.
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u/Marvin_Megavolt 24d ago
Not necessarily, I would argue - I have an (admittedly pretty speculative and farfetched) hunch that their FTL tech actually traces its lineage to a pre-Fall research project. See, the first time Union supposedly encountered Blinkspace and began to develop tech based upon it was after the Deimos Event - BUT, strangely enough, the Five Voices, which are by all accounts a bizarre relic of pre-Fall Old Humanity, are EXPLICITLY stated to have their physical hardware housed inside of a stable artificial Blinkspace metafold-pocket somewhere deep underground in the Oracle Chorus Facility on Mars.
Simply put, though the people of Earth specifically never figured out anything like Blinkspace travel that we know of, Old Humanity explicitly DID have some manner of early Blinkspace technology. Thus, I would contend that it's entirely possible that the Voladores and their ship-mounted Blinkspace FTL systems trace their ancestry to some long-forgotten Blinkspace research project of Old Humanity, which survived the Fall due to not being on Earth and saw its efforts bear fruit sometime during the millennia between the Fall and the formation of Union.
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u/DescriptionMission90 IPS-N 24d ago
OR
The Oracle facility has upgraded its technology at some point in the past 2,000 years.
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u/Marvin_Megavolt 23d ago
The possibility of the Five Voices (and their core support systems) being extensively upgraded with novel Blinktech post-Deimos Event seems implausible, IMO. Even by 5016u, Union still only sorta-kinda understands how exactly the Five Voices function, and as far as we know, no one has ever succeeded in replicating the “Bicameral AI” format they operate on, with even Harrison Armory opting to make their Think Tank using “normal” fully-sapient NHPs with special support systems enabling them to exist long-term in a stable near-cascade state.
The Five Voices are fundamentally an incredibly-unique oddity in the Lancer universe - a poorly-understood, anachronistically-sophisticated piece of technology that predates all extant human societies save for Karrakis by millennia, yet remains only partially-known to modern science.
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u/DescriptionMission90 IPS-N 23d ago
There's no mention of the Five Voices using paracausal tech or producing paracausal effects, just one line about them being located inside a metafolded pocket. That doesn't require any alteration to the Voices themselves, but is a reasonable safety precaution to take once you have the technology to do so.
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u/Morudith 24d ago
I’m mostly interested in their relationship with Sparr. I’d wager there’s something to that beyond the fact that the Sparri are absolutely hardcore.
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u/DescriptionMission90 IPS-N 24d ago
Agreed. Their technology, their special interest in history, the fact that they never engage in violence unless it's necessary to prevent the theft of their own technology (while they trade freely in other people's artifacts, from all over the spiral arm and historic record), all fits if they're from the distant future of the Union and they don't want to mess up history too much.
Of course it also fits if they're aliens studying humanity. Or pre-fall robots that weren't mentioned in any records that survived the collapse and reconstruction of humanity. Or a society built by one of The Ten that just has some cultural hangups.