Game Theory: Minecraft's BURIED History (1.20 Update)

The sands of time slowly cover what remains of the birthplace of civilization, a people once driven by creation. Now abandoned in ruins, erosion and arrogance cast a shadow over what were once ruined buildings and scattered fragments of society, leaving a puzzle for the Past in the hope that one day someone will pick up those pieces of this fallen land. to piece together the story of his downfall, well that day is today and that's me, oh Internet, welcome to Game Theory, the show that's always happy to go over some Minecraft, you know, I get super. excited every time Mojang releases a new

update

to us, new

update

s mean new Mobs, new locations, new mechanics so we can explore the story and that was doubly true for 1.20 because they were finally adding something that had been teased in 2020 archeology archeology it's literally uncovering the story, it's putting together the real life story, so I waited three years in anticipation and finally when the trails and tales update came out we got a camel, there was also a tracker, a new Cherry Grove biome and then a handful. of armor designs and broken pots isn't exactly the most innovative, at least at first glance, I'm sure there wasn't an entity as exciting as the guardian or a mysterious structure like an ancient city, but as with most of the archaeology, the surface can seem largely useless and empty if you dig a little deeper, you start to discover the real story behind it all.

In fact, I think this update gives us the most complete look at the Ancient Builders Society we've been theorizing about for years, their daily lives, their tribal disputes, and ultimately where. everything went wrong with the origins of the Wither, grab your archaeological brush like its loyal theorists, it's time we dust off the missing pieces of Minecraft's forgotten civilization and I mean that literally because this all starts with one of the seemingly smallest new additions to the

game

that ever happened pottery pieces also known as pottery shirts these shirts are scattered throughout the world of

minecraft

in five archaeological sites the desert temples wells desert the hot and cold ocean ruins and the trail ruins Just added there are 20 unique designs for these shirts and when combined together you can create a pot that can hold multiple items and no, you haven't misunderstood me this whole time.

In fact I am saying shirts and not fragments. It turns out that secured is actually the technical term for broken pottery. found at an archaeological site, it's very strangely specific, but hey, Mojang, being historically accurate, tells us that they had big plans for these little pieces of pottery, let me tell you, when you look at these t-shirts, they reveal a lot, you see works of pottery. a very important role in helping historians learn about the lives and beliefs of ancient civilizations food Fabrics people Yes, they are all going to break down over time and quite quickly I might add, but ceramics can last much longer and, therefore, it is often one of the only ones left.

Points of evidence that historians can use to think about how these ancient cultures behaved and operated. Certain large megalithic structures like pyramids can tell us a lot about kings and religious customs, but pottery was an integral part of everyone's daily life and although today we might think of ceramic vessels as simple vessels for carrying things like liquids or plants. Ancient societies gave these much more important and prominent roles in their lives. The ancient Greeks often decorated their vases with elaborate ornamentation that allowed them to represent different aspects of the day. -Everyday life, from work to parties and sports, even shows its rituals for religious events such as funerals.

One of the most famous examples of this is the basis of the name of the Eritrean painter who depicts images of a bride in wedding scenes along with characters from the mythology they represent. Marital Bliss From this single vessel archaeologists were able to learn a lot about ancient Greek marriage traditions in brief pottery fragments that are often the best and only glimpse we have of the daily lives of long-lost and forgotten ancient peoples. that these 20 new Minecraft t-shirts are decorated with various symbolic images. I think Mojang is trying to do exactly that. The other important thing to note about these t-shirts is that the 20 specific t-shirt designs can be found in the same place as the different sets. designated for different biomes and different ruins, meaning that while we might have been right about an ancient race of builders, they weren't a single monolithic people as we've been assuming, instead what we see drawn on these t-shirts It's not just revealing.

