Rockwell Recipes and Ark Lore

[Safari]

Well, the devs have just released another small piece of info relating to the story of everyone's favorite game. Here's a link for convenience: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/articles.html/unravelling-the-mysteries-of-the-ark-the-rockwell-recipes-r154/

What fabulous insights we can draw from this! It would seem that in addition to what we already knew (Rockwell was an old-fashioned Botany expert who lived on Herbivore Island) we now also have a few more important clues as to the nature of the ARK.

First, we know that Rockwell was an English subject living in the 17th century, during the reign of Charles I. However, more exciting is the fact that he intends to return (presumably to England) to present his findings directly to the King himself!

This raises all sorts of questions. How did Rockwell get to the island in the first place? He seems to know a way to get off of it, or at least thinks he does. He also holds himself apart from the other people on the island, calling them natives. Is that what we, the players, who wake up mysteriously on the beach are? Does Rockwell have an implant like we do? It wouldn't make that much sense if he did, but there's still so much left to find out. 

Perhaps the island mysteriously appears at different points throughout the Earth's history, only to disappear again, stranding would-be explorers like Rockwell there for the rest of their lives, as well as animals like dinosaurs. This would be orchestrated by aliens, who experiment on the life they collect on the ARK in the meantime.

Anyway, that was a lot of disorganized speculation. Does anyone get anything else out of the Rockwell note? I'll post again when I think of more ideas.

 

Edit: Taken from coin_return on Reddit, here's a transcript of Rockwell's note for those who can't decipher the handwriting:

Quote

It is on stormy nights like this that I wish I could speak to my colleagues back in rainy London. John Parkinson and his Theatrum Botanicum would find himself humbled at the diversity of flora I have on record; "The Rockwell Recipes" will be the next greatest work in botany.

Like the greats before me, my time is spent exploring the medicinal properties that the plants here have to offer. Insulated now from the hostility of the island by a colony of locals, (who, for the record, would be another text entirely in anthropology) they have taken it upon themselves to clothe and protect me in exchange for my scientific knowledge; I will present it to His Majesty Charles I when I return, and I am sure, be published within the year.

 

[xopha]

In the note it references an English botanist named John Parkinson!

A simple google and we have:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Parkinson_(botanist)

It also references the Theatrum Botanicum, which John created in 1640. However he died in 1650. We can therefore reason that this "Rockwell" is from somewhere between 1640 and 1650!

Very interesting!

 

[Rippy]

2 hours ago, IDNeon said:

Charles I was beheaded by a direct ancestor of mine, and I'm 14th in line to the throne of England today, my pedigree is direct to Charles Brandon first Duke of Suffolk who married Queen Mary Tudor daughter of King Henry VIII.  Had the Stuart dynasty not been deposed in 1688 "The Glorious Revolution" by the current foreign family the Hanoverians, I probably would be King today (through the Tudor-Stuart intermarriages).  It's a tough call because Tudors/Stuarts exchanged ownership of the Crown multiple times since the fall of the Plantagenets.  But the dispossession of the throne left the Brandon family now 14th in line and I'm the sole male heir to that line.

You may think I'm embellishing but I'm actually not.  That's 100% fact.

I have my pedigree recorded in the register and have access to Royal estates. LOL

I get that your entire point is on this forum is to be a troll, but please at least troll on topic. This is literally the worst post on the forum. It belongs in off topic.

 

 

To OP, I think that the Ark has something to do with missing persons. There is a book by Matthew Rilley called contest, where people from all times got teleported to fight. I believe this is similar. Who is running the Ark who knows?

[davidturner]

I think it's really interesting to see more of the background and lore of The Island/The ARKs being fleshed out. It'll be interesting to see how the other characters and personas we're aware of interact with the world as well. Were they all there at different times (which is what I would assume) or is The ARK somehow pulling people from different times together?

[Jtmorris]

I bet it's ships that disappear in the Bermuda triangle! The people are teleported to the Ark.

[rpicardi1]

9 minutes ago, Jtmorris said:

I bet it's ships that disappear in the Bermuda triangle! The people are teleported to the Ark.

They wake up on the beach of Ark after being washed overboard, or their ship, boat, sinks from a freak storms in the Bermuda Triangle.