It doesn't tell us about the daily life of the ancient Builders, but about their specific societies and their Clans, each place had its own set of values, its own culture, its own daily tasks and when you stop and think about it, it actually has much more meaning in real life. In the world, all of humanity began with a common ancestor who left the African continent between 60 and 90,000 years ago, but eventually humanity expanded and spread around the world, which meant that they had to adapt to new environments and As a result, they built amazing wonders of the world that were specific to the region where they lived, which meant that things like religion, defense, entertainment, took different forms depending on where they were in the world and we see this influence in the Differences from some of the large structures we find throughout the world of Minecraft are that the Ocean Monuments, for example, were designed to resemble ancient Mesopotamian ziggurats intended to connect the Heavens to the Earth, which is noticeably different from the temples of the jungle, which are more similar to the ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples found in the Therefore, it makes much more sense to say that they were all created by different groups of people spread over great distances for their own needs rather than created by an all-powerful supercivilization (even the new edition of armor ornaments seems to point in this direction, these items allow players to add decorative upgrades to their armor, which on its own doesn't seem like much, but when you consider once again that they are scattered throughout the Minecraft world, including some. in the Nether and some at the end you start to reflect what we are seeing in the real world: different tribes with armor made of similar materials but all with different designs that reflect their local culture now that we know that there were indeed different extended tribes.

Across the world of Minecraft, what were the differences between them and what can they tell us about ancient Minecraft culture? Well, let's start with what I believe to be the oldest tribe, ironically of the newest of archaeological sites, the trail ruins found in the forest biomes. like the jungle and the taiga, these things are almost completely

buried

and only the tallest buildings come to the surface to find them and that is already Mojang telling us something, it is telling us that these buildings are old, really very old, it takes a lot time for them to settle. to completely bury something like an entire village for a real world example just look at the moai commonly known as the Easter Island heads, they were created between the 15th and 16th centuries and for a long time people thought that was Everything, they were giant heads with a big brain that stuck out. out of the ground, but they are not, there are actually bodies under each of those heads, but over the centuries sediment accumulated around the abandoned statues, so only the heads were visible above the surface, such As we are seeing with the Trail Ruins, but it goes beyond simply being

buried

underground, the shirts and armor ornaments found specifically in the Trail Ruins show us a lifestyle that in the real world we would consider part of birth. of civilization, the full shirt, for example, shows us a wolf, an animal that was Once considered a threat to early humans, then domesticated during the late Mesolithic period, it used to help with everything from hunting and protection, when we were still in the hunter-gatherer phase.

The chief surely represents a bunch of wheat. Wheat is the most common crop. in Minecraft, but it's also one of the first plants that we as humans domesticated again during that same Mesolithic period, but what really proves that this comes from the oldest group by far are some that we've seen not only in the real world . world, but also in the Minecraft story in the trail ruins, you can find a variety of different armor ornaments, but one of them in particular caught my attention: the host's armor ornament, now the hosts were the divine beings found in Minecraft Legends, the characters we Finally summon our character to help save the day at the end of the

game

when peace has been stored in the Overworld, the hosts simply dive in and discover that they are like we are good here, so that we theorize that ancient civilizations did everything.

They could bring them back that this host armor being here seems to suggest that we were on the right track and the story backs this up as well. Religious practices and rituals are found in our own

history

and date back to the Middle Paleolithic Era, which falls between 45 and 200,000 years ago, this was in fact the first tribe after the events of Minecraft Legends, a tribe of people who were trying to ask for help from the ancient gods, a tribe of people who, while waiting, decided to establish a basic agricultural shelter. in dense forested areas and domesticated animals that gave rise to the first civilization as we have talked about in a previous episode.

But as time passes and the hosts of old do not immediately return, the ancient Builders continue to develop, continue to spread. to other biomes to collect resources in one of my first Minecraft theories, we talked a lot about underwater temples, another of the megastructures, but this one found under the sea, we hypothesized that the people who created these submerged pyramids were fishermen or such once Pirates by trade now thanks to the shirts we know that both ideas were correct just a little more nuanced than we expected one of these shirts is the fisherman fisherman shirt as in a person who fishes a fisherman and as this shirt is only found in the war movement ruins, it probably means that just like the path ruins depended on basic agriculture, this group depended on fishing to survive in their trade, but once you head to the cold ocean ruins, you get a very different civilization we found.

Shared snippets like Blade Explorer sound a little bit like Pirates, don't you think that in fact the shipwrecks that have been part of the game since Aquatic Update 1.13 are full of looted loot, so it seemed as if the cold ocean had ruined civilization? We were very much a society of pirates who used these ships to terrorize other civilizations, stealing their resources and their treasures in the process, but then there are the last two archaeological sites located in the desert and this is where we see things take a turn. dark turn. This is where you see the fall of these great civilizations, the desert temples have always been a place full of mystery to us theorists, but now we have an idea of ​​what these people did when they weren't searching for hundreds of blocks of TNT for their deadly traps. with t-shirts like the miner and the prize, it tells us that these were the people who built the mine shaft found throughout the Overworld.

These were the ones who truly pioneered the idea of ​​extracting resources from the Earth, especially in places like the Badlands or Red. In the sand deserts, they would then bring all of these resources to their base, these giant temples, and then they would booby trap them. so that no one would steal them. It sounds like most Minecraft players on a public server, except I don't think these treasures came exclusively from mine shafts. I suspect that the desert people were the first civilization to cross into the Underworld. That may seem like a stretch only if I'm talking about a bunch of pottery, but hear me out, the other archaeological site in the desert is the Wells Desert and considering they share a biome, it's not unreasonable to believe that these were the same group of people at this site, in We can actually find Brewer's t-shirt that represents a potion, but remind me how to make potions again, you need cheese powder and the The only way to get fire dust is to grind Blaze fire rods which are only found inyou guessed it.

There is also a shirt found in the desert temple known as a skull which represents the head of a skeleton or you could suggest a withered skeleton. It's small and pixelated, so it's hard to tell, but we also know that red sandstone, like that found in the mine shafts we just talked about, can be chiseled, and once you chisel it , which image appears on the Block, the Wither, which fits very well. to the final desert t-shirt, well the t-shirt with arms raised is a very vague image, just a humanoid figure with arms raised, is it celebrating, is it stretching, is it waiting for a high five or is it a posture of worship , many religions make you rise.

They raise their arms to worship the god of that faith and I suspect that is exactly what we are seeing here, but I also don't think they are worshiping the hosts like the other factions of the ancient Builders, but rather they are worshiping the Wither man. -creation made these people were people of science they built TNT from leftover vines they built portals to another dimension all to find the perfect fuel to build their super powerful potions they were tired of waiting for the hosts to save them tired of Seeing The Creepers' zombies and skeletons turn from allies to enemies after the events of Minecraft Legends, they turned to science, continued exploring the Nether, and saw the life-giving properties of Soul Sand vegetation that gave life without water or sunlight to those who lost.

To pig lands resurrected again in the form of withered skeletons, this was exactly what they needed, they brought back the soul-powered sand and experimented with designing the ultimate creature to be their new God, one who could protect them in a way the hosts could not or They didn't want to, but like everything else, they knew he would convert too. upon them, the damage caused by the cross was felt throughout the land, countless lives lost to its endless fury, but few people are able to survive, they flee to the only place where they believe the cross will not find them underground, those who fled to the darkest and deepest corners of Meanwhile, Minecraft Earth creates for the ancient cities a large complex that would serve as their new home at least for a while.

They would try to make a different type of portal to take them to a new world. They would experiment again with Soul Sand by combining it. with the science of Redstone, but they did all this with heavy hearts, knowing that they had doomed their once great world and when the time came to open the portal, it offered them no new opportunity, only more pain emerged from the portal. guardian, a creature constructed from souls summoned by their regret and loss, which is why the ceramic shirt, the last one in the game, is known as the mourner, a lost relic that represents the fall of a people that once once was great, whose

history

only remains in broken pieces of vessels. but lost in the literal sands of time, but hey, that's just a

theory

, a game

theory

, thanks for watching, if you're enjoying this breakdown of Minecraft's forgotten history, why not check out our video on the other Minecraft game, Minecraft Legends, which is on the left or If you want to see another game where you wouldn't expect there to be a story, check out our video on Just Dance, that one is on the right, yeah, that one has a deep story too, As always, my friends, don't forget.

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