[Safari]

13 hours ago, davidturner said:

I think it's really interesting to see more of the background and lore of The Island/The ARKs being fleshed out. It'll be interesting to see how the other characters and personas we're aware of interact with the world as well. Were they all there at different times (which is what I would assume) or is The ARK somehow pulling people from different times together?

That's a really great question. My assumption is also that they came at different times, because 1. we know there will be ruins, and 2. the devs said that we'll be learning of the "fates" of those who write the adventurer notes, implying that they're long gone by the time our characters wake up on the beach.

Another thing of note is that Rockwell refers to "the greats before him," who also apparently studied the plant life of the island. Does this imply a long period of contact with the ARK and the rest of the world? Or is Rockwell talking about other people who have studied, lived, and died on the island?

[IDNeon]

19 hours ago, Trentifus said:

Will you be mentioned in game?

I hope so!

[davidturner]

7 hours ago, Safari said:

That's a really great question. My assumption is also that they came at different times, because 1. we know there will be ruins, and 2. the devs said that we'll be learning of the "fates" of those who write the adventurer notes, implying that they're long gone by the time our characters wake up on the beach.

Another thing of note is that Rockwell refers to "the greats before him," who also apparently studied the plant life of the island. Does this imply a long period of contact with the ARK and the rest of the world? Or is Rockwell talking about other people who have studied, lived, and died on the island?

There are certainly references to other survivors, from other eras. From ARK Digest 25:

Quote

Survivor, OnePotatoChip also asks, “Ready to reveal any more information about Ark #2, yet? Or how about some lore for us to chew on?”

There are key Survivors on the ARK whose notes you’ll be finding through deep exploration. Dossier Dude (not his real name) is one. Recipe Gal (not her real name) is another. The others include a Three Kingdoms Era Monk and a Roman Centurion. Their writings, across time and languages, help lead to unlocking the mystery of exactly what the ARK is.

So we know that there are people from other eras, speaking different languages. I'm curious as to how they'll interact with each other, or if they will have interacted at all.

[NymeriaSaida]

On 4/19/2016 at 6:19 PM, Safari said:

Another thing of note is that Rockwell refers to "the greats before him," who also apparently studied the plant life of the island. Does this imply a long period of contact with the ARK and the rest of the world? Or is Rockwell talking about other people who have studied, lived, and died on the island?

Obviously it's just my interpretation, but I took that to mean "the greats" of botany, such as the conspicuously-name-dropped John Parkinson (or maybe just "the greats" of scientific inquiry in general, considering Rockwell's nod to the wealth of valuable information that could be gained from an anthropological study of the ARK's natives).

[Janx]

So what do we know about the ark:

Rockwell is from the 1640s approximately

The Ark area is bounded by a strange shimmering barrier

the "sea water" is drinkable, not salty

animals from differing time periods can be found here (t-rexes were extinct by the time Brontosaurs were alive)

all the humans have a strange crystal embedded in their wrist

 

[Safari]

19 hours ago, Janx said:

So what do we know about the ark:

the "sea water" is drinkable, not salty

all the humans have a strange crystal embedded in their wrist

 

I've always thought that the drinkable seawater thing was more of a game mechanic than an actual plot point... But have the devs said otherwise somewhere?

Also, for some reason I was assuming that Rockwell doesn't have an implant in his wrist. I guess that this note makes it sound to me like he traveled to the island under his own volition, instead of waking up on the beach. Of course, I could just be making that up.

[Janx]

23 hours ago, Safari said:

I've always thought that the drinkable seawater thing was more of a game mechanic than an actual plot point... But have the devs said otherwise somewhere?

Also, for some reason I was assuming that Rockwell doesn't have an implant in his wrist. I guess that this note makes it sound to me like he traveled to the island under his own volition, instead of waking up on the beach. Of course, I could just be making that up.

Beats me.  I assumed he was suffering from British overconfidence that his situation was temporary, and that he was a transplantee like the rest of us.

the sea water being drinkable may be a "game oversight".  In theory, most of the ocean life should have trouble in fresh water...

 

Are there any other "facts" of the Ark that are known?

 

I've seen strange lights in the ocean at night, that seem to always be "just ahead" and you can never catch up to them, even though they seem to come from a consistent direction